"More Work Ahead"

Raul Gonzalez is a really busy guy. As an artist his mediums are as wide open as the sky. He paints, photographs, sculpts, collages and creates murals; just to name a few of his preferred methods. On top of all that, he works a 9-5 at a print shop in Spring, which is what pays the bills. In addition to working, Gonzalez is very active in the Houston art scene with a long list of exhibitions under his belt. To top all of this off, he will be attending the University of Texas at San Antonio next fall to pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree, so there's that too.

Much of Gonzalez's mixed-media work is based in photography and evolves from there. He will bike around town or snap a picture at an intersection and build the image into a large-scale piece of art. In Gonzalez's mind art is everywhere and ever present. Down to the most mundane of scenarios, he will find a source for his material.

More >>

What He Does: When you think of a DJ, you think of someone finding the perfect dance mixes or maybe laying out the foundations for a brilliant emcee. You don't usually start picturing medieval music, but at least one local DJ does. Roy Williams focuses his set on an obscure and poorly represented genre, neo-folk. Most bands are European, though Dallas hosts an awesome one called Awen and Houston itself has Verdandi, as a side project of Paul Fredric.

Most of Williams's music is the handpicked best from the genre. Music from the medieval period is very open to interpretation as there was no accepted form of transcribing it at the time. Some bands may interpret the same song in radically different ways.

Williams's sets started as a side room at the Numbers goth night, Underworld, and now are featured in engagement nights. Though dancing does break out, the audiences generally get off on the atmosphere of the playlists. It's a nice break from the typical fare.

More >>

What She Does: Laura Burlton is a photographer who does all the standard photographer things like weddings and portraits. She also produces startlingly original photographic art.

Her latest series is called "Dreams in Chalk," a co-production with her daughters and her daughters' friends. Burlton re-enacts fairy-tale settings using sidewalks and chalk drawings as backdrops and canvas. The idea grew out of family fairy-tale readings. Burlton shoots them with a primitive plastic toy camera and real film rather than digital. She's exhibited some of them in Houston, and other pieces hang in a New Orleans Magazine Street gallery.

More >>

Jack Opatrny

After earning his degree in classic cello, David Peck found himself moving to Paris to study fashion at the Parsons Paris School of Art & Design. Graduating with top honors, he was awarded the Designer of the Year award for his senior collection, Brave New World. In spring 2006, he would launch his first collection in Paris, a collection that would later be described as "a mix of refined elegance of Parisian style with American practicality,"

Two years later, David relocated to New York City, where he co-founded and co-designed Untitled 11:11, a high-end women's-wear collection designed to be a sustainable clothing line.

Now a well-known fashion designer, David Peck has been living in Houston since early 2010. Here he runs a company that makes and manufactures eco-friendly clothing at the David Peck Factory.

What he does: David Peck is the CEO and creative director of his company, David Peck Collection. He is also the creator of CroP, a women's-wear clothing line that he himself has described as being a "fun & quirky clothing line with a conscience." Each of the pieces is made from a combination of certified organic and natural materials and through a series of methods that minimally affect the environment.

Every season his company donates 10 percent of its profits from CroP to a different charity depending on the focus of his seasonal collection. He says the last two seasons, his company has donated to the Gulf Restoration Network, a charity whose goal is to rejuvenate the entire Gulf Coast both economically and ecologically.

More >>

Photo courtesy Main Street Theater

Rebecca "Becky" Udden directed all three of the Coast of Utopia plays.

Rebecca "Becky" Udden knew she was risking a lot by mounting a production of Tom Stoppard's trilogy The Coast of Utopia with its length, its cast demands, its demanding subject matter. But she knew and loved the language in it, and she knew there were enough really good actors in Houston who could tackle a project like this.

It was an incredible gamble that paid off for Main Street's executive artistic director. The theater was filled night after night; some shows were sold out; they even ran an encore marathon performance of all three plays in one day. It was a success both critically and financially.

She followed this up with a production of Richard III, this time not directing, but appearing in the role of Queen Margaret, the half-crazed "bag lady" who used to be in power.

The 1973 Rice graduate with a degree in French -- she's about to be honored by Rice on April 12 as one of four people receiving the 2012 Distinguished Alumnus Award -- founded and has worked with Main Street for more than 36 years. She started it out of a room in the Autry House at Rice, while working as a part-time secretary to the Episcopal priest who was the director of that Episcopal student center.

More >>

Donae Chramosta

Stepping inside Donae Cangelosi Chramosta's Richmond office is like stepping into one of those insanely decadent Vogue spreads filled with merchandise that, if liquidated, could cover an Ivy League tuition. The office is stuffed from head to toe with classic and contemporary Chanel purses, obscenely expensive Birkins and posh Pradas, not to mention a collection of Louis Vuitton bags so massive, you wonder if there are any left in stores. These are pieces you knew existed, but never thought you would ever see up close -- and certainly not all at once. Welcome to Chramosta's store, The Vintage Contessa at 6222 Richmond Avenue, No. 540.

What she does:

"I purchase and sell vintage designer handbags and accessories," Chramosta said. Some of the bags look quite modern, however, which brings up an important point. On a buyer's trip to Paris, Chramosta noticed that many of the bags labeled as "vintage" were in fact made as recently as 2000. "The term 'vintage' is becoming much more loosely used," she said, adding, "If they can do it in Paris, we can do it in Houston."

Although her love for fashion came at an early age, she began her career far from it, starting with a degree in journalism from Texas A&M University and a 22-year involvement in her family's marble and granite business. She was so rooted in the family business, in fact, that The Vintage Contessa began as merely a part-time affair six years ago. The business grew and became a full-time venture, with a "by appointment only" studio space that Chramosta shares with her husband, who sells vintage men's accessories, and a Web boutique where ladies can choose to purchase her bags, which retail from $250 to $40,000.

Bags on The Vintage Contessa's Web site are categorized for different styles -- Classic Elegance, Glamorous Diva and Bombshell, to name a few -- then further broken down into the silver screen siren or sirens who epitomized said style. Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn embody Classic Elegance, Elizabeth Taylor heads Glamorous Diva and who other than Marilyn Monroe to represent Bombshell?

More >>

What He Does: To most Houstonians, Paul Fredric (sometimes known as Fritz Fredric) is a longtime master of darkwave and EBM music as part of the Asmodeus X. However, since 2005 Fredric has been pursuing another creative outlet. He is the author of the Erberth Transmissions (Digital copies available from iBooks), an amazing look at an alternate retelling of the Earth's history and the role that religion has had in it. Fredric paints Lucifer and the angels as members of intergalactic species that utilize Earth as a playground for various projects and experiments. It's a book that will make you feel like your brain is leaking out of your ears, as if Harlan Ellison and Neil Gaiman were having a cage match in your soul. Currently, he is hard at work at the second book in the trilogy, tentatively titled The Yellow Triangle Conversations and due out in 2013.

Whereas Erbeth focused on the grand cosmology and the relationships between higher beings, Yellow Triangle will feature more human and contemporary protagonists that experience moments of space/time displacement. It's a Whovian mystery that should bear all the hallmarks of Fredric's esoteric style.

More >>

Art by John Sparagana

John Sparagana does not create art with a specific audience in mind. Ten years ago, he started taking media images that seemed simply informational and transformed them into mysterious works that he hopes people will spend time with. It was a post-9/11 impulse, and Sparagana introduced a series of cast-shadow images from magazine covers. By revealing a little strip of an image, he would convert the ordinary into something more "paranoid, melancholic and neurotic." In other words, Sparagana takes everyday found objects, much like Duchamp and his urinal, and changes them into something that triggers an emotional response.

Sparagana is also the professor of Visual and Dramatic Arts at Rice University, and has taught there for the past 20 years. He instructs students in all different studio disciplines, having them focus on projects that are self-generated. Instead of giving students a set of problems, he brings in visiting artists and forms a critique-based class to help prepare for year-end final exhibitions.

More >>

Damon Smith

Damon Smith expected to enjoy Houston when he moved here in August 2010, but not this much.

The Bay Area transplant -- an internationally established double bass player, who has shared a stage with Peter Brötzmann, Cecil Taylor and Alvin Fielder -- is also a visual artist, arts scholar and serious collector of rare art books. Since moving to Texas, he's become an ambassador of all things Houston, ranging from its museums and galleries to the improvised music and food.

Smith, who often blows minds with his knowledge of jazz and contemporary art, has a duo project with fellow 100 Creative Sandy Ewen and frequently plays gigs with David Dove, whose Nameless Sound won a Mastermind Award in 2011.

More >>

Photograph by Geoff Winningham

Jerdy's Barber Shop, 2005

Some would describe Geoff Winningham as a documentary photographer, but he likes to think of himself as more of a picture-maker bookmaker. He photographs a lot in mostly still pictures that contain a strong sense of place, but his specialty is bringing his pictures together with words. Winningham prefers not to exhibit his work as art pieces, but rather in the form of books.

With a natural curiosity towards landscape, Winningham's photography career started in predominantly black and white photographs. Particularly when he was taking up photography, all of the traditions of serious photography were solely in black and white, as color photography back then was thought of as something only for commercials and advertising. The shift to color didn't emerge until the '70s and '80s.

What he does: Growing up in a small town in Western Tennessee, Winningham came to Houston almost 50 years ago to study at Rice University. After graduating in 1965, he pursued photography in graduate school, and then returned to Houston to become a part of Rice's faculty 43 years ago in the photography and media center. He is currently not only a professor, but also started a unique project two years ago pertaining to photographs he took 30 years ago in Arkansas.

More >>