In Tehran, more than a million people viewed it; at the Smithsonian Institution, there was timed ticketing. While worlds apart, all these people came to see a clay object no larger than a football.

Despite its unassuming size and material, the Cyrus Cylinder is no ordinary object. It is one of the most iconic items in the British Museum's collection -- an artifact from 6th century BC Babylon inscribed with the earliest form of writing that is often referred to as the first declaration of human rights.

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David Shelton Gallery

Keith J. Varadi's oil paintings have something you can't quite put your finger on. They seem unexpectedly muted and soft. Even the boldest colors have a quiet quality to them.

That's because these oil paintings are copies of oil paintings, the original discarded in favor of this second life. It's a whole process that the Brooklyn artist developed to make the centuries-old act of painting fresh and surprising to him.

He starts off by making a painting on a stretched canvas. He then stretches a raw canvas over that painting while the paint is still wet and pushes the paint through the raw canvas without using a paint brush. Sometimes he leaves the end result alone, other times he may add paint to the stain, again without using a brush. Painting without a paintbrush? That's almost a cliché, but it makes for some beautiful results.

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"Salt House" by Sean Shim-Boyle

When artists take over the seven row houses from 2505-2521 Holman Street in the Third Ward, there is usually the desire to be busy. Sculpture hangs from the ceiling, drawings are done right on the white paint, or each wall is painted a different color entirely.

So what's so remarkable about Sean Shim-Boyle's art project currently in one of Project Row Houses' historic shotgun houses is its simplicity. The walls are painted white, the floor a light gray. Nothing hangs from the vaulted ceiling, which is accented by dark crossbeams thanks to the natural architecture of the house. An off-center, red-brick chimney also original to the home remains untouched except for a couple lines of white paint, possibly markings left behind by a previous artist.

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Abhidnya Ghuge works with the most common and disposable of materials -- paper plates. Their abundance comes in handy, though. In her site-specific installations, the artist employs them by the thousands to create unusual forms that snake organically across the room.

Her latest installation, poetically yet incomprehensibly titled "Halls without walls, room to feel in. The door awaits you, your return within," takes over the Grace R. Cavnar Gallery at Lawndale Art Center. The somewhat awkwardly shaped room responds well to a work that compels its way through the space, changing how you walk through and forcing you to interact with it. This isn't a flat, unresponsive surface but a dynamic, fleshed-out work with depth; you can see it from all sides and have it completely surround you.

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Photos By Abrahan Garza.

Honorable mention: We've always wanted to go tubing down Allen Parkway.

One imagines that a lot of the appeal of art cars -- aside from the fact that they're often insane looking -- is the fact that it takes art out of the gallery and into the streets. There's nothing stuffy or pretentious about it, it's simply art that anyone from age three to age 83 can understand and enjoy.

With more than 275 entries in the 2013 edition of the Houston Art Car Parade, narrowing down the list to our 20 favorite rides was not easy. We're just happy that there's a thriving art car community that allows us to have this embarrassment of riches to choose from.

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"That Could Have Been Almost way too MTV for Tonight," Mauricio Menijvar

They say one man's trash is another man's treasure and despite the cliché of the quote, there is something to be said about it especially in terms of art. Using found objects for the sake of creating new art work is nothing new but that doesn't take away from the uniqueness of it. One man's trash can be another man's wholly new creation, and the upcoming exhibition Vim and Vigor explores this concept on several different levels.

Vim and Vigor, which opens May 10 and runs through June 8, is a collaboration between Fresh Arts and galleryHOMELAND and features three artists, Brandon Araujo (painting), Chris Fulkerson (sculpture), and Mauricio Menijvar (installation), selected by the show's curator Paul Middendorf. While each of the artists are wildly different in their approach to creating works from found objects, there is a thread that strings the entire collection together: vibrancy.

Middendorf, who runs the galleryHOMELAND, a new-ish gallery on Commerce street, came across the three artists quite organically. He saw their work at previous shows and through the art community became acquainted with their styles. Middendorf had been toying with the idea of doing a show that exhibited this type of refashioned art, and when Fresh Arts approached him, it all clicked together.

Most of the art created for this exhibition is new, with a few exceptions. Middendorf gave the artists no guidelines, just to do their thing. Without a theme, per say, the combined variations may seem lacking continuity at first but this may be what makes the selections so successful. What emerges from these different pieces is a raw energy from three artists whose work is filled with vivacity. Each piece is a living object in its own right.

"All of the pieces are refined," says Middenhoff, "yet there is something unrefined about them."

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Photo by Chris Curry

Mark "Scrapdaddy" Bradford doesn't waste any metal he finds

The 2013 Art Car Parade starts this Saturday, May 11 at 1 p.m. In this week's cover story "Enjoying the Ride" with story and photos by Chris Curry, we decided to highlight some of this year's entrants. Throughout this week, we'll run posts with video to give you a closer look at these dedicated artists.

Mark "Scrapdaddy" Bradford has built something of a leviathan in his latest creation called "The Char Car."

Using 15-foot radius industrial spools as wheels and scrap metal parts he found at a nearby machine shop, Bradford has welded, bent, compressed and scrapped an oversized rickshaw as well as a working, free-swinging rickshaw runner together. If all goes according to plan, the 20-foot-tall metal man he constructed will appear to be running the rickshaw, but in reality the contraption is driven by two motorcycle engines, one to power the vehicle and the other used to steer.

"I wish I had more time, because now I have to learn to drive it," Bradford said laughing. With an impending deadline fast approaching he still has a lot of hours to put in before he can say "finished" to the piece he named after his young daughter.

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The 2013 Art Car Parade starts this Saturday, May 11 at 1 p.m. In this week's cover story "Enjoying the Ride" with story and photos by Chris Curry, we decided to highlight some of this year's entrants. Throughout this week, we'll run posts with video to give you a closer look at these dedicated artists.

Randy Blair drives his "A Little Bit of Nonsense" all the time, not just in the Art Car parade. His 2007 Toyota Yaris is a magnet for all sorts of objects hanging on to it.

For instance, the Katy man has a Hot Wheels Mini Cooper glued on top of two busts of Superman, which in turn is glued to an Imperial Stormtrooper helmet from Star Wars."

Photo by Chris Curry

Randy Blair and his magnet car

The punchline: "You get a mini-cooper, double, super trooper."

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Courtesy of TX Contemporary Art Fair

They say that three times is a charm, and for Max Fishko, Managing Partner of the Texas Contemporary Art Fair, no phrase could be closer to the truth. Now entering its third year, TX Contemporary, which will take place the weekend of October 10, has officially hit its stride.

"We just keep getting bigger," says Fishko, who happened to be in town this past week on official TX Contemporary business.

When the TX Contemporary fair premiered in 2011, even Fishko admits he didn't fully understand how successful it could become, although he had some idea.

"We didn't go to Dallas or another Texas city because we knew there was something special about Houston," he remarks.

It's not the first time Fishko has admitted his love and admiration for Space City's arts appreciation. But even given that initial good feeling, Houston has proven to be a cash cow for the artists and galleries involved, and it comes down to the city's support of the arts community. Houston's plethora of galleries, first-rate museums and overall growth, has made it an art lover's dream and the TX Contemporary is their playground at recess.

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Jeff Jennings is a man of many hats. Straw hats, floppy hats, multiple black hats, the occasional fedora -- over the years, he's accumulated quite a collection and he's ready to show it off.

In "Many Hats," a new exhibition at Redbud Gallery, his possessions take center stage. So much so that in the lone painting featuring anything more than just a hat, Out of the Blue, the fellow tipping his hat hello is fading into the blue paint, more apparition than man.

The paintings, done mostly in egg tempera on panels, are also mostly portraits -- the hats float in the middle of the panel, accompanied by a bold, solid background or a small abstract landscape of color. That's the formula throughout the show, save for the lone person in Out of the Blue, as well as a whimsical piece called The Wind Blew in Presidio that features seven hats floating against a blue sky.

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