{Tuesday}

Nightclub Cardio @ Pravada

Literally one of THE best workouts I’ve ever had. A night club atmosphere, pumpin’ tunes, and workout clothes and tennies. Pretty much my dream workout. The lights are down, and people let loose. I’ve been dying to write about this for weeks. I tried this class out earlier this summer and was hooked! Now if I can just find time to make it back!  Due to popular demand, they’ve just added a second day at Pravada (Thursday) and a second location (Bar RIO, 6400 Richmond Ave) that begins September 15th. Tell Jennifer I sent you! 

{Wednesday}

Dress for Success 6th Annual Sizzling Summer Soiree

7-9pm | Tootsies (in Highland Village) | facebook invite

Nancy Levicki and the Women of Wardrobe event chairs Sharron Melton, Lauren Freeman and Shern-Min Chow with Tootsies invite you to the Sixth Annual Sizzling Summer Soiree.

Enjoy hip sips and cool canapes, and meet designer Trina Turk. 10 percent of the proceeds benefits Dress for Success Houston, so you have a great reason to shop!

Event is free for WOW members and $45 for nonmembers. Purchase your tickets to Sizzling Summer Soiree in advance to avoid waiting in a very long line! Join W.O.W. for $75 which includes complimentary admission to all W.O.W. events through next June. Buy your ticket today by calling 713-957-3779. Special thanks to The Capital Grille and TY-KU.

{Thursday}

Thursdays are always nuts.  Get in where you fit in.

5-10PM | Spacetaker Cultured Cocktails benefiting Dance Houston | FREE
Boheme Cafe and Wine Bar (Taft @ Fairview)
This has been THE place to be this summer if you are a non-profit. Or if you like wine. Either will do.

6-8pm | HYPA Summer Cocktail Tour at the Grove (Discovery Green) | FREE
feat. Houston artists Katy Anderson + Patrick Medrano + The Fodice Foundation
HOUSTON Magazine is sponsoring a summer long tour of hip places and pretty faces. This week at the Grove with HYPA. There is an afterparty at Katy + Patrick’s studio. The afterparty + film screening is free for HYPA members, and $35 for non-members.

6-9pm | 310 Rosemont Summer Mixer (1965 W. Gray) | FREE
Fashion and Denim for Women AND Men! Come for a drink. Stay for the new fall fashions. Toast to the end of summer.
I’m not sure about toasting to the end of summer…i’m hanging on with my fingernails. But LOVE this boutique. Check it.

{Friday}

Bright New Media

3:30-5:30pm | Bright Sky Press | 5416 Chaucer, right behind Ruggles | $35

Laura Mayes and yours truly will be leading a Social Media Workshop this Friday at the lovely Bright Sky Press. Stop by to ask all those burning questions about Twitter, Flickr, and Blogging, oh my! From 3:30-5:30 p.m. we’ll have the very informal workshop (Easy, practical social media training) and at 5:30 p.m. we’ll break out the Social Media Social Hour (A very happy Happy Hour where social media shows it social side).

Bright Sky Press is hosting its inaugural Bright New Media social media workshop at the Bright Sky Bookspace . Stop in to find out more about Twitter, Flickr, Blogging, Facebook, and a partridge in a pear tree. More importantly, we’ll talk about why we should care about all this (for business, for pleasure, for smart ways to connect)…and we’ll show you how easy it is to do (it’s really easy!). It all starts at 3:30 p.m. and ends with a Social Media Social Hour. $35 a person gets you all the know-how you need to go go go. We can’t wait to see you then!

RSVP to kara@brightskypress.com

Four Openings at Lawndale Art Center

6-8:30pm | Lawndale Art Center | 4912 Main Street | lawndaleartcenter.org

Yummm. I love me some Lawndale. Check out this Friday’s quadruple opening. Opening Reception August 21, 2009, 6:30 – 8:30 PM, Artist talks at 6 PM. Exhibitions on view August 21- September 26, 2009:

Lawndale Art Center 30th Anniversary Exhibition –
Curated by Clint Willour
Work by Seth Alverson, Dawolu Jabari Anderson, Chuy Benitez, Elaine Bradford, Emily Sloan and Mark Schatz

Me, Mine, and not Yours – Joe Ives and Jahjehan Bath Ives

Paper or Plastic?– Nathaniel Donnett

The Green™ cyber web – Adela Andea

{Saturday}

Planned Parenthood + Riazul Tequila present Party Like a Rockstar

8pm-midnight | Warehouse Live

Whether you wear high heels, Doc Martens or blue suede shoes, come to move those feet and pump those fists in the air – and let your voice be heard!

Live Performances by DJ Alex C – voted #1 DJ by the Houston Press and Houston Chronicle and SKYROCKET! – voted Austin’s #1 cover band.

TICKETS:
Single Ticket ($50) – includes catering by Joe’s Crab Shack!

Be a VIP!
Solo-Act ($150) – one person, Hook-Up ($250) – two people, Groupies ($1000) – eight people, Entourage ($3000) – 30 people
VIP level includes catering by Morton’s the Steakhouse & Max’s Wine Dive with a Champagne Station.
Grammy Gift Bags. Exclusive After- Party from midnight to 2 a.m.

Visit http://www.pphouston.org/rockstar2009 for more information. Purchase tickets here

Opening Reception Friday, August 22, 2008, 6:30-8:30 PM
Artist talks at 6:00 PM

Check it out, yo.

(Re)Vision: A Preservation of Houston’s
Inner Loop | Shannon Duncan

Project Space

Shannon Duncan has a compulsion to collect and photograph discarded and otherwise overlooked objects, reviving their once precious nature by excessively archiving and/or documenting what she finds. For her installation in the Project Space, Duncan extends her interest in abandoned property to include real estate. Between January 1st, 2008 and June 30th, 2008, Duncan synced her life in tandem with the City of Houston’s on-line permits website, then visited residential properties scheduled for demolition within the inner loop. She captured these fugitive places using (the now discontinued) Polaroid film, and retrieved what personal items she found on site. (Re)Vision encapsulates her six-month project, with the collection of images gridded off by zip code and accompanied by selected found objects.
http://www.communitywalk.com/revisionhouston

Transcendental Smoothie
Mary Magsamen +Stephan Hillerbrand

John M. O’Quinn Gallery

• Psychedelic Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich store front facades
• Magical bottled water crystal palaces
• Strange Star Trek space anomaly looking pictures of our kids!

Transcendental Smoothie is a video installation by the collaborative husband and wife team of Magsamen + Hillerbrand. Through a playful and unexpected use of materials and camera viewpoints, Magsamen + Hillerbrand transform the John M. O’Quinn Gallery into a kaleidoscope world of cookie dough, vultures and monumental peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that bring questions and ideas of perception, identity, family and everyday pressures. “Transcendental” refers to Kant’s theory that our experience of things is about how they appear to us, but not about those things as they are in and of themselves. “Smoothie” refers to our use of food and everyday objects and the blending of many items to make something delicious.

What’s in a Line?
Judith Cottrell and Alex Lopez

Mezzanine Gallery

Alex Lopez and Judith Cottrell approach their exhibition with a simple question, what is the purpose of a gallery? The purpose of a “gallery” is considered by many as a place to exhibit works of art. Their answers lead them to examine the gallery as a finite area of space with interesting, challenging and complex architectural situations. “Would the gallery space be defined by the work or would we propose the question that perhaps the space itself could be the artwork?” Through an investigation and visual documentation of the Mezzanine Gallery they were able to determine that the space was in fact the challenge and “line of sight”, or point of perspective, would be one of their primary focuses. Their exhibition will combine independent and collaborative sculptural drawings that involve an investigation of methodology, approach, and comment on how line and space can be articulated, integrated, viewed, and accessed. Through installation and various media, Cottrell and Lopez challenge the modes of traditional genres with a new consideration for line.

The Grand Tour, Texas
Omar Vera

Grace R. Cavnar Gallery

Inspired by the ‘Grand Tour’ collections of Europe, Vera’s The Grand Tour, Texas is a grouping of charcoal and ink drawings and terracotta maquettes executed on site in the small and somewhat obscure Texas cities that take their names from iconic European meccas: Paris (311 miles from Houston), Florence (197 miles from Houston), and Roma (383 miles from Houston). The subject of these studies is the architecture, public artwork, and other local symbols whose role it is to fill the hopelessly large art-historical shoes of their namesakes. “Despite the implicit cynicism in undertaking this project, I have found that there is a tangible sincerity in the act of traveling to and venerating these locales not usually ennobled by the rhetoric of ‘The Grand Tour’, “explains Vera.