My favorite nearby get-away is Galveston, Texas (TroysArt – Gung Ho on Galveston); and without question my favorite hotel on the island is Hotel Galvez (Troysart – The art of escape, the Hotel Galvez).   This week I visited with Lake Charles gal-pal Courtenay Deats Guillory. And for as many times as I have visited the Galvez, this was the first time I ever heard of paranormal occurrences. That is how Court and I ended up chasing ghosts at Hotel Galvez. According to concierge Melissa Hall the most notorious spirit haunting the halls is a bride-to-be named Audra who stayed in room 501 in the 1950s. When her beau’s ship was due into port she would ascend one of the eight story turrets ...

Does anyone remember that time I was on TV? The Big Switch was a home design challenge sponsored by Houston PBS KUHT, Houston Chronicle, OutSmart Magazine, and Bassett Furniture. Emmy award winning Ernie Manouse hosted the two day challenge in which designers Jennifer Lowe and myself transformed the interiors of neighboring Habitat for Humanity homes. Not only did we have two days but we had a budget of $1,500, part of which we had to use at least one piece of Bassett furniture. The Big Switch was the most watched original program in the 2002 Houston PBS broadcast season. Incidentally, after the show aired I was called to screen-test for a national primetime design show; it came down to me ...

Once again the TroysArt Photo Friday featured pic comes by way of Roxanne LeGros Lasage of Jennings, Louisiana.  Roxi is an avid outdoorsman, amateur photographer, and animal lover–readers might recall her beautiful mallard drake featured back in March (TroysArt – Roxanne LeGros Lasage).  Today’s beautiful snap occurred on Bayou Nezpique! Thanks for another great photograph, Roxi!  

Paraphrasing Carly Simon, I walked into the party like I was walking onto a yacht… and I was walking onto a yacht! It was a party too. TroysArt readers know that I recently spent time on the west coast of Mexico and this as promised is the second of two posts about the adventure (see: TroysArt – Our swank soiree in Sayulita) specifically dedicated to the art of yachting Puerto Vallarta. But first a refresher of our cast of characters. We were all guests of Rob Taylor and Kristy Phillips celebrating Rob’s birthday in Sayulita. Also present were Rob’s son Trey Taylor and his girlfriend Elizabeth; Rob’s daughter Lacy Taylor and her boyfriend Scott Tukel; Bob & Cheryl Jones; CJ Athanasuleas; Bruce ...

Though I had never heard of Sayulita, Mexico, I jumped at the opportunity when invited by Houston attorney Rob Taylor and his beautiful girlfriend Kristy Phillips to celebrate Rob’s birthday. A variety of photos and tags went up on social media over the past week followed by an avalanche of questions.  So naturally this TroysArt post is about what to expect and where to go based on our swank soirée in Sayulita! But first we must define the motley crew assembled for the occasion.  The group included:  Rob’s son Trey Taylor of Houston and his girlfriend Elizabeth from Orange; Rob’s daughter Lacy Taylor from San Francisco with her boyfriend Scott Tukel; Arkansas attorney Bob Jones and his lovely wife Cheryl Woolbright Jones; the fabulous CJ Athanasuleas of Alabama; ...

The other evening I called my father in Jennings; he was grumpy because a terrible storm was moving through Louisiana and knocked his cable out.  That very storm also brought down a landmark.  Today’s Photo Friday feature depicts the ruins of the Heywood Building, courtesy of Samuel Gladden. Yes, the very same Heywood Building featured just a few weeks ago (TroysArt – The Heywood Building: painting a Louisiana landmark). “Here is the beautiful but sadly soon-to-be-demolished Heywood Building in Jennings, Louisiana,” he lamented on social media.  “It’s sad to see unique buildings go.” Dr. Gladden is an author and Associate Dean for the School of Human Sciences and Humanities at University of Houston-Clear Lake.

Controversy swirled around the release of Go Set a Watchman, the second work published by Harper Lee. Lee of course won a Pulitzer Prize for her beloved, best-selling American classic To Kill a Mockingbird. This manuscript was “recently discovered” in a bank vault in 2014 and, assumed to be lost, is the work Lee submitted to her publishers before To Kill a Mockingbird. And after some great advice and rewriting her important novel of race relations in rural America emerged. I pre-ordered my copy and would have been long finished if not for other novels on my bedside when it arrived. Nevertheless, this is what I thought of Go Set a Watchman… The discovery and publication of this book is considered ...

Welcome to the newest museum on the block, the Bryan Museum. Opened just a month ago in Galveston the Bryan Museum is located in the magnificent old Galveston Orphan’s Home on 21st Street. The museum is home to the largest collection of Southwestern art and artifacts in the world. I visited this week. J.P. Bryan is the founder and CEO of Houston-based Torch Energy Advisor and he’s a descendant of Moses Austin, the father of Stephen F. Austin. Over the years he and his wife Mary Jon Bryan amassed a vast collection of over 70,000 pieces spanning 2,500 years of history. Word is that Bryan shopped for years for a permanent home for the collection, particularly in Houston’s Museum District; ...

August 6th, 2015 – Today would have marked the 69th birthday of my mother Sandra Fay Prather Broussard. This special TroysArt post is dedicated to a life that touched so many and a life that ended too soon. The daughter of Bob & Fay Prather, she was born in New Orleans and grew up in downtown Jennings and with her sister Charlotte was third generation in the Prather home on Nezpique Street. As a youngster Sandra was known as a firebrand with pigtails, coveralls, and her notorious bag of marbles roaming the alleys off Main Street and the yards of the Victorian mansions that once lined the block, somewhat of a Scout Finch. But she morphed into a proper young lady ...

The always glamorous Stacey Abbott accepted my invitation for an excursion to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston the other day which we would follow by a bite of lunch. Of course Hapsburg Splendor: Masterpieces from Vienna’s Imperial Collections is the main event this summer. But I also knew that there was an exhibit called Shadow Monsters of which, admittedly, I knew little about. Shadow Monsters is an interactive art installation by artist Philip Worthington. When the museum visitor steps in front of the artist’s camera a digital version of a traditional shadow-puppet theater show is projected onto the walls, the human silhouette being recast into fantastical forms. Somehow vision-recognition software morphs visitors’ gestures with sound and animation. I certainly ...