On tap this week are museum adventures, a chick lecture, a mobile fashion shopping event, a naughty nun, a class for raw foodies and cell phone art at one of the city's top galleries.
Try this: Click on the links below each event to make planning easier. You'll find a page with helpful features, like the ability to download the deets to your electronic calendar, as well as insider intel on where to eat, drink and shop en route to your city adventures.
The Museum Experience
No longer is Museum District Day an exhausting trek to take in every building in the area in less that 24 hours. Organizers split the day-long event into quarterly happenings that focus on a particular section of the cultural network. This weekend gears up for Zone 3, which comprises the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Jung Center and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and includes activities at all three locations.
Here's what to do: Partake in a Zentagle workshop (an art form that gets its name from repeating geometrical patterns) at the Jung Center from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and make your own pyramid book from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at MFAH as a nod to the exhibition Gifts from the Past.
The skinny: Saturday, 10-7 p.m.; Museum District; admission is free.
Introduction to Chickens with John Berry
Keeping chickens is allowed in Houston environs but only if you are wealthy enough to own a big property. Poultry is required to be at least 100 feet away from neighbors. Not all is lost, though, as a new city ordinance may change all that and make it easier for urban dwellers with a penchant for locavore cuisine to raise their own.
This lecture, led by fowl guru John Berry, pores over the basics of poultry. Perhaps fresh eggs from your backyard are in your future?
The skinny: Saturday, 1:30 p.m.; Wabash Antiques & Feed; admission is free.
Fashion Truck Festival
Taking notes from the food truck movement that gave birth to Houston's first food truck park, the fashion-on-wheels merchants of the city are following suit, sort of. This one-day shopping festival brings together Height of Vintage, Shoe Bar, Trunk Show Mobile Boutique and Urban Izzy in one location, and welcomes the Billy Pilgrim Traveling Library and the Picasso Bus to complement the fleet.
The skinny: Saturday, 6 p.m.; Liberty Station; admission is free.
Stages Repertory Theatre presents Late Nite Catechism: Sister Rolls the Dice
Just because this wicked sister wears the traditional God-fearing attire doesn't mean that she abides by divine law. Regardless of her leanings, perchance spiritual prowess is on her side — in Vegas? The trials and tribulations of this witty character performed by Denise Fennell brings back another chapter in the Late Nite Catechism series at Stages Repertory Theatre. This vestal knows bingo, so how difficult could organizing a saintly gambling soirée be?
Oy vei! She's about to find out.
The skinny: Runs through Sept. 1; Stages Repertory Theatre; tickets start at $23.
Eat it Raw: Preparing Raw, Organic and Seasonal Meals
Trust Kristina Carrillo-Bucaram, the founder of Rawfully Organic Co-op, to simplify the steps toward adding more raw fruits and vegetables in your life. If someone can clean up anyone's diet, it's this produce queen who's earned a reputation for uncooking up a storm to serve up dishes that satisfy cravings for unhealthy fare.
I could surely use a nutritional tune-up. Be honest. I am sure you could, too.
Smarty pants and in-the-loop arts maven Nancy Wozny's pick: Lillian Warren's Alone Together at Anya Tish Gallery
Nancy says: "Who could imagine a mashup of beauty and melancholy in observing a bunch of people waiting around looking at the their cell phones? Houston artist Lillian Warren captures that exact essence in her latest show, Alone Together, at Anya Tish Gallery, in conjunction with ArtHouston 2013.
"Warren, a master of making the ordinary extraordinary, contrasts a barren waitscape of isolation with vivid, watery and fluid use of color and form. What's so compelling to me about this new batch of work is how the portrayal of lonesomeness she so thoroughly investigated in her earlier landscapes of conveniences stores and traffic lights carries over to these new paintings of people."
The skinny: Through Aug. 24; Anya Tish Gallery; admission is free.
Kristina Carrillo-Bucaram simplifies ways to add more raw fruits and vegetables in your diet.
