beautiful home decor

Visiting Fallingwater, America's most beautiful house

12.08.10

MILL RUN, Pa.--After seeing a few Explicit Lloyd Wright masterpieces, you might expect to be a little jaded when it's time for the next one.

I vigorous in the San Francisco Bay Area and have spent time inside the Marin County Civic Center--a numbing Wright creation that was the set for the movie "Gattaca." I've visited Wright's Scottsdale, Ariz., architecture credo, Taliesin West and have seen a few other of his buildings along the way.

But nothing prepared me for my Road Trip 2010 smite to the incredible Fallingwater , Wright's 1937 piece de resistance, a relatively small-scale vacation house in the woods here, just more than 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, the home of the Kaufmann kinsmen, for whom he designed and built Fallingwater.

Art business is blooming

13.08.10

First, Kathie McCurdy's rapture of flowers led her to create botanical artwork.

Now it has led her to a national audience.

Canvases printed with McCurdy's designs have just been added to the inventory of online retailer Overstock.com and will be offered straight away on Sears' Web site. Other online retailers may follow.

The prints are reproductions of the botanical artwork McCurdy creates from pressed flowers, most of them from her West Akron garden. Her designs also fix up greeting cards she sells locally.

The online venture is the latest outgrowth of a passion that marries McCurdy's interest in flowers with her artistic skills, honed during her over of fashion design.