For a special weekend, stay and play in Midtown Houston

When it comes to good food, music, cool bars, and the arts, Midtown Houston is the place to be.

Gone are the days where you have to drive to other parts of town to find a nice restaurant, or  hear live music. Midtown Houston may be the new kid on the block, but it has become an epicenter of dining and entertainment.

For a special weekend, escape to La Maison in Midtown, an urban bed and breakfast with a slice of European flavor at 2800 Brazos St. The peaceful, three-story haven has seven luxurious guest rooms, each with its own unique décor and amenities – and all within walking distance of  Midtown Houston’s hottest clubs and restaurants.

“We’re your escape in the city,” said La Maison in Midtown co-owner Sharon Owens, who opened the bed and breakfast in 2010 with business partner Genora Boykins. “We have a nice, quiet home away from home to stay. We pride ourselves on hospitality, a good meal, and a good urban high tea and happy hour for our guests.”

During your stay at La Maison in Midtown, savor a hearty Southern or continental breakfast each morning in the cozy French kitchen, and make yourself at home in the sumptuous parlor, living room, and dining area.

For more information about La Maison in Midtown, call 713.529.3600 or visit online.

To round out your fun-filled weekend in Midtown Houston, head over to the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) at 4848 Main St. to check out Pocket Museum, a group exhibition that spotlights the contemporary craft miniature.

The exhibit features five artists working in ceramic, fiber, glass, metal, and wood – Jon Almeda, Althea Crome, Sean Donlon, Nash Quinn, and Marco Terenzi – and explores the relevance of small-scale objects in contemporary material culture.

Crome’s tiny gloves are knitted with silk thread and wire needles that are so thin, they can accommodate more than 80 stitches per inch. Donlon creates functioning, miniature blown-glass teapots, Quinn makes tiny metal micro-guns, and Terenzi produce and tiny, scaled woodworking tools.

Sarah Darro, curatorial fellow at HCCC, said the goal of the exhibit is to “capture the ways in which contemporary craft miniatures possess a technology of enchantment.”

“The artists in this show have had to adapt, innovate, and master their processes anew,” she said. “The result is artwork that, though diminutive, is paradoxically precious and has captivated contemporary culture, evidenced by dedicated social media followings.”

Pocket Museum runs through March 18th. For more information, call 713.529.4848 or visit online.

To further stoke your artistic flames, head over to Community Artists’ Collective (CAC) at 4101 San Jacinto St. to check out Self Love, a collaborative art show that runs through April 29th.

The exhibit includes a series of talks by the selected artists that include LaTonia Allen, Rebecca Baffour, Bert Bertonaschi, Ellie Cox, Lauren Cross, Monica Kennedy, Melba Lee, Samiria Percival, Irene Reece, and Fulden Sara-Wissinger.

Michelle Barnes, CAC founding director, said she hopes that visitors are enriched by the experience of Self Love.

“We’d love for people to have a totally surprising and wonderful experience,” she said. “We want them to be enriched, amazed, delighted and so pleased that they’ll look forward to returning for more.”

For more information, call CAC at 713.523.1616 or visit online.

For more artistic joie de vivre, catch the METRORail to the Ensemble/HCC stop to Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston at 3400 Main. There, you can pop into DiverseWorks to see Kate Gilmore & Heather Rowe: Only in Your Way, a collaborative two-person exhibition by New York-based artists Kate Gilmore and Heather Rowe. It runs through March 19th.

The exhibit features distinct new works by the artists, “conceived to be in conversation with each other utilizing the gallery space and considering ideas about sculptural objects and architecture in relation to the female body,” according to a DiverseWorks media release.

Gilmore, a performance, video, and installation-based artist, explores issues related to identity, gender, power, and endurance in her work. Rowe’s work lies at the intersection of sculpture, architecture and installation, often building upon cinematic experience through the framing of space and rhythmically constructed form.

For more information, call DiverseWorks at 713.223.8346 or visit online.