Mary Daniels

"I'm coming at this as an artist, " says Lisa Welch, owner of Tech Styles in Wicker Park where she puts art underfoot by creating custom-made area rugs with strong...

A golden trout, its green and pink and gilded body still glistening from river waters, appears caught in a moment of rest on the surface of a knotty pine coffee...

When Chicago antiques dealer Steve Starr published a book on Art Deco picture frames, he had no idea a rug retailer would be floored by it. Once sold in department...

Dianne Dally has found a way to reinvent a 150-year-old folk art form for the '90s. The New Lenox, Ill.-artist does theorem paintings, traditionally images stenciled on velvet in oil...

A wonderful new occupation for cats has been found at Rarities, a new home accessories shop with a living room-like setting at 7 E. Superior St. Gay Gelman, co-owner of...

Depending on your artistic leanings, a Winifred Ross lamp is either a sculpture or table jewelry. Her creations, actually mere household appliances, incorporate a light bulb and offer hours of...

Judith Gries has found a way to dish up the past by recycling the seemingly unrecyclable: plain wooden salad bowls. A staple of the '50s, Gries paints what she describes...

CD Man, a household "servant" whose elongated spine stores compact discs, came to life a year ago on the drawing board of furniture designer Steven Sanfilippo. Noticing his own CDs...

Around town, Outsider Art is becoming Everyman's art. Following are a few current Outsider exhibits and events in the area. - The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs is presenting "Artist...

Who are the blue-chip outsider artists? Experts in Chicago and New York were surveyed and these are the names that kept coming up. Europeans Adolf Wolfli: A Swiss mental patient...