Mary Daniels

''What we`ve tried to do with this show is make it affordable,'' says organizer Tom Blackman, announcing an international contemporary art show, ''Art 1993 Chicago: The New Pier Show. ''Our...

A Chicago neighborhood landmark is the star of a new book on Victorian houses, ''America`s Painted Ladies: The Glory of Our Resplendent Victorians'' (Dutton Studio Books, $40), by the husband-wife...

- African violets like east windows, a clear north one with no trees second best. In a south window, place behind a sheer curtain as a sunscreen. - Consistent moisture...

''I`m an architect, and architects have always had a great interest in furniture and art,'' says Jack Szarapka, who with wife, business consultant Nora Kyger, created Ab Imo, Latin for...

`The tassel is the exclamation point of a textile sentence,'' says Nancy Welch, a former teacher of the fiber arts in Woodside, Calif., who has recently written a treatise on...

The Royal Copenhagen porcelain manufacturing company calls 1992 their ''Blue Year,'' a campaign to make their already classic pattern, ''Blue Fluted,'' even more popular around the world. Royal Copenhagen painters...

Since 1987,, the Three Arts Club of Chicago`s Annual Antiques Show has established itself as one of the nation`s finest, drawing top dealers from around the country. Robert Lawler, Three...

''The philosophy of the exhibition is to take an object and show how the beauty is made, the whole manufacturing principle behind it,'' says Christian K. Laine, director of the...

''The best carved cherry mantel with over-mantel mirror I`ve ever seen, a fabulous pair of glass English conservatory doors etched with flora and fauna, 18th Century sundials and Prairie School...

Chinese entertaining traditions date thousands of years, according to Austin Koo, who will share them with the public this week as he celebrates his 20th anniversary in Chicago. Koo, generally...