petpAUse sharing is caring

“I know we all think our pets are cute, but every now and then, a picture is taken that is just too cute not to share,” says DANA ROBINSON of East Dallas. Her dogs are LUCY, left, and WESTLEY.

—Rachel Stone

WANt yoUr pet fe AtUred? Send a non-returnable photo to: pet pause, 6301 Gaston, ste. 820, dallas 75214; or email jpeg to launch@advocatemag.com

Solds

6330 Lakeshore................................ $498,000

Ben Jones/Chris Pyle 5434 Mercedes................................. $359,000

Blake Eltis/John Eller

5140 Fawnhollow.............................. $500,000

Ryan Hill

Under Contract

5315 Monticello ...............................$339,900

Blake Eltis/John Eller

5306 Vanderbilt................................ $419,000

Blake Eltis/John Eller 9026 Dunmore .................9................$2985,000

Forrest Gregg Actives

5603 Dittmar.................................. $1,099,000

Ashley Rupp 5036 Airline................................... $1,095,000

Sharon Palmer 4569 Belfort...................................... $955,000

Shirley Cohn

4554 Westway................................... $899,000

Shiley Cohn 2830 State........................................ $459,000

Ben Jones/Chris Pyle 902 Lakewood/McKinney,TX...........$354,900

WHAT GIVES?

Small ways that you can make a big difference for neighborhood nonprofits

THIS MONTH, MAKE A DONATION... to C.L.A.S.P. International, a nonprofit that sends speech pathologists to Zambia. East Dallas resident Shannon Raby started the charity after a mission trip to Zambia. She discovered that children with disabilities are considered a burden there and often are discarded. The ones who are “rescued” often struggle their whole lives. The group last year sent 12 speech pathologists to Zambia to work with children and adults with disabilities, including cleft palates, hearing loss and blindness. Get more information at claspinternational.org or by calling 214.417.0337.

Volunteer

with the Friends of the Santa Fe Trail. The group needs volunteers for its trail clean-up Saturday, June 18. Volunteers will pick up trash, cover graffiti and “generally make the trail look better”. Meet at 8 a.m. at Randall Park, Glasgow and Santa Fe. More information is available at friendsofsantafetrail.org.

KNOW OF WAYS that neighbors can spend time, attend an event, or purchase or donate something to benefit a neighborhood nonprofit? Email your suggestion to launch@ advocatemag.com.

June 4th 6:30pm-9pm

Hang with the “girls” and Plant the Town Pink! Don’t miss our annual, after-hours shopping event benefitting the Dallas County Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. With a $10 donation you’ll enjoy local wine from Callais Winery, music by Spyche, organic eats, FREE garden consults & more.

6:30pm-8:30pm FREE Garden Coach consultation!

6:30-8:00 Pre-order Spring Blooming Bulbs!

6:45 -7pm Container Garden Demo

7:00-7:15 Tour the NHG Chicken Coop & Market Garden

7:15-8pm live music by Spyche

A $10 donation at the door gets you a raffle ticket to win amazing prizes. Be one of the first 50 people through the door and get a goodie bag filled with discounts and gifts from local businesses.

Painting Pays The Bills

Need plant or garden design advice? Our NHG Garden Coach will offer FREE 15 minute garden coach sessions. Plus, pre-order spring blooming bulbs including tulips, lilies and daffodils to ensure you get the colors and varieties you want. Details at www.nhg.com.

Inside the Verizon Theater in Grand Prairie, there are hundreds of likenesses of the artists who have performed there. Most people assume they are posters photographs — but they are actually paintings. Junius Heights resident Cabe Booth painted all of them. For about 10 years, the artist did little else but paint portraits for Verizon, The Palladium, Curtain Club and other concert venues in Dallas and other cities. He barely even slept. “I slept about every fourth day,” he says. For Verizon alone, he figures he did some 960 paintings in 10 years. After his daughter, Ella, was born almost three years ago, he knew something had to change. He still does some portraits for Verizon, and he sometimes still deprives himself of sleep to get them done, but in the past few years, Booth has been focusing on his own work. “Painting at a panicked pace and filling orders just to pay the bills is not what I want to be doing,” the 41-year-old says. Mostly, he paints birds, butterflies, dragonflies and

World War II aircraft on broken wood that is layered in an almost sculptural way. He has an agent now, Kingswife Productions, and he’s getting more gallery shows, doing more charity work. He still does portraits, and although he takes commissions, he mostly does those for himself, too — Willie Nelson, Joey Ramone, Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix and others, painted on broken wood. Booth went to Lake Highlands High School and was a familiar face in the ’90s Deep Ellum scene. He once was the youngest radio DJ in the United States, when he had a show interviewing local bands on KNON at 16. Booth could draw very well from a very young age. But he learned to paint at the University of North Texas, under the late Henry Whiddon. He remembers a Whiddon lecture in which the professor told the class that in a few years, 90 percent of them would not be doing art. “Some people were really offended by that,” Booth says. “But I took it for what it was. I realized that being an artist wasn’t going to be easy. And it’s not.” —RACHEL STONE

Fashion And Fortune

Katy Messersmith launched an apparel business in one room of her house nine years ago. Soon, it took over the entire house and the garage, so she rented an apartment and moved out. Now the company, Katydid Collection, is in a warehouse near Interstate 35 and Medical District Drive. It did $5 million in sales last year and was listed in Inc. as one of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in America. “I remember when I was shipping 10 packages a day out of my house, and I would think, ‘Gee, if I can just get to 30 packages a day,’ ” she says. “Now we’re shipping over 200 packages a day to small boutiques nationwide.” Messersmith, who lives in Lakewood, has eight full-time employees, and 90 percent of her business is wholesale. Katydid Collection sells some accessories and handbags, plus day dresses and leggings.

There are men’s and children’s items, but women’s T-shirts make up the bulk of its offerings. Messersmith designs the clothes and has them made in Los Angeles. She describes them as “comfortable but sexy.” Recently, she added a sportswear line, including baseball, basketball and football-themed shirts. They’ve proven overwhelmingly successful. This past spring, the company sold 5,000 of the bedazzled baseball tees in 24 hours. And that was just the black ones. Now, she offers them to match many school and team colors. She recently signed a deal with the Houston Astros to sell the baseball shirts in Minute Maid Park. “As it turns out, sports teams want to have some things that aren’t licensed,” she says. She’s also working a deal with the Philadelphia Phillies, and her dream is to sell her shirts in Cowboys Stadium and to work a deal with Mark Cuban. Katydid Collection got into online retail in 2002, pretty early, and Messersmith says that’s been an advantage. Her wholesale clients are mostly small boutiques, about 10,000 of them nationwide, in suburbs and small towns. They’re businesses that cannot afford to send buyers to the fashion markets in New York, Atlanta, Dallas or Los Angeles. So they buy online, and turnaround time is fast. Shop owners can receive orders as soon as 24 hours after they click purchase. In much of the fashion world, buyers select clothes a year in advance based on what they see on the runways. But Katydid isn’t a typical fashion business. When a design is successful, it stays on the roster. Katydid has been offering one popular T-shirt design, in short and long sleeves, for more than five years, for example. Messersmith is happy with her niche, and she has no desire to get into upscale department stores. “Give me the cruise ships. Give me the airport gift stores,” she says. “Let Target pick up my sportswear line.” Cavender’s recently started offering Katydid Collection in about 100 of its stores. Another way Messersmith has marketed her business is through charities. She has designed shirts for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Dress for Success and Kidd’s Kids, among others. “I get to team up with these charities that I love, and they promote me, and I get to give back at the same time,” she says. Messersmith says that along with continuing to increase sales, her goal is to open a flagship Katydid Collection retail store in Dallas in the next few years.

—RACHEL STONE