You look around and see pink, lots of pink.
“Somebody left us a gallon of pink paint and we’ve just color matched it since then,” says Brian K. Jones, aka “Chuck.”
Brian K. Jones and Brian K. Scott, often known artistically/professionally as Chuck & George, purchased the house in 1999, though it was built, they believe, in 1922.
They say it wasn’t a great house when they got it. It had soulless, ugly furniture (“with a Southwestern flair!”) left behind by the last inhabitant. The only discarded object that impressed the Brians was a Six Million Dollar Man trash can, later gifted to a friend.
Jones and Scott met as art students at the University of North Texas in Denton. After graduation in 1993, they lived first in East Dallas, then rented for a few years in the same Oak Cliff neighborhood where they now live. When they moved into what friends simply call “the Brians’ house,” all of its then-white walls were empty.
“From time to time we find pictures of it, and it makes you feel ill,” says Scott, aka “George.”
But since white walls made the house feel a little like a gallery, the Brians immediately began planning their first neighborhood studio tour. Now known as the Visual SpeedBump Art Tour, its maiden effort was called—misbehavior intentional—the Oak Cliff Drive By.
“Everything we do, even our careers, we start for subversive reasons,” says Chuck, “but the studio tour became real effort, something that we put our heart into.”
The Brians’ approach to nesting is an exhibition. Every wall of the house is covered in paintings hung salon-style. Most of the works are by Chuck & George; those that aren’t are by “guest artists.” Chuck points to a painting, saying, “That’s a dear old friend.” Does he mean the subject? No. “The friend, the paint. That’s my painting.”
There has been some remodeling. A small closet that encroached on the dining room was transformed into an art niche, blocked from sight by a small door with a single, curious peephole.
“We curate the peephole every year for SpeedBump,” says Chuck. “That’s part of our ‘lovable weirdo’ stigmata that we embrace to a certain extent. But you know, I’m more than a lovable weirdo. We do a lot for the community, as much as we can.”
When you notice knick-knacks everywhere, Chuck tells you that little toys can inspire you.
“We try to make things like furniture or stuff that is operational,” George explains. “We ran out of wall space.”
The living room preens like a theatrical stage set where John Waters, Marcel Duchamp, and Roger Rabbit could bond over cocktails while overstaying their welcome. A cartoonish electrical outlet the size of a fifth-grader leans against one wall. Above the arched entry into the dining room is an electric VELVETORIUM sign, custom built for that spot and dominating the room like a Hollywood sign banished to Oak Cliff. In the middle of the floor is a circular … thing, made of pink cushions. Is it a tiny sofa? A dog bed?
“They’re functional pillows,” says Chuck, inspired by, well, the functional area under the base of a cat’s tail.
Is SpeedBump the only time the public is invited into the house? Mostly yes, but every once in a while, Chuck & George will throw a Christmas kind-of-thing where they make a little art that might sell. (For years, the Brians hosted a Halloween party here, but its legend grew too fabled to sustain, and the crowds too large, too unfamiliar, to control.)
As if to reassure you, Jones, also known as Chuck, promises, “This house is not haunted.”
As if to reassure you, Scott, also known as George, promises, “But it will be.”
This house, an extemporaneous mutation, paints mischief worlds away from rules and norms and minimalisms, signaling joy.