Exploring reimagined Waterloo Park in downtown Austin
August 30, 2021 Shade trees are precious in a hot climate, 200-year-old heritage live oaks even more so. As Waterloo Park in downtown Austin emerges from a massive, 10-year redesign and overhaul, two grand old live oaks on the west side of the park greet visitors as if lovingly presented ...
Playing at revamped Kingsbury Commons in Pease Park
July 12, 2021 I recently rounded up the family to explore the newly redesigned section of Austin’s Pease Park known as Kingsbury Commons. The biggest draw for me was seeing the Treehouse, a rusty orb of rebar and steel beams — less a treehouse than a giant ball of pollen! ...
Exploring Austin’s Sparky Park mosaic wall
March 02, 2021 At Austin’s Sparky Park, craggy, curved walls of karst limestone and blue slag glass display mosaics of seashells, ceramic tile, petrified wood, and other found objects, all fashioned into fantastical trees and solar systems. Rock arches connect turret towers bejeweled with blue and silver gazing globes, creating ...
Octopus joins fantastical creatures at Mueller parks
January 06, 2021 A giant purple octopus wraps its tentacles around the restrooms at brand-new Jessie Andrews Park in Austin’s Mueller development. Like the monsters in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or Lord of the Rings, this supersized sea creature menacingly creeps close, ready perhaps to grab someone or wrench ...
Wrapping up socially distant 2020 with drive-through Trail of Lights
January 01, 2021 What is Austin’s 56th annual Trail of Lights without the people? Without the experience of walking among brilliantly illuminated trees with throngs of other Austinites, some boosting little kids up on their shoulders, some wearing Santa hats, some stopping to take selfies, all chattering and laughing? Let’s ...
Postcards from COVID-era Austin
May 28, 2020 “You’re not in traffic. You are traffic,” I heard on the radio last year, and it resonated with me. Here we Austinites were, almost a million of us, sitting in traffic jams all day long, insanely frustrated by the wasted time and by our fellow drivers. And ...
Ganador grackle now rules the roost at Austin City Hall
January 19, 2020 One of my favorite local artists, Christy Stallop, branched out last year from her lucha libre grackle paintings to make a monster-sized grackle in a Mexican wrestler mask using recycled bike tires over a steel frame covered in polystyrene. Her idea won a TEMPO grant, and Ganador ...
Fortlandia is here for one more fortnight at the Wildflower Center
January 07, 2020 Thinking back on forts I made as a kid — from blanket forts to a climbable stack of firewood between two trees (aka the Batcave) to branch-outlined “houses” in the wooded lot next door — I find myself nostalgic for the pleasure of a hideaway. But we’re ...
Kempelen’s Owls and more public art in downtown Austin
December 27, 2019 Looking for free family fun over the holidays? Why not burn a few calories on a self-guided walking tour of public art in downtown Austin? My daughter and I did just that a few days before Christmas. I was eager to see Kempelen’s Owls, a pair of ...
Otherworldly Creek Show lights up Waller Creek through Nov. 17
November 08, 2019 Despite a blue norther that dropped temps from the 80s to the 40s and ushered in a chilly rain, we trekked downtown yesterday evening for the opening night of Creek Show, an annual light-art installation along Waller Creek, which is being developed as a chain of parks ...
Celebrating life at Dia de los Muertos parade
November 01, 2019 For more than a decade I’ve attended Austin’s annual Day of the Dead parade, Viva la Vida, which this year took place on October 26. For newcomers, Day of the Dead is easily confused with Halloween because of all the skull imagery and skeleton face paint. But ...
Casa Neverlandia and sculpture by James Talbot keep Austin delightfully weird
October 10, 2019 Never pass up a chance to see something creative or unusual. Seeing how someone’s passion gets turned into art fascinates me. So when I heard about Casa Neverlandia, the home of fellow Rice University grad, artist, architect, and free spirit James Talbot, I knew I had to ...
Wildflower mural energizes wall on Wood Hollow Drive
October 07, 2019 Blanketflowers tower over you with electric energy along a stretch of Wood Hollow Drive in northwest Austin. Local artist Bill Tavis recently completed a zigzagging,Texas-evoking mural of our native wildflower on a large wall — actually two walls, an upper and lower spaced a few yards apart. If ...
Ganador the lucha libre grackle is ready to wrestle
September 20, 2019 Raaaaa-aackkkk! The screech of grackles is the sound of Austin, along with the twang of electric guitar from your aspiring-musician neighbor’s garage and electric saw from the remodel going on down the street. For some, the glaring (like she’s working things out), noisy, purple-black birds are urban ...
Sightseeing in Austin with our exchange student
September 16, 2019 We have a young exchange student from Italy living with us this school year, and part of the fun of that for us (and hopefully for her) is dragging her around Austin to see, well, everything. The pink granite dome of the Texas Capitol beckoned us one ...
Things are looking pretty crispy
September 09, 2019 Junker planted with cactus and agaves behind Planet K (long story) in north Austin. It’s endless summer in Austin, and things are looking pretty crispy. The garden (and gardener) gasps for rain, and I’m seeing browned-out trees all over town. Enough is enough, Death Star! One of ...
