Zilker Tree spin on Christmas Eve
December 26, 2022 The week leading up to Christmas Day was a whirlwind of holiday gatherings, eating, drinking, and merry-making with friends and family, for which I’m deeply grateful. On a quieter Christmas Eve we visited the Zilker Holiday Tree, which has been lighting up Zilker Park just south of ...
Exploring Portal Potty and more at Creek Show 2022
November 20, 2022 A chilly drizzle on Friday couldn’t keep me from seeing Waterloo Greenway’s Creek Show, an “annual display of illuminated art” along the banks of downtown Austin’s Waller Creek. I go every year with family or friends to explore the creative light sculptures. Last year’s Creek Show abandoned ...
Zilker Garden turns surreal after dark with fantastical neon art
April 25, 2022 Last Friday my husband and I decked ourselves out in floral clothing and headed to Zilker Botanical Garden to attend The Surreal Garden, an interactive neon-art event. I have to say, it was even more fun than I’d imagined. Fantastical neon light sculptures filled the gardens (mainly ...
Have a rainbow Christmas!
December 24, 2021 A very merry Christmas to you and yours, and happy holidays to all who celebrate the season in other ways! I spotted this rainbow of Christmas trees at Austin Motel on South Congress last weekend, and it lifted my spirits. I hope it does the same for ...
Creek Show 2021 lights up spacious new Waterloo Park
November 17, 2021 After a covid hiatus last year, Waterloo Greenway‘s fantastical Creek Show — light-sculpture installations by local designers — has returned, and it’s better than ever. The illuminated art lights up Austin’s newly overhauled Waterloo Park nightly through November 21. We reserved our free tickets weeks ago (it’s ...
Pease Park after dark
September 08, 2021 I recently returned to Kingsbury Commons at Pease Park to see the Treehouse and other new features after dark. It turns out, nighttime Pease Park may be even better than daytime Pease Park! (Click for my first visit to Pease). I mean, look at the Treehouse, glowing ...
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 ...
