Waterloo Greenway light installations return for Austin’s 10th anniversary Creek Show
November 13, 2024 An art-loving Creek Monster lurks in the dark waters of Austin’s Waller Creek, according to Creek Show lore. I’m on the lookout for it each November when I attend Waterloo Greenway’s annual Creek Show, and every now and then I catch a glimpse. But really it’s an ...
Through the looking glass at Chihuly Garden and Glass
October 03, 2024 When I flew up to Seattle in July for the Puget Sound Fling, I spent one morning at Chihuly Garden and Glass, a celebratory display of the glass art and sculpture of Dale Chihuly. A native son of Tacoma, Washington, Chihuly is the most famous glass artist ...
Julia Lucey’s art is Trying to Fit In
September 24, 2024 When I saw that California artist Julia Lucey had a new exhibition, Trying to Fit In, at Wally Workman Gallery in Austin, I immediately made plans to see it. I first admired her mixed media collages in last year’s exhibition at the gallery. This time around Lucey’s ...
Light-diffusing Petals and Ellsworth Kelly at Blanton Museum
July 12, 2024 I’d seen the Petals at night. But I hadn’t visited them in daylight. So one sunny day in June, I popped over to the Blanton Museum of Art to see the light-filtering, tulip-shaped shade structures on the plaza. In the distance, at the end of a new ...
Botanical beauties in Patrick Puckett’s Western Civ. exhibition
July 08, 2024 Whenever Mississippi artist Patrick Puckett has an exhibition in the Austin area, I’ll go see it. I’m a fan of his richly colored, botanical-background portraits — women, mostly, who gaze straight out of the frame at the viewer. Puckett’s new show, Western Civ., is at Wally Workman ...
Kehinde Wiley’s floral, haunting Archaeology of Silence
July 03, 2024 This spring I went to see the exhibition Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The supersized scale, vivid botanical backdrops, and haunting, tragic poses of Kehinde Wiley‘s portraits of Black women and men made for a powerful viewing experience. The ...
Nature subdued in new work by Kate Breakey
November 17, 2023 Patchnose on Lace One of my favorite contemporary artists, for over two decades, is Australian-born photographer Kate Breakey. I fell in love with her Small Deaths series when she was still living in Austin. She’s been in Tucson for many years now, but she still shows new ...
Creek Show art installations glow at Waterloo Greenway
November 16, 2023 Last night I headed downtown to Waller Creek to see this year’s Creek Show, an annual exhibition of light-art installations, put on by Waterloo Greenway. While the event is free, let me tell you, it’s worth it to pay $10 for a fast pass that allows you ...
West Texas golden hour and sightseeing
September 16, 2023 I was back in West Texas a week ago to shoot gardens for my forthcoming book (due out spring 2025). Being up at sunrise and staying in gardens until after sunset meant I got to enjoy some beautiful skies every day. Lavender and mango sunsets were a ...
Summer pleasures: Barton Springs Pool and Lockhart art
September 07, 2023 I had reservations for a dip at Blue Hole swimming hole in Wimberley, Texas, just before Labor Day. But the drought has left little untouched in Texas this summer, and I soon received a cancellation notice. Blue Hole has closed for the rest of the season due ...
Meeting artist Julie Speed at her Marfa studio
August 10, 2023 Marfa is an oasis for minimalist art in West Texas, despite the town’s tiny size (population 1,750) and remoteness from, well, just about anywhere. A friend and I road-tripped there two weeks ago, and instead of pilgrimaging to see Donald Judd’s minimalist concrete boxes (maybe next time), ...
Marfa love affair
August 05, 2023 Last week I made my first real visit to Marfa, the tiny (population 1,750) and improbable art mecca in far West Texas. I’d passed through Marfa once before, at the tail end of a spring break trip to drought-bleached Big Bend with small children, and I confess ...
Evening under the Petals at Blanton Museum
July 07, 2023 I’ve been wanting to see the Petals at Austin’s Blanton Museum of Art ever since the flower-shaped shade structures were officially unveiled in May. For one thing, I’m a big fan of shade in Texas. For another, I love public art. The Petals are a grove of ...
Botanical portraits: Patrick Puckett art at Wally Workman Gallery
June 23, 2023 Persephone I went to see the new Patrick Puckett show at Austin’s Wally Workman Gallery today. I’ve admired Puckett’s supersized oil portraits for years, but his new exhibition, Mythos, is his best yet. In my favorite paintings, his female subjects gaze confidently at the viewer with piercing ...
Zilker Garden lights up with neon, costumes for Surreal Garden
April 12, 2023 These flowers are watching you If you enjoy seeing a familiar garden with a twist of surreality, humor, and neon art, the Surreal Garden event at Zilker Botanical Garden is for you. And for me! I attended last year’s inaugural event and happily returned this year. The ...
Juliet Whitsett reimagines native plants and animals and co-curates Really Small Museum ATX
March 20, 2023 Browsing the well-curated garden shop at Barton Springs Nursery recently, I stopped to admire a dozen framed graphic prints of cacti, butterflies, snakes, salamanders, and other Texas flora and fauna. The artist behind these joyful works is Austinite Juliet Whitsett, and they are part of her “Threatened ...
