Austin homes on 2025 Tribeza Interiors Tour, Part 3
February 04, 2025 Let’s explore the last 5 homes on the 10th annual Tribeza Interiors Tour, a tour of Austin homes that shows off the work of interior designers. This is part 3 of my coverage of the late January tour. (Click for part 1 and part 2 if you ...
Austin homes on 2025 Tribeza Interiors Tour, Part 2
February 02, 2025 Flora-and-fauna wallpaper with painted trim to match. Fabulous geometric floor tile. A rich use of color and pattern. I’m a maximalist at heart and have a weakness for these bold design moves. You’ll see lots of them in today’s post — part 2 of my coverage of ...
Texas interiors on the 2024 Lockhart Holiday Home Tour
December 12, 2024 Lockhart, a small town 30 miles southeast of Austin, has long drawn carnivores as a barbecue mecca. Black’s, Kreuz Market, Smitty’s, and newcomer Barbs B Q put Lockhart on the map with their brisket, ribs, and sausage. More recently, as musicians and artists priced out of Austin have ...
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 ...
