Former First Lady Laura Bush Takes Us on a Tour of Her Prairie Chapel Flower Garden
On a warm summer morning, former First Lady Laura Bush walked among the butterflies in the garden behind her dogtrot-style vacation house on Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford. The likes of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and U2 singer Bono have ventured on these grounds before, but on this July day viceroys and queens were the VIPs. They flitted about as Bush interpreted the landscape. There’s antelope horns milkweed, she said. There’s gaillardia. There’s basket-flower, and there’s a gourd. “This one’s called purple mist, or blue mist,” she said. “If you want butterflies, then plant this.” Read More »
No Longer in Utopia, Utopiafest to Host Its Intimate Festival with Big Lineup in Burnet
Utopiafest is leaving behind the land of perfection for what it hopes are greener pastures. For its 10th iteration, taking place Nov. 1-3, the family-friendly, camping music festival is moving from a private ranch in Utopia, in the vicinity of Uvalde, to an outdoor event space in Burnet, near lakes Buchanan and Inks. This comes with several advantages organizers believe are integral to the long-term preservation of the festival, chief among them it will cut down the drive time by two-thirds for fest-goers from Austin, where 75 percent of past attendees have hailed. Read More »
Fort Worth Cultural District
Critics and art-lovers tend to admire Fort Worth’s three major art museums as much for their architecture, all by high-profile architects, as for the artworks they house. Philip Johnson designed the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, calling it the building of his career; Tadao Ando, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (one of his few designs in the United States); and Louis Kahn, the Kimbell Art Museum (generally considered to have the finest light of any museum anywhere for viewing art). Read More »
Beaumont R&B Legend Barbara Lynn Named a National Heritage Fellow
The National Heritage Fellowships are the United States’ highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. Lynn earned the recognition for her pioneering rhythm and blues career, which has garnered acclaim with her distinctive guitar play, soulful singing, and songwriting. From nightclubs in her native Beaumont—where her mother chaperoned her gigs when she was a teenager—Lynn’s career has taken her to the Apollo Theater in Harlem, American Bandstand, and other venues around the world. Read More »
Austin Piano Great Marcia Ball is Still Tickling Them Ivories
When Marcia Ball gets to rocking—her long fingers pounding out barrelhouse keyboard rhythms, knees bouncing to the beat, the band locked into the groove—it can be downright difficult to sit still. The Austin piano player has been getting people to their feet for decades with her joyful take on rhythm and blues and a voice steeped in Gulf Coast soul. Read More »
National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature
The National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature opened in 2000 to showcase the work of storybook artists in a fine-art setting. The light and airy gallery curates about three shows per year, including a summer exhibition of the artist featured during the annual Children's Art and Literacy Festival. “Our mission is to instill the love of art as young as we possibly can, because if you think about it, the first art that children see is in the books they’re reading,” Director Trish Dressen says. “If we can instill that in them young, then we can preserve the love of art for the ages.” Entry is always free. Read More »
Texas Arts and Crafts Fair Returns to the Hill Country After Five-Year Absence
The Texas Arts and Crafts Fair, which the legislature deemed the official arts and crafts fair of the Lone Star State in 1995, is returning this fall after five years of absence. The Hill Country Arts Foundation will debut its newly updated Ingram campus to an estimated 5,000 guests in support of more than 150 Texas artists Sept. 28-30. Read More »
Experience One of the Best Live Music Scenes in Texas at Houston’s Silver Slipper
In broad daylight, the Silver Slipper is hardly a looker. The compact building 4 miles northeast of downtown Houston is about as long and wide as an eight-lane bowling alley—“indistinct Minimal Traditional,” according to The Handbook of Texas. Three days a week, it’s a bar, short-order eatery, and neighborhood hangout. Saturday nights, however, the Silver Slipper transforms into something else. Read More »
Passionate Chefs Make Boxed Sandwiches A Thing of the Past at These Fort Worth Museums
When chef Denise Shavandy walks into the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, she often wonders if she’s dreaming. Before she found her way to cooking, Shavandy considered other career paths that might have landed her in a place like this. Fortuitously, her job as executive chef of Café Modern, the museum’s restaurant, involves crafting beautiful food next to some of the most important art anywhere, inside a building created by one of the world’s foremost design talents. Read More »
Frank X. Tolbert 2 Interprets ‘Incredible Creations of Nature’ in the Texas Bird Project
The art aficionados at the opening of Frank X. Tolbert 2’s Texas Bird Project exhibition in Austin were clearly enamored with the artist’s prints, paintings, and drawings of the state’s winged and feathered beings. But the birdwatchers who came to meet the Houston artist were absolutely rapt. Read More »
7 Ways to Inspire a Love of Art in Your Kids
Sometimes it’s all in the packaging: Telling my 8- and 10-year-old children we’re going to spend an entire day ... Read More »
Get a Concentrated Dose of Marfa’s Bohemian Counterculture at El Cosmico’s Trans-Pecos Festival of Music + Love
Arriving in Marfa, the high-desert ranching town with a lofty reputation as a mecca for modern art, first-time ... Read More »
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