One of our favorite companies, Native American Seed, has once again chosen one of Ted’s photographs for their catalogue cover. We will all be together in Alpine at the end of September, when Ted will receive an award for his art from the Native Plant Society of Texas. Join us in Alpine, September 22-25, for the NPSOT annual fall symposium! We hope to see you there.

Austin dedicated a new interpretive panel at Eastwoods Park yesterday. Attending were numerous elected officials and local residents, including Congressman Lloyd Doggett, Mayor Steve Adler, and Councilmembers Kathie Tovo and Natasha Harper-Madison. The panel memorializes the beginning of Juneteenth celebrations in Austin at Wheeler’s Grove (now Eastwoods Park).

Fermata researched, wrote, and designed the panel. Congratulations to Maja Smith for her wonderful design. Maja has been our designer for decades, and I appreciate all of the work that she has done for me.

Thanks to the Eastwood Neighborhood Association for their involvement in and sponsorship of this project, and well as to Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department for their support.

In this image, Councilmember Natasha Harper-Madison and I are discussing the panel with Congressman Lloyd Doggett. You will notice that this panel, as are all our panels in Austin, is written in both English and Spanish. The story of freedom should not be limited to those who speak English.

Our projects focused on African-American history continue in Austin. We have just begun to write the interpretive plan and programs for the slave quarters at the Neill-Cochran House Museum. This project, Reckoning with the Past: The Untold Story of Race in Austin, will include a number of public events in Austin, so check with the Neill-Cochran website to see what is happening with this transformational project.

The Eastwoods Neighborhood Association and Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department will dedicate a new interpretive panel at Eastwoods Park this Saturday, February 11. This panel tells the story of the beginning of Juneteenth celebrations in Austin in Wheeler’s Grove, an early name for the park. Fermata wrote and designed the panel, and I plan on attending the dedication. Congratulations to all involved for seeing this through to the finish.

For the past five years, especially during the Covid sabbatical, I have been spending virtually every day during the season in the field trying to complete my gallery of Texas Hill Country wildflowers. There are now 3000 portraits in the gallery. There are a few gaps, but for the most part I am finished and ready to move on to the next project.

One use of the portraits is the development of a wildflower wall showing how these flowers use every color in the visible spectrum (not to mention ultraviolet) to attract pollinators. The wall is currently designed is an octoptych (an eight-panel polyptych) that is 4′ by 24′. I will add interpretive panels at each end, so the final wall will be 4′ by 30′.

The individual portraits themselves are formatted in the gallery as 2′ by 2′, so conceivably the wall could be 8′ by 48′ without the interpretive panels at the ends.

There is many more individual elements in this collection, but the wildflower wall may be the most dramatic.

For additional information about the exhibit and all of its component parts, contact me directly at Fermata Inc.

Ted Lee Eubanks