In The Parks

Through a community PARKNERSHIPS program with Austin FC and the U.S. Soccer Foundation, the Austin Parks and Recreation Department (PARD) announces the transformation of an under-used space at the park into a brand-new, state-of-the-art mini-pitch for the Austin community at Civitan Neighborhood Park. The project is through the U.S. Soccer Foundation’s Safe Places to Play program. 

The Civitan Park mini-pitch marks the third mini-pitch in the greater Austin area that 4ATX Foundation has helped install in partnership with the U.S. Soccer Foundation, joining the Wooldridge Square Park mini-pitch which opened in north Austin in October 2020 and the Dove Springs Recreation Center futbal court which opened in southeast Austin in November 2019.

Located in the Montopolis neighborhood of southeast Austin, the Civitan Neighborhood Park mini-pitch will provide local families and residents with free and safe recreation space to gather, play soccer, and stay active and healthy. Installation of the mini-pitch began on November 8. 

There will be a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on December 7, 2021 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. at 513 Vargas Rd. This is an outdoor park event, so please dress comfortably.

For more information, visit the Civitan Park Mini-Pitch Project Page. 

The Alliance Children’s Garden is a 2-acre play venue within Michael Butler Park that encourages group play, learning and creativity in downtown Austin. The garden design is tailored for children while providing a variety of play and recreational experiences, including promotion of wellness and education for families and visitors of all ages and abilities.The space is divided into four thematic rooms, each reflecting Austin’s unique culture and environment. Learn more at AustinTexas.gov/AllianceChildrensGarden.

The Alliance Children’s Garden was made possible through the Town Lake Venue Fund, The City of Austin Urban Forest Grant, the Town Lake Park Alliance, and the Austin Parks Foundation. 

#AllianceChildrensGarden

Join the City of Austin and the Parks and Recreation Department for the Veterans Pocket Park Ribbon Cutting ceremony on Thursday, November 11 at 9:30 a.m. at 2200 Veterans Dr. This is an outdoor park event, please dress comfortably. There is limited parking on the street near the site.

About The Veterans Pocket Park

The Veterans Pocket Park project objective is to enhance the exhibition of three war memorials by relocating them to Veterans Park at the intersection of Atlanta and Veterans Drive, adjacent to the American Legion. The project will create a setting for the monuments that expresses a respectful and peaceful sense of place. In addition, the project will also incorporate additional space for potential future memorials. The design allocates space for events which may include ceremonies, dedications and local, regional, and national holiday observances. The display of the monuments will be fully accessible. This includes the ability to touch and read inscriptions on any part of a memorial as intended. The design of the park addresses accessibility from Atlanta Street and Veterans Drive and maximizes accessibility throughout while being sensitive to the display of war memorials. For more information, view the Veterans Pocket Park project page.

Attention performance artists, apply October 15 through December 15, 2021 for the 2023 Artist Access Program. Open office hours will be held throughout the period to assist you with completing the application.

The Artist Access Program provides free or low-cost rehearsal and production spaces to emerging and established performance artists from the Austin area. Created to address the needs of local artists, participating organizations collaborate with the City of Austin’s Cultural Centers for professional performances, rehearsal space and marketing and staff support.

Participating artists and arts organizations are able to take advantage of expanded rehearsal hours and the opportunity to produce public performances at four of the City-owned cultural centers for free or at a reduced rental fee of $1 per ticket sold. Participating sites include Asian American Resource Center, Dougherty Arts Center, George Washington Carver Museum, Cultural and Genealogy Center, and the Zilker Hillside Theater.

The Artist Access Program was created out of a directive from City Council to utilize Hotel Occupancy Tax’s Cultural Arts funds to expand hours at City-owned cultural centers. Applicants are ranked by an impartial panel made up of professional artists from Austin using an established criteria.

View the Artist Access Program participants for 2022. Email questions about the Artist Access Program to aapinfo@austintexas.gov. Find the application, program guidelines, and venue information at AustinTexas.gov/ArtistAccess.

Attention kids 5 to 10 years old! Austin Parks and Recreation invites young artists to create and enter an original drawing of the Zilker Holiday Tree for the Annual Zilker Holiday Tree Art Contest.
 
We will publicly recognize the top three selected artwork winners from each age category, Junior Division and Senior Division. Contest winners will help light the Zilker Holiday Tree! 

Visit our Flickr page to see artwork from previous contest winners. 
 
You can use crayons, watercolors, ink, colored paper, pastels or paint to show us your version of Austin’s traditional holiday symbol. 
 
The rules are simple: 

• Entries must be received by November 1 at 5 p.m. 

• Art must show the Zilker Holiday Tree. 

• Only one entry per child. 

• Divisions: 

  • Junior Division: 5 – 7 years old 

  • Senior Division: 8 – 10 years old 

• Artwork must be no larger than 8.5" x 11". Any artwork that is larger will be automatically disqualified. 

• Paper thickness only. The artwork must fit into an 8.5” x 11” flat frame. 

• Completely fill out the entry form, which is available in English and Spanish, cut it out and attach it to the back of the artwork. 

• All artwork becomes the property of the Zilker Holiday Tree Art Contest, City of Austin.

Submit Artwork Entry Online 

Or mail artwork entries to: 
Parks and Recreation Department 
Office of Special Events 
200 S. Lamar Blvd. 
Austin, Texas 78704 

Mailed submissions MUST include the entry printed information form. 

Print Entry Form - English
Print Entry Form - Español 

For more information, visit AustinTexas.gov/ZilkerHolidayTree.

Join the George Washington Carver Museum, Cultural and Genealogy Center for an in-person artist talk about The Small Black Museum Residency Exhibition on Saturday, October 2 from 1 – 3 p.m. The artist talk will be hosted in the atrium of the Carver Museum. Limited seating available. RSVP via EventBrite to reserve your seat.

Featured artists from the inaugural residency cohort includes: Temitope Olujobi, Hypatia Sorunke, and Adrian Armstrong. Olujobi is an architect turned game designer who utilizes virtual landscapes as a medium to deconstruct and contemplate linearity and binary gender expression. Sorunke uses film in both print and motion-media to navigate what it means to return to a sense of “normalcy” built around an unbalanced social and economic system. Armstrong treats collage and acrylic based paintings as a vehicle to disrupt the expectation to embody “Black Excellence” through a series of both simple and glorifying portraiture.

The group exhibition marks the completion of the first residency series, which aims to support and promote both established and emerging artists of African descent. The artist talk will delve into the new series of works produced by the artists during their three-month residency which are now on view in the Carver Museum’s gallery until January 2022.  

The talk will be moderated by Kendyll Gross, Education Coordinator at The Art Galleries at Black Studies at University of Texas at Austin and a doctoral candidate at the Department of Art History at UT Austin.  

Patrons are strongly encouraged to wear masks inside of the museum and observe social distancing measures. This event is free and open to the public.

For more information please call (512) 974-4926 or email Carver.Museum@AustinTexas.gov. 

Oakwood Cemetery Chapel and Cemetery Operations are looking for volunteers who can walk the cemeteries to help geolocate and document veteran headstones on specific volunteer days. 

Using their own phones, with the supplemental GNSS location device provided, volunteers can upload the latitude and longitude points of the headstones and contribute to a full listing of every veteran buried within City of Austin cemeteries.

This field work will add to a public-facing searchable map of burials which can be viewed as part of the digital exhibit, To Serve: Honoring Veterans in Austin’s Cemeteries.

To volunteer, please email programs_conservation@austintexas.gov.

Photo Credit: Charles (Charley) W. Lewis, son of C.M. Lewis, Austin, Travis County dairyman ice cream factory, brother of Mae Dee Lewis. The Lewis Family of the Southgate-Lewis home on the corner of Comal and 12th Street, on the City and National Historic Register, courtesy of the George Washington Carver Museum

Moving outside improves our health, can reduce stress, and connects us with our environment. More people will spend time walking, biking, or rolling when they have safe, well-connected, and accessible routes in their community.

Austin Public Works and Austin Transportation invite you to give feedback on plans to expand mobility options that can help get more people outside and moving! ATX Walk Bike Roll is a project to update the Urban Trails, Bikeway, and Sidewalk Plans.

The first virtual public meeting for this project will be held on Aug. 11, 2021 in English and Spanish. Staff will explain how the City will update these plans and how residents can get involved. Community members are encouraged to ask questions, give feedback, and learn about next steps. 

Sign up to attend the first Virtual Public Meeting on August 11 at 7 p.m. 

Residents across the city will have many opportunities to get involved in ATX Walk Bike Roll. An easy first step is to take this quick poll! Three large public meetings will be held over the next two years and small meetings are scheduled to start in late Summer 2021. Learn more at: ATX Walk Bike Roll. 

Kick off photography month a little early with exhibits at Austin Parks and Recreation museums and cultural centers as well as online. FotoATX is Austin’s annual love letter to photography. This annual event presents some top local photographers as well as historic photos representing the city’s broad diversity. Admission to all exhibits is free and open to the public.
 
OLD BAKERY AND EMPORIUM
1006 Congress Ave.
July 2 – August 31, 2021
 
Lesley Bradstreet
Desert Rhythms

Desert Rhythms is a body of work that celebrates the vastness of White Sands National Park in New Mexico.
 
Michael Penn Smith
Alley Shots

Michael Penn Smith’s work captures the back alleys and abandoned lots that have been overgrown and forgotten.

ST. JOHN BRANCH of the LIBRARY
7500 Blessing Ave.
August 2 – October 30, 2021
 
Mery Godigna Collet
Wandering Skin

“In a conceptual way, these works are built around themes like regeneration, memories, emotions, belonging and feelings... the eventual need of leaving a recognizable context in order to survive.” Mery Godigna Collet uses oak trees as a metaphor to address these feelings and the relationship with women.
 
Luis R Gutiérrez
Marfa’s Light

The title is a play on words; the rarely if ever-seen phenomenon in Texas known as the Marfa Lights versus what is not so elusive and always evident, Marfa's Light. Marfa's Light consists of four 12”x 36" photographs on aluminum.

OAKWOOD CEMETERY CHAPEL
Online Exhibits
 
To Elevate

To Elevate speaks to the legacy of Huston-Tilloston University, an historically Black College/University (HBCU) and includes historic photos from digital collections including the Downs-Jones Library and Archive at Huston-Tillotson University. View at AustinTexas.gov/ToElevate.
 
To Serve

To Serve recognizes military veterans buried in all five Austin cemeteries, from the war of 1812 to current conflicts, including historic photos from digital collections such as the George Washington Carver Museum, Cultural and Genealogy Center. View at AustinTexas.gov/ToServe.
 
DOUGHERTY ARTS CENTER
1100 Barton Springs Rd.
June 28 – August 28, 2021
 
Sarah Luna
luminous mo:ments

Luna's background in spiritual psychology has guided her artistic process of sculpture and photography, and her use of color, energy, and form to create a visual poem.
 
Michelle Gardella
River Story

Gardella has devoted twelve years to photographing River Story, a series exploring the reunification of women with water, and what it means to belong.
 
EMMA S. BARRIENTOS MEXICAN-AMERICAN CULTURAL CENTER (MACC)
600 River St.
August 6 – November 6, 2021
 
Recuerdos – Celebrating 14 years of Cultura at the MACC!

Recuerdos is a collection of photos taken by staff of events and commemorating 14 years of the MACC’s existence. This selection of work features images from signature events, programs, and the Latino Artist Access Program. 

ASIAN AMERICAN RESOURCE CENTER (AARC)
8401 Cameron Rd.
August 30, 2021 – Jan 30, 2022
 
Amar Gupta
Out of Service

See how Austin's service industry workers were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of photographer Amar Gupta.
 
Peter Shen
Doors

Enter the diverse world of architectural thresholds through Peter Shen’s photographs of doors, which encompass designs from all around the world. 
 
FOTOATX
Discussion Panel via Zoom
August 17 at 6 PM REGISTER HERE

FotoAPA (Asian Pacific Austenite): Five Texas Photographers in Conversation

Join AARC's lineup of contemporary Asian American photographers discussing the art of picture making in Texas. Featuring artists: Amar Gupta, Ben Aqua, Lizzie Chen, Rama Tiru and Sherwin Rivera Tibayan.

For more information, visit AustinTexas.gov/Page/FotoATX.

Austin Parks and Recreation Department (PARD) is proud to announce that the Our Parks, Our Future Long-Range Plan has won a 2021 National Planning Excellence Award from the American Planning Association (APA). APA’s National Planning Awards program recognizes outstanding planning efforts that help lead communities forward to a stronger, more equitable, and sustainable future. Award recipients are selected by a jury of planning practitioners and only one award recipient is selected in each of the four award categories.  

PARD's Long Range Plan provides a blueprint to guide land acquisition, capital improvements, and the development of programs and new amenities. The planning effort began with inventory, evaluation of park and facilities, an analysis of demographic data, and trends and industry standards for parks. Public outreach played a critical role throughout the process with in-depth engagement of citizens, park supporters, conservancies, neighborhood associations, nonprofit organizations, and public partners. 

“Austin’s Parks and Rec plan illustrates the vital importance of public and green space within a community, but also demonstrates how those spaces must be accessible to all members of the community regardless of race, ability, or gender,” said Kristen Asp, AICP, 2021 APA awards jury chair. “The jury was impressed with the strong level of accountability built into the plan so the community continues to be part of the planning process.”