Secret Garden

Hello All! I hope you are having a good weekend. We are enjoying some hot, humid weather down here in the BIG T. Today, I visited one of my favorite Austin treasures, the Umlauf Sculpture Garden. You can look at their official website on the right hand side of my page, in the "check these out" area. Charles Umlauf was a professor at the University of Texas, one of the founding teachers of the school of art. He was brought here from Indiana to teach life drawing and also ended up forming the sculpture department at the school as well.

When Jon and I moved here a year and a half ago I was out of work for about 8 months. I took some time to kind of look around the area and figure out what was next for me. Of course, during that time I nearly lost my mind on several occasions, as one looking for a job normally does. This is how I came to know the Umlauf. I was determined to make our new home work, to adapt to my new surroundings. Austin makes that pretty easy, there are so many things to love about this city. During my quest for sanity I decided I was going to start volunteering some place - a museum. I have a "thing" for giving tours to people. I would give tours to people at the studio I worked in previously and I really enjoyed it. There is something about helping to open people's eyes and look at things different that really does excite me. Especially in the world of art and design.

The first time I visited the garden I felt like I walked into a different world. It was seriously my sanctuary during that time of my life. It is such a beautiful, peaceful environment. I would walk through the front entrance, and the stress would just kind of melt away. During last spring I was a Docent (fancy word for tour guide) frequently to the school groups that came through the museum. Spring and summer is their busiest time for school and camp tours and it just so happened that I had a lot of time on my hands!Some of Umlauf's favorite subject matters where children (he came from a large family and also had one of his own), woman, mothers & babies, animals (hence Lotus at the top of this page) and religious figures. He was part of a movement back in the 70s that tried to get churches and other places of worship to purchase their statues from local artists rather than from a catalog. Because of this, today Mr. Umlauf has the most pieces of artwork in public places in the state of Texas.
The garden was actually Mr. Umlauf's personal garden. His residence, where his wife still lives, sits right above the garden. When he was alive, it was his showroom for his work. When he passed away he left it to the City of Austin as a way of giving back. I really believe it is one of the sweetest treasures in this city - so enjoy a look around a bit!