Stumped by Nature

Welcome to this issue of Stumped by Nature, where we notice nature lurking just beyond our screens, curate a list of outside-y events in Austin, and build community with other folks in the thick of the startup ecosystem.

In this week’s issue:

🖼️ Nature-tangential art

🌤️ Upcoming outdoors events

🚙 Adventures just beyond Austin

Let’s dig in!

-Nicole

PS. There are several community opportunities you could sink into:

a. ATX Outsiders is the batch of newsletter readers who meet IRL outside each month. You could join us.

b. Related: Save the Date: Sunday, June 7. This event combines a topic I wrote about in the fall with a hands on demo from a local pro. Any guesses?

c. Is this newsletter doing anything for you? I’m opening my calendar for one or two slots of strategic thinking work—the kind of project where you need someone to help you see the shape of a thing you’re too close to. If that’s you, email me.

d. Summer Event Series: Have you considered living a little? I’m collaborating with Zac Solomon + ATX Writing Club for a Brain Rot Resistance. The gist: you + a book and notebook + Barton Springs + a bunch of folks carving out time for their brains in community in nature. Join us.

NATURE SPOTLIGHT

You can just do things.

And you don’t even have to be good at them.

And your worth isn’t affected at all by the outcome.

How exciting.

Fresh from a Tuesday evening that felt like a weekend, we’re digging into the nature of nature-tangential art forms. What happens when you sit down, slow down, and create something outside of your norm. And what’s with this impulse to capture, to document, and to lure folks outside to give it a try.

Here’s a field guide to which mediums are worth a calendar block.

Are you craving a chance to cut the noise, clear the distraction, and work in the expanse of removal?

Try: Linocut

Nature involved: Can’t go wrong with birds, but this is dealer’s choice

Materials needed: a little kit with linoleum blocks, linocut tool, ink, transfer paper, brayer, baren, etc.

Why this might appeal:

Linocut requires things that are not the priority to disappear to give shape to the thing that matters. It’s a practice of slowly, methodically peeling back the layers of distraction that crowds the valued outcome. There’s always going to be residue from the previous form, and it’s called chatter—how nice to be on nodding terms with the noise you’ve already survived.

The potential is just a lump if there’s no action. And once there’s momentum, the relief.

Also, you get to gouge something.

Are you craving slow-looking? Big shapes, uninterrupted time, permission to just observe?

Try: Charcoal drawing

Nature involved: Whatever’s in front of you, but I recommend Mayfield Park with toads loud enough to bring conversation to a halt mid-sentence, the 2009 Small Tree of the Year at the edge of the parking lot, and peacocks mid-mating season

Materials needed: sketchbook with acid-free paper, willow charcoal sticks

Why this might appeal:

Harness the power of a beginner’s lens—celebrate the gap between envisioning something and knowing how to execute. A practice of unraveling perfectionism, a default to action, the good enough rendering. Letting the fresh attempts be what they are in the moment—fleeting traces of being in the world and curious.

Are you craving contrast? The dissonance between what’s blocked and what breaks through?

Try: Cyanotypes

Nature involved: found objects—petals, leaves, twigs + the power of the sun

Materials needed: a cyanotype starter kit, including photosensitive chemicals, liquid-friendly paper, + your found nature objects, especially if they’re flat(tened)

Why this might appeal:

You arrange. You expose. You rinse, and the world turns Prussian blue around the silhouette. The obstacle is the journey here. With the added bonus of borrowing a perspective of the world that focuses on the edges, and to see the shadows as proof something was there.

Are you feeling potent? Want something directional, tactile, with a layer of ethical consideration?

Try: gyotaku

Nature involved: fish. Actual fish.

Materials needed: sumi ink, rice paper, perhaps some muslin cloth

Why this might appeal:

Sometimes you just need to rub a fish. To really see what low-on-the-food-chain looks like, with an ink-resistant ooze, thin-lined fins, articulate scales. And there’s a built in incentive to both closely observe and move quickly, to honor the shape and detail of something real. There’s a benefit of occasionally getting into the hands-on work of the work.

Or perhaps, my favorite: making a weekly practice of noticing, of thinking, of sorting the thoughts into words and photos. A love language in sharing and receiving: images of prickly pear, the baby bunny on the trail, those first bluebonnets emerging from the soil, the porcupine strolling the sidewalk, pausing the school morning car loading for the awe.

This is also what Adam Butler’s Cross-Pollinate series keeps demonstrating—rooms full of people considering the world through systems, where artists and builders overlap on purpose. Intentional design for the full spectrum of curiosity, contribution, and care.

The continued question, for all of it: how do we keep enough margin that presence and innovation aren’t in competition.

PSA

UPCOMING EVENTS

14-23

🗓️ May 14: Earth Paints & Mineral Pigments: learn to make your own inks, paints, and crayons. Expect to get wet and dirty.

🗓️ May 14: Movies on the Lake: Encanto We don’t talk about Bruno, but we do sing about him

🗓️ May 15: Bird Walk: To goal is to see birds, but you could walk like one if you wanted to

🗓️ May 15: KUTX Rock the Park: So kid-friendly, there’s a lost kid tent

🗓️ May 16: Grow Huitlacoche on Corn: if you like reading smut, perhaps you’ll also like corn smut? Hands on class involves infecting your own corn with a fungus

🗓️ May 16: Tree ID Walk: Get to know the names of ten native Texas trees

🗓️ May 16: Austin Ruck Club: rucks ready for you to borrow

🗓️ May 16: The Board Walks Step your way into good conversation

🗓️ May 16: Lady Bird Lake Cleanup on paddleboard

🗓️ May 16: 55th Annual Austin Bonsai Society Show & Sale Local artists + ancient art

🗓️ May 17: Walk & Talk: Deep Conversations in Motion: start your Sunday with connection

🗓️ May 17: The Austin Symphony Concerts in the Park: Chamber Ensemble

🗓️ May 19: Bike Night at COTA for Plant Something Day! (I fully support their exclamation point)

🗓️ May 19: Out in Tech x Austin Front Runners: LGBTQ+ Walk & Talk: All paces, backgrounds, and identities welcome

🗓️ May 19: iNaturalist Workshop + Tuesday Twilights at the Wildflower Center. This is peak Tuesday night energy.

🗓️ May 20: Literary Arts Fest Night: Poetry readings on the rooftop patio to get some Laureates in your life

🗓️ May 20: Group Skate, with optional paddleboarding

🗓️ May 20: Groundwater Management Talk: Do you even know what an aquifer is?

🗓️ May 23: Kids on Bikes in Parks There will be glassy parkland, timed laps, and our neighborhood favorite WOOM bikes to test drive

🗓️ May 23: Pirate Prom, with December Yaupon drinks flowing

JUST OUTSIDE OF AUSTIN

🚙 May 14: Sourdough Workshop: hands-on history, science, and art of making dough

🚙 May 15: Intermediate Botany Tour at Spicewood Ranch: the event description includes the words riparian habitat, forbs, and woody plants.

🚙 May 16: From Sheep to Shawl: because of course there’s an active Weavers and Spinners Society ready to discuss yarn spinning

🚙 May 16: Beasts of the Blackland Prairie: ¾ mile walk with a Master Naturalist? Easy yes.

🚙 May 16: Hiking to the Stars: stargaze from the falls + UV-illuminate the nighttime creatures

🚙 May 16: Guided Photography Hike at Westcave: Think limestone crevice, 40-foot waterfall, a 1-chamber room cave

🚙 May 17: Driftwood Heritage Festival: live music, local vendors, oral history, big ol’ tree(s)

That’s all for this week! 

In the meantime, I hope your weeknights are so peaceful and novel and connected that they feel like the weekend.

-Nicole

OPTIONAL SIDE QUESTS

🪵 Are you looking for a community of people in the startup ecosystem who go outside together? I’ve got you.

🪵 Are you sitting on a misogi-esque story? Spill.

🪵 Do you need to commission a writer? I’m happy to discuss projects that might make me cry in public/funnel my experiential/existential dread into essays like this one.

🪵 Is this newsletter not your vibe? Forward it to your enemies to make them suffer too.

💰It’s safe to assume there are affiliate links, and I’ll monetarily benefit from any purchases you make. Hooray, capitalism! So far, this newsletter has generated $3.46 of cold hard cash. 💸