OUT & ABOUT

Lady Bird Wildflower Center turns a new leaf

Serious environmentalism altering the Lady Bird Wildlife Center; parties for Planet Cancer and Zilker Summer Musical

By Michael Barnes
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, May 06, 2008

The memory of the late Lady Bird Johnson lingered on the breeze. And before the evening was over, it seemed a generational shift had altered the sensibility of her namesake wildflower center, as anyone witnessing its annual gala and art auction on Friday could observe.

The Johnson clan and their longtime friends had not skipped that cornflower spring dusk on La Crosse Avenue. Luci Johnson was there, spreading wisdom like bone meal around the garden. (Texas Monthly editor Evan Smith looked like he was taking studious mental notes while Johnson schooled him off to one side.)

Yet the ages and professions represented at the $500-a-plate dinner embraced a broader range of Central Texans than one might have expected. And the auction art: No dowdy bluebonnets on offer. Lots of exquisite, nature-inspired paintings, sculptures, prints, etc., but nothing that would look out of place in the finest galleries or museums.

We talked with scientists, architects, lawyers, techies, the owner of a collision repair service who'd recently moved his family here from Mexico City, members of families mantled in ancient power and bubbling kids attending their first gala. We also met Ken Gladfish, new high-spirited director of the Austin Community Foundation, and Becky Beaver, who has urged the center in admirable new directions.

We sat between photographer Nancy Scanlan, always the pinnacle of good taste, who traced her relations with present friends through her native Beaumont and her introduction to Austin, St. Stephen's School; and Sharon Watkins, who told vivid anecdotes about her recent trip to France and the ideas she imported for Chez Zee, her Northwest Hills eatery which now seems virtually downtown.

Scanlan's companion, John Watson, told a delicious story about Hollywood star Anne Baxter despising Zachary Scott's old-fashioned mother while visiting Austin, and another about the neighborhood youths vying to swim with the shapely granddaughter of architect Frank Lloyd Wright and star of "All About Eve."

But the lasting change, clearly evident throughout the evening, was the ongoing and evolving seriousness of the center's mission: environmental sustainability. Not just packets of wildflower seeds distributed to bonnet-wearing gardeners — that's a stale stereotype anyway, sorry — but ambitious study and advocacy of ecological issues. I'm looking forward to the center's new arboretum and its continued work greening Austin, Texas and the nation.

Lady Bird, like the night, must have smiled.

The Zilker Summer Musical turns 50 this year. And the celebratory socializing is already under way. Saturday, at the handsome but modest Westlake home of Patiand Bruce McCandless, children rolled on the steep lawn, youths nibbled on wholesome snacks and Zilker stalwarts recalled decades of show tunes shared by the institution, which traces its heritage back to the hootenannies staged by hillside theater namesake Beverly Sheffield during the Depression.

As Dustin Struhall tinkled the age-old ivories, Zilker regular Laura Powell sang the title song to this year's offering, Disney's "Beauty and the Beast," which opens at Zilker Park in July. Then Molly Wissinger spun a silver spin on two numbers, including "A Change in Me," which was added during the show's long Broadway run at the request of then-star Toni Braxton. (Can't you imagine Broadway-ready Syesha Mercado from "American Idol" in a role like this? Pray that she ousts Jason Castro. Pray.)

The assembled party heard from board members concerned with funding for the show, which, during my nearly 25 years in Austin, has always suffered from a lack of financial firepower. After all, it's a resolutely egalitarian, community affair, with local artists and local audiences participating for free (or close, if you count the parking fee and artist stipends). Compare the social lambs assembled here, for instance, with the lions who gathered for the Wildflower Center event the night before. Would that the lions dwelled with the lambs more often for the greater good.

Planet Cancer is the kind of grassroots effort I associate with the New Austin so often ridiculed by people who don't bother to socialize with those folks filling up downtown's high rises and other newcomer nodes, like the dreaded East Austin lofts. Founded by Heidi Adams and friends to galvanize young professionals around cancer awareness, the group grew swiftly from a few dozen well-meaners squeezed into a single residence to Saturday's spectacular, sun-brushed Flamingo-A-Go-Go party on the pool deck of AMLI on Second.

Looking south, east and west over the apartment's parking garage — the streamlined building is 70 percent leased — this deck reminds me of hotel poolsides in Los Angeles or South Beach. The party was suitably powered by trimly clad men and women, all splashed with shades of pink, including feather boas for those who forgot to wear the key color. We snuck a few minutes aside with co-chairs Krisstina Wise and Courtney Clark, finding that the event was sold out with 600 attendees, expecting to raise at least $75,000. I left early for subsequent social commitments, but couldn't help wondering how long it took for somebody to tumble into the inviting pool. 10 p.m.?

For photos and reports on the Out & Equal, Austin Star Map, L Style, G Style and Texas Folklife parties, see Thursday's edition of Out & About in Life & Style.

Out & About appears Tuesdays and Thursdays in Life and is updated frequently at austin360.com/out

andabout. mbarnes@statesman.com; 445-3970.