For the 2019 Llano Earth Art Festival, the world of competitive, artful rock stacking turns its attention to Llano and the Texas Hill Country.
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Story by Rosie Carbo
In March 2019, the earth will become a canvas for dozens of international and national artists, thanks to the return of the Llano Earth Art Festival (LEAF) (Facebook) on the weekend of March 15-18. The fifth annual festival is expected to attract thousands of natural-art lovers to Llano, some 65 miles northwest of Austin.
LEAF, held in Grenwelge Park on the banks of the Llano River, is also home to the World Rock Stacking World Championship. Last year, the popular competition attracted hundreds of participants from around the globe to the event situated just one block from historic downtown Llano.
Unique among Texas festivals, LEAF is a hands-on, outdoors experience that also includes kayaking, rock climbing, rock busting and camping. Musical entertainment features Wood & Wire, Vocal Trash and Joe King Carrasco. Visitors will find food and drink readily available for purchase. The festival also features a colorful Leafling Festie Fashion Circus Parade, which judging from the bizarre costumes worn by participants each year, is a hoot. Participants can also attend how-to workshops on yarn making, rock stacking and medicine wheels.
“There’s no other event like this. People come from all over the world to participate. It’s an interactive experience for young and old alike,” said Ron Anderson. “This year we’re expecting six to seven thousand people.”
Anderson, his wife, Binky Morgan, and a handful of residents, started LEAF in 2014. He said brainstorming on how to attract more tourism to the Central Texas town of 3,232 led to the first festival.
“We had our naysayers the first year. We had no money, and there was a lot of skepticism. People asked, ‘Who wants to come to see rocks,’? But the committee worked very hard, and we drew about 2,000 people that first year,” Anderson said.
Participating artists from as far away as the United Kingdom, Scotland, Australia, Spain and other countries are expected to descend on Llano to create art using natural materials on site. American artists from New York, California, Colorado, Texas and other states are expected to do the same.
In retrospect, it was one single, well-known rock artist that inspired many more to travel to Llano the first year LEAF launched, Anderson said.
“Michael Grab is one of the artists who’s been with us from the beginning. He’s like the rock star of rock artists. When Binky reached out to him to ask him to participate the first year, we didn’t know he was so well known by other artists,” Anderson said.
Grab, a Canadian who now resides in Colorado, is a rock-balancing specialist, videographer and photographer. This spring he will be joined by myriad artists in defying gravity with his unique talent for creating precarious art-sculptures and mind-boggling artworks.
LEAF rules require that artworks be created from natural materials found on site. The materials used may include wood, stones, rock, dirt, water, vegetation and the like. The artworks will remain at the Llano River site until after the event.
Some of the gravity-defying rock sculptures are thought provoking, others are whimsical and yet others are earth-shattering. But regardless of the materials used, the artworks will be dismantled out of respect for the earth.
“This is about earth, ecology and nature. We don’t want people to go out and paint a rock. We want humans to interact with nature. So when the festival is over, we remove our footprint,” Anderson said.
Rosie Carbo is a San Antonio-based writer.
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Advance tickets for the Llano Earth Art Festival (LEAF) 2019 event are $15 each online ($20 at the gate). Children 15 and under are admitted for free when accompanied by a paying adult. No dogs are permitted on the grounds. Admission does not include participation in a rock stacking competition or entry into the historic Red Top Jail. Visit www.llanoearthartfest.org for tickets and more information.
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