New public art projects are popping up in locations around Texas, including the atrium of the Abilene Heritage Square Library, Santa Fe Park in San Angelo, Sycamore Park in Fort Worth, and the San Pedro Creek in downtown San Antonio.
Blessing Hancock, “Energetic,” 2025, installed in Sycamore Park in Fort Worth. Photo: Ralph Lauer
In April, the City of Fort Worth Public Art Program unveiled Energetic by Blessing Hancock, a Tucson, Arizona, artist with more than 60 public artworks situated around the world. At 11 feet tall, Energetic encourages interaction with delicate latticework and rings of inscribed words following the piece’s möbius strip circular shape. The 160 words were collected from community members during a 2023 Juneteenth celebration in Sycamore Park, where the sculpture is now located. Language contributed by members of the public is a frequent feature of Ms. Hancock’s artworks, in keeping with her focus on amplifying voices of the communities where her works will be sited.
In a press release, Ms. Hancock said, “I wanted to create something that felt alive in a place that brings nature, movement, and community together …. What I hope people feel when they experience Energetic is a sense of curiosity and play. You can walk around it, under it, and through it. It changes depending on how you move and when you visit, reflecting the energy of a community that is always evolving and coming together.”
Blessing Hancock, “Civitas,” at the Lewisville Public Safety building.
Photo: Raul Rodriguez
In December 2025, Ms. Hancock completed Civitas, a public artwork stationed at the Tittle McFadden Public Safety Center in Lewisville, Texas. Civitas also includes 72 phrases contributed by community members on the theme of public safety, which were then cut into the 14-foot stainless steel ring-shaped sculpture.
Artist Carlyn Ray and an assistant installing her “Gathered Radiance” glass sculpture in the Abilene Heritage Square Library
In Abilene, Carlyn Ray, a Dallas-based glass artist, similarly engaged community members for her project at the Abilene Heritage Square Library. Unveiled on Saturday, May 16, Gathered Radiance is a 25-foot-tall conglomeration of glass forms resembling liquid bubbles and flowing lines, suspended within the library’s three-story atrium. Of the sculpture’s 400 elements, 100 were made with the participation of community members during artist-led workshops in Abilene. Her process echoed her longstanding work with the public in Dallas, where she runs the Dallas Glass Art community studio and the Art Reaching Out hands-on STEAM education program in Dallas schools.
A community participation workshop for Carlyn Ray’s “Gathered Radiance” glass sculpture in Abilene.
In a press release, Ms. Ray said, “Public art should feel deeply connected to the people and place it represents. When a community participates in the process, the work becomes more than an installation — it becomes a shared reflection of identity, memory, and belonging. Getting to know each community is always my favorite part of the work.”
Gathered Radiance is her latest public art installation in Texas, part of a growing list of sites that includes the Garland Central Library, The Lamplighter School and Ronald McDonald House in Dallas, and forthcoming projects at Dripping Springs Community Library, Fort Worth Botanic Garden, and the new Crandall High School Performing Arts Center.
On Wednesday, May 20, the City of San Antonio Department of Arts and Culture celebrated the 30th anniversary of the city’s public art ordinance by unveiling two new artworks by local artists Diana Kersey and RHYS.
Diana Kersey, “Creatures of the Creek: A Fragile Balance,” 2025
Ms. Kersey’s Creatures of the Creek: A Fragile Balance is a large-scale ceramic sculpture composed of several interconnected geometric elements based on animal, plant, and insect forms. The sculpture responds to the flora and fauna of San Pedro Creek, which flows nearby, with depictions of an anole lizard, a green kingfisher, a cottontail rabbit, a red-eared slider turtle, and nine-banded armadillo common throughout South Texas. Creatures of the Creek is Ms. Kersey’s fourth public artwork for the City of San Antonio.
RHYS, “Metro Radiance,” 2025
Metro Radiance by Rhys Munro, also known as RHYS, is a 15-foot tower of colored glass in shades of yellow, blue, red, pink, and purple. The sculpture stands on a median at the intersection of Santa Rosa and Commerce Streets, casting rainbow colors on the concrete in sunlight. Metro Radiance is Ms. Munro’s first public art commission for the City of San Antonio.
A detail view of Veryl Goodnight, “Back from the Brink,” a bronze sculpture installed along the Concho River Legacy Trail in San Angelo
In San Angelo, the first of many public sculptures has been installed along the the Concho River, an initiative by the Concho River Legacy Trail, a recently formed nonprofit dedicated to honoring the history of the West Texas region through a series of narrative bronze sculptures. Back from the Brink by Colorado artist Veryl Goodnight depicts a prairie woman bottle-feeding a baby bison. Tim Newton, Curator of the nonprofit organization, told Glasstire he was able to acquire the sculpture at auction, and thought it an ideal start to what will become a $30 million project to install 18 bronze sculptural narrative vignettes throughout a former 50-acre golf course reimagined as a themed public sculpture park.
Concho River Legacy Trail in San Angelo
Soon to follow will be a buffalo sculpture by Canadian artist Richard Loffler and a dramatic, 17-foot-tall sculpture of a Comanche Indian titled The Rainmaker by John Coleman, just two among many further sculptures to be installed, with a goal of completing the Concho River Legacy Trail project by 2029. The vignettes were designed by a team led by Mr. Newton, based on stories of West Texas contributed by community members, some with longstanding familial connections to the region.
“This is a thematic sculpture installation that is equal to anything in America,” Mr. Newton said.