{"id":134505,"date":"2026-01-23T02:51:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T02:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/134505\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T02:51:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T02:51:16","slug":"a-prairie-of-wildflowers-crowns-fort-worths-sundance-square-garden-gun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/134505\/","title":{"rendered":"A Prairie of Wildflowers Crowns Fort Worth’s Sundance Square \u2013 Garden & Gun"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before Western settlement, grasslands and prairies stretched over much of Texas and the broader continent of North America\u2014ecosystems shaped by Native American activity, cleansing fire, and grazing megafauna like bison. \u201cBut they\u2019ve been lost\u2014overgrazed, plowed, developed\u2014and forgotten, and only little patches of \u2018remnant prairies\u2019 remain,\u201d says the artist and writer James Prosek. He\u2019s on a mission<\/a> to rekindle interest in these complex and once-mighty landscapes, and his most recent project, which follows an exhibition of native plants in watercolor at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art<\/a>, makes use of an unlikely canvas: plaster-faced panels that hide machinery atop the Westbrook, a Deco Revivalist building in Fort Worth\u2019s Sundance Square.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is the world\u2019s largest prairie mural, and it transforms a normally unused space into art at the request of Ed and Sasha Bass, the real estate moguls, philanthropists, and environmentalists who own Sundance Square. The couple plans to make use of more mechanical shrouds for murals in order to highlight different aspects of Texas\u2019s history, culture, and environment; French muralist Youri Cansell created his own ode to butterflies that migrate through Texas<\/a> atop the Commerce Building.<\/p>\n

\"Youri<\/p>\n

Photo: courtesy of James Prosek<\/p>\n

Youri Cansell\u2019s butterfly mural spans the top of the Commerce Building behind Prosek\u2019s wildflowers.<\/p>\n

Fort Worth sits on what is called the Grand Prairie, a tallgrass prairie dominated by species like little bluestem, sideoats grama, and Indian grass. \u201cThis city was built on ranching, and ranching was built on prairies, making grasses pivotal to Texas history,\u201d says Prosek, who hopes his mural will raise awareness for the ancient and underappreciated ecosystem and the need to restore it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

To create the mural, Prosek worked with a team of eight other artists. They transferred Prosek\u2019s designs from his watercolors of the selected plants\u2014all members of the Grand Prairie ecosystem\u2014onto the surface using an Italian Renaissance method called pouncing, in which the artist pricks holes in the outline and passes charcoal over the perforations. Then they replaced the charcoal with graphite and, finally, spent two weeks adding color and detail with a weather-resistant enamel paint. The final product features over one hundred species of native grasses and wildflowers, from Indian blanket to wine cup to four kinds of milkweed, and stretches three hundred feet long and fifteen feet tall, so it can be easily seen from the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Photo: courtesy of James Prosek<\/p>\n

Prosek at work.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Photo: courtesy of James Prosek<\/p>\n

A closer look at Prosek\u2019s flowers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think about the mural as a clearing for nature in this urban space, which hopefully starts a conservation,\u201d Prosek says. One of his favorite moments during the project came when a friend working at a neighboring building sent him a picture of a Cooper\u2019s hawk perched on the edge of the mural, above his painted versions of the grasses it historically would have soared over. \u201cI took it as a sign, and I\u2019m still thinking about it. It\u2019s incredible how nature finds ways to survive, even in the built environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lindsey Liles<\/a> joined Garden & Gun in 2020 after completing a master\u2019s in literature in Scotland and a Fulbright grant in Brazil. The Arkansas native is G&G\u2019s digital reporter, covering all aspects of the South, and she especially enjoys putting her biology background to use by writing about wildlife and conservation. She lives on Johns Island, South Carolina.<\/p>\n