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If These Trees Could Talk

When you live to be 500 years old, you see a lot of things. That’s certainly the case with the Austin Treaty Oak, the majestic live oak tree in downtown Austin. The lone survivor from a grove once called the Council Oaks, the tree’s shade was so inviting that it was the place chosen by Comanche and Tonkawa Indians to hold meetings and resolve conflicts. Legend even has it that this was the spot where Anglo settlers, including Stephen F. Austin, met with local Indians to forge a treaty.

The tale of the Austin Treaty Oak—which was saved by the city’s residents after a man tried to poison it in 1989—is one of 20 stories included in Jill Lear’s new book, Witness Trees of Texas. Lear also documented a few trees at the Alamo in San Antonio, and the famed Founders Oak tree in New Braunfels. A landscape artist, Lear has been painting trees for 15 years. In the past, though, Lear was primarily concerned with translating her own reaction to her subjects in an effort to impart the sense of place she felt when painting each tree.

But over the eight years she has been showing her work at Austin’s Gallery Shoal Creek, Lear began to learn more about the significance of live oaks in Texas. “I was originally obsessed with their structure and their beauty,” she says. “But they have so much more interest than just drawing them as subjects.”

The prospect of capturing the stories and imagery of live oaks around the state prompted Lear and her fiancée, writer Bill Fowler, to embark on a 1,300-mile road trip in May of 2014 to visit 20 trees. The couple chose their subjects by examining about 50 trees from Texas A&M’s Big Tree Registry and then culling that number down based on their visual and narrative potential (as well as their accessibility.) Rather than just paint the trees, Lear and Fowler utilized mixed media, including videos and photography. “We realized we wanted a 360-degree documentation, a full story,” she says.

Among the live oaks Lear visited was the Founders Oak in New Braunfels. Given its name during the Texas Sesquicentennial celebration in 1986, the Founders Oak rivals the Austin Treaty Oak for all it has seen. Located in Landa Park, the 300-year-old tree provided shade and comfort to various Indian tribes, Spanish explorers and the German settlers who founded the town in 1845. The tree now has a trunk that’s 17 feet in circumference and its limbs are so thick and sprawling that they seem in danger of toppling their master.

Lear also stopped in San Antonio to see three live oaks on the grounds of the Alamo. Researching the history of the trees proved challenging, though Lear managed to document a bit of history herself. While there, she photographed a white cat in one of the trees. Only later did she found out that the cat was C.C., the Alamo’s longtime official cat. Not long after Lear left, C.C. passed away. But the cat lives on in Witness Trees of Texas. “We have her immortalized in a two-page spread,” she says.

Learn more about Witness Trees of Texas at jilllear.com