Families gathered at a Whataburger on E. U.S. 290 in Dripping Springs Sunday, making clay tiles meant to help an entire region heal. The free workshop was part of the Kerr County Love Project, a community mosaic initiative born out of the catastrophic Fourth of July 2025 floods, and by the time organizers wrapped up the session, they had a striking tally to share: the project had produced more than 30,000 handmade tiles and reached more than 8,000 people since it began.
That count came from lead artist Wanda Montemayor, as reported by the Hays Free Press. The project describes itself as a large community mosaic built through hands-on workshops meant to reflect the resilience of Kerr County, according to the group's own description posted by The Color of Clay, which notes organizers are building something that captures the joy, resilience and spirit of the region while inviting parents, teachers, kids and neighbors to help shape the collective artwork.
The planned mural consists of 47 panels, most measuring roughly 3 feet by 5 feet, and as of the Dripping Springs gathering, 33 of those panels had already been completed, the Hays Free Press reported. Sunday's tile design included 121 birds meant to represent lives lost in the floods, according to the same report — though other accounts of the project have cited different bird counts, with one putting the figure at 121 and another estimating roughly 130, a discrepancy that remains unresolved across coverage.
A Project Built on Training, Not Just Tiles
Rather than relying solely on outside artists, the Kerr County Love Project trains local educators and artists to lead the work themselves, per the Hays Free Press. Participating educators have come from Ingram, Center Point, Hunt and Kerrville, and two of those local art educators have gone on to write grants aimed at bringing similar tile-making opportunities into their own classrooms.
All of the project's workshops are free, a detail organizers have emphasized as central to making the healing process accessible. The Dripping Springs session itself was supported by Whataburger, the Kendra Scott Foundation and Community Arts, according to the Hays Free Press account of the event.
From Needing Help to Offering It
Montemayor told the outlet that the project has watched its own participants transform over time. “Some who first arrived needing support have become the people offering it,” she said, describing how returning volunteers have begun taking ownership of the effort. She added that every handmade tile carries a message and meaning, and that the project is designed to honor loss while celebrating community identity — noting that grief, in her view, can include joy, laughter, creativity and connection even amid great loss.
Montemayor is an Austin-based art therapist who spent 23 years in public education before opening Community Arts, her art therapy group practice. She previously helped guide a large-scale healing mural in Uvalde, and the Kerr County effort draws on that same model — and the same lead artist — behind what tileletter.com, an industry trade publication, described as the award-winning Uvalde Love Project from 2023.
Lessons From Uvalde's Healing Mural
The Uvalde mural took about 13 months to complete and was partly funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which later recommended Montemayor to assist with the arts response in Kerrville. That earlier mosaic was built from tiles made by more than 2,000 individuals, totaling around 5,000 pieces, and it included 21 glass butterflies representing victims of the May 24, 2022, Robb Elementary School shooting, according to the Austin American-Statesman. It was formally dedicated at Jardin de los Heroes Park on August 26, 2023.
The scale of the Kerr County project now dwarfs that Uvalde total several times over in tile count, reflecting both the wider geographic reach of the Hill Country floods and the growing number of communities the project has brought into its workshops.
Where the Mural Will Eventually Stand
Organizers hope to install the finished mural in January 2027 at the Hill Country Youth Event Center, also known locally as the Ag Barn, per the Hays Free Press. That account aligns with an earlier report from the Daily Times, which said Kerr County commissioners had approved placement of the mosaic at the Hill Country Youth Event Center. However, a separate report from the Hill Country Community Journal has described the project as still lacking a permanent home, stating that organizers were actively seeking a wall in Kerr County — leaving the mural's ultimate destination unsettled across different accounts.
Reported participation figures have also varied between outlets over the life of the project, with earlier counts citing more than 4,300 and then more than 4,500 participants across roughly 30 workshops before the Hays Free Press's more recent figure of more than 8,000 people reached.
Two Workshops Remain
The project has two workshops left before its current phase wraps up: one in San Angelo and a final session at Color of Clay in Kerrville. That Kerrville workshop is scheduled for Sunday, November 8, from 2 to 3:30 p.m., and organizers say they will post further details soon at comarts.us. For families across the Hill Country still processing the losses of the Fourth of July floods, each remaining session offers another chance to press a small piece of clay into something larger than themselves.
