News & Events - Monday, May 16, 2011 23:32 - 4 Comments

Art and Music in the Gardens: June 4-5, 2011

“Artists and Gardeners Present Signature Event in Beautiful, Multi-Acre Gardens on the Lake. Free Admission

“Art and Music in the Gardens” brings together Oakland’s vibrant art and gardening communities in a signature event hosted in the multi-acre Gardens at Lake Merritt and  Lakeside Park Garden Center, 666 Bellevue, Avenue, June 4-5, 10am-6pm.

More than 50 artists will be featured, showing and selling their art in the Garden Center and the Gardens. Event Honorary Chair and noted muralist Dan Fontes will lead a giant butterfly painting event in the Gardens.

Musical ensembles, playing acoustically under the redwood trees, will delight families with classical, jazz, folk, blues, and ancient Japanese flute.

A Poetry Festival will include an afternoon series of Oakland poets reading under the old oak tree; an all day Zine exchange booth (bring one — take one home) and a morning ekphrasia (writing about the art) open to all wishing to participate.

Also taking place throughout the weekend in the Gardens’ 11 horticultural collections (several are nationally renowned) will be gardening talks, exhibits and demonstrations: Alameda County Master Gardener’s in the Edible Garden, pruning demonstrations in the Japanese Gardens, along with Bonsai trimming and landscape design tips for the East Bay. The Gardens at Lake Merritt were recently named a Top Five California Public Garden by AAA’s “via Magazine.”

Delicious picnic fare will be available from Chef Robert Dorsey III of Blue Oak at the Oakland Museum of California.

Free to the public, the two-day event is being produced by the Friends of the Gardens at Lake Merritt (FGLM), Arts and Creative Expression (ACE) and the City of Oakland.  Continue…