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Sculpture Garden
You may have been there for the unveiling of our permanently-planted, 200-foot outdoor
Sculpture Garden in Northampton at our Springtime in Paradise show in 2003. See how its grown in just five years! To the delight of gardeners everywhere, so many of the artists and designers at
Paradise City draw their inspiration from the landscape.
From unique outdoor seating to large-scale sculpture, Paradise City's Sculpture garden is a wellspring of fantastic ideas for your home landscape. Stroll through the trees and flowers, relax on a
(handmade, of course) bench with an espresso and cast your vote for the People's Choice Awards for Outdoor Art - your favorite piece designed for display in Paradise City's Sculpture Garden.
More about the garden...
New Century Theater
PaintBox Theatre
Want to enrich your Paradise City experience?
Spend a few minutes with members of New Century
Theatre's 2008 company as they present a few
very short plays designed to amuse and delight
you. Get a taste of NCT's unique blend of new and
contemporary works, regional premieres, and rediscovered American
classics. Each season, New Century attracts the finest actors, directors and
designers to their stages in Northampton, on the campus of Smith College.
Also featured is the acclaimed PaintBox Theatre as they present  a colorful
version of Aesop's Fabulous Fables. Let Tom McCabe and the crew from
PaintBox introduce you to some of the world's favorite characters: a
friendship between a lion and a mouse, a fiddle-playing grasshopper, and
a boy who should know better than to cry, 'Wolf!' Be prepared to join in
and participate!
New Century Theatre and
PaintBox Theatre will alternate performances every day
from noon to 4pm on the stage in the Morgan 2 building.
All performances are free with Festival admission. Please enter the theatre through the rear of the
Sculpture Garden.
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Silent Art Auction
When you get to the show,
make a beeline for the Silent Auction Tables in
the Arena Building, where you can bid every day on hundreds of beautiful
and valuable pieces generously donated by Paradise City artists. Join the
throngs of eager bidders, take home a one-of-a-kind find and support Public
Television at the same time! Read more...
Keep your eyes peeled to WGBY, Public Television of Western New England,
during the month of May to catch the inside scoop on some of the artists who
have donated major pieces to the fifth annual 'Paradise City Collection'.
Log onto www.wgby.org in May to place your bids on these special pieces.
See videos of these featured artists
Celebrate the Earth!
It's a gigantic globe in Morgan 2!
'The planet is a gift, let's take care of
it' is the theme for a communal sculpture project orchestrated by the
Amherst Community Arts Center. The Center has been collecting used
gift wrap, ribbons and bows since December, so there should be a veritable
mountain of colorful, glittery recycled materials available. We'll start with
a huge wood, wire and paper maché globe.
Then kids and adults alike are
invited to create the different continents and bodies of water in a three-dimensional
collage, using color-coordinated pieces of paper and ribbon.
Working with the entire planet highlights the idea that taking care of the
environment and dealing with global warming needs to happen on both a
global and local level. Paradise City's last project with ACAC, the 'Farms of
the Pioneer Valley' mural, now hangs in Jones Library in Amherst.
In addition to the communal project, ACAC will host a series of extra workshops
at the show in Japanese origami, paper-making, a collage sculpture project
and a very cool 'clay creatures' workshop.
 Kids will be able to bring home
all of the objects they create! Children attending the show can also
participate in an 'Art Scavenger Hunt'. As they walk through the show with their
parents, they'll be given a checklist of things to find as they
look carefully at the art on display: such as faces, insects, dogs,
trees, etc.
We have found that this is very effective in engaging children
with the show itself, and it has the added bonus of allowing
their parents to see the Festival anew, through their children's eyes.
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This spring, catch Vicente Garcia's demonstration of expertise on the pottery
wheel at Booth 102. A well-known professor and mesmerizing speaker, Garcia
will be working on the potter's wheel all weekend as he shares his studio
secrets. Admire his large-scale metal sculpture and fiery raku ceramic vessels.
Verne Jidong Yan travels from Toronto to make his debut at Paradise City. His impossibly delicate
silk thread paintings are even more impressive once you've seen him work! Booth 210.
Joe Peters has promised to thrill us with the fire of lampworked glass. He says, 'I really like the way
that glass responds to the flame, allowing me to form and create pieces spontaneously. When I start
a piece I'm never quite sure exactly what the result will be. That's the fun and exciting part
about glass. There are no second chances.' Booth 138 and Courtyard.
....there's always something happening in Northampton and the surrounding area -
