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The inaugural “A Garden Affair” will transform the idyllic Headley-Whitney Museum grounds into a European-style garden party, with vendors, food trucks, lectures and more. Photo furnished
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The garden show will coincide with the reopening of the Headley Whitney Museum’s storied “shell grotto,” an elaborate manmade seascape that has been closed for repairs since 2011. Photo furnished
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The garden show will coincide with the reopening of the Headley Whitney Museum’s storied “shell grotto,” an elaborate manmade seascape that has been closed for repairs since 2011. Photo furnished
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The garden show will coincide with the reopening of the Headley Whitney Museum’s storied “shell grotto,” an elaborate manmade seascape that has been closed for repairs since 2011. Photo furnished
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The garden show will coincide with the reopening of the Headley Whitney Museum’s storied “shell grotto,” an elaborate manmade seascape that has been closed for repairs since 2011. Photo furnished
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The garden show will coincide with the reopening of the Headley Whitney Museum’s storied “shell grotto,” an elaborate manmade seascape that has been closed for repairs since 2011. Photo furnished
The sprawling grounds of the Headley-Whitney Museum of Art, Lexington’s historic and picturesque farm-turned-museum, will be transformed into an idyllic European-style spring garden party at the end of this month with the launch of a new annual event that organizers are billing as a celebration of “all things garden.”
Featuring dozens of garden vendors, children’s activities and lectures by renowned local and national garden experts (including Ben Page, considered to be one of the leading landscape architects of the South), the event is the brainchild of Headley-Whitney board president Martine Head. Head said she was inspired by the outdoor garden shows in her native Europe.
“In Europe, the garden shows are often outside on the lawn, so I thought that the front of the library was the ideal place for our first A Garden Affair,” said Head, who has served as board president for the past two years. “The Headley-Whitney Museum of Art is a very inspiring place of calm and beauty amongst the gorgeous fields of central Kentucky.”
“Most of the antique home and garden shows around [Lexington] are inside, and they’re kind of like expos,” explained Alex Huber, a spokesperson for the museum. “This is different because you will be able to purchase products directly from our vendors.”
The event will kick off on Thursday, April 26, with A Garden Affair Fête, a ticketed preview event featuring botanic-themed cocktails and appetizers prepared with fresh local produce. For the three-day main event, vendors will line the museum’s lawn with a diverse array of plants and garden-related items available for purchase; the site will also feature different local food trucks each day of the event and garden-themed creative activities for the kids. In addition to Page, featured gardening experts will include Andrew Wulf, Philippe de Boncourt and Tom Kimmerer, all of whom will be giving lectures throughout the weekend (lectures will be ticketed separately from the regular admission price).
The event coincides with the Headley-Whitney Museum’s efforts to refresh its programming and grow new audiences as it approaches its 50th anniversary in 2018 – notably, it also coincides with the reopening of the museum’s “Shell House,” an intimate and surreal grotto filled with thousands of seashells that has been closed to the public for repairs since 2011. A surreal manmade seascape just 10 minutes from downtown Lexington, the much-storied grotto was transformed from a three-car garage into an entertainment space by the museum’s founder in 1973.
“George Headley bought this fabulous chandelier that looks like it was pulled from the ocean floor and decided to hang it in the garage,” said Headley-Whitney executive director Amy Gundrum Greene. “He also won a lot of shells at auction and needed to do something with them, so he decided to glue them up around the room. He worked with some friends that summer on putting up the shells. It stopped being a garage at that point and became more of an entertaining space.”
Headley, an eclectic jewelry designer, and his wife, Barbara, founded the museum, which is one of Fayette County’s oldest cultural institutions, in 1968. In addition to hosting a rotating series of art exhibits, the museum permanently hosts an eclectic collection of jewelry, bibelots (French for “knickknack”) and dollhouses, and also features a rose garden that opened in 2004. With several unique buildings juxtaposing Greek, English, French and Thai architecture set in the middle of horse country, the museum is a striking venue often used for weddings or other special events.
“The museum works hard to offer a wide variety of exhibits and programs throughout the year to appeal to many groups of people,” said Greene, who added that the fact that the museum isn’t necessarily tied to any one type of art helps provide it an opportunity to foster knowledge, enjoyment and appreciation of art in general in Lexington.
Looking ahead to the museum’s 50th anniversary next year, Greene says that events like A Garden Affair, plus the freedom to curate a wide variety of shows in coming years, are part of the efforts to draw new audiences to the historic space.
“It is our hope that this should become an annual rendezvous of garden lovers – for them to see examples, and exchange ideas and knowledge of the outdoors,” added Head. “In the world we live in, we also hope that we can fulfill a need for younger souls to be exposed to nature and all the positive feelings it brings.”