events calendar

The Bloomington Community Farmers’ Market is located at 401 N. Morton St. next to City Hall – Showers Building. Locally grown produce, annual and perennial plants, and a variety of prepared foods are available. Purchase your food directly from farmers and ask them questions about their products. Local entertainment adds to the shopping as well as socializing experience. Tantalizing scents and the inviting atmosphere may cause you to make the Market a weekend tradition.

This celebration on May 5th increases awareness of our National Forest and provides volunteers the opportunity to contribute to taking care of their public lands. YOU can make a difference, and together there’s no limit to what we can accomplish.

Groups and individuals are welcome to help with a variety of projects between 9 am and 5 pm for all ages (i.e. pond sites, planting wildflowers, maintaining trails, planting trees, etc). Transportation will be provided for individuals.

There will be a free cook-out from 5-6:30 pm following project completion for all volunteers at Hardin Ridge Shelterhouse #1. Appreciation certificates and awards will be given out.

Open to ALL ages, and NO is training required. BUT, wear sturdy boots or shoes, long pants, gloves. Bring a sack lunch, water, and a friend. If you have a group interested in participating together, please notify them at the number provided prior to April 20. Free camping at Hardin Ridge is provided for all participants on May 4th and 5th.

Registration and additional information on website.

New exhibits at the Ivy Tech John Waldron Arts Center for the month of May include work by Ben Pines, Yang Chen, Angela Hendrix-Petry, and Nate Johnson.

Figure studies by painter Ben Pines meditate on the state of relationships in our modern world; photographer Yang Chen elevates the tiniest details of spring to highlight their effervescent and ephemeral beauty; Angela Hendrix-Petry’s work is described as “An offering in celebration of an ordinary life lived with eyes and heart wide open”; Nate Johnson pays tribute to the musical and cultural figures who inspire and move him.

The exhibit will be open for viewing during regular gallery hours until May 27.

What does jazz look like? Can you see a symphony in your mind’s eye? This art exhibit showcases the watercolor paintings of older adults living at Sterling House, who paint to music. Lotus banners created by Bell Trace residents will also be exhibited. Bell Trace artists draw their inspiration from Alabama artist Thornton Dial and from the quilts made by residents of Gee’s Bend.

Exhibit runs daily from May 1 to May 31. Regular library hours.

This 45-minute class is intended to prepare young children for the arrival of a new sibling, and is appropriate for children aged three to six. An adult must attend with the child. There is no charge for this class, but early registration is encouraged, as class size is limited. Each sibling attending the class will receive a free sibling preparation packet, described below. Please meet in the Center’s waiting lounge just outside of the “E” elevator on the second floor for the nurse to begin the class.

Register on website; to view event page, enter name of event in keyword field and click “Get Results”.

Raymond and Laura Wielgus Gallery of the Arts of Africa, the South Pacific, and the Americas, Focalpoint, third floor Locally produced cotton and indigo dyes continue to play prominent roles in West African myths, beliefs, and ritual practices, in spite of the availability of inexpensive fabric woven and printed in factories. Through this most personal means of expression, West Africans use their indigo-dyed cotton wraps to communicate a wide range of social, political, and religious messages. Visitors to this small installation will gain insight into the meanings of those messages as well as an understanding of the technologies, innovations, and marketing strategies employed by West African weavers and dyers.

Recurring daily through July 1.

Two recently acquired color photographs by contemporary performance artists/photographers Lilly McElroy and the artistic team of Dutes Miller and Stan Shellabarger explore the complications of modern human relationships: one, by playing with gender role-reversal, casual bar-scene encounters, and the use of social media in “hook ups”; and the other, by revealing the unbreakable bond—both in life and in death—of a committed gay couple.

Runs until June 3rd.

Paper cut designs have a long and venerable history concomitant with the development of paper in China, with the earliest extant examples dating to the seventh century. Auspicious and decorative, they often are associated with festivals and celebrations and are given as gifts or purchased to be affixed to doors, walls, lamps, or any surface that would be improved by decoration. This installation features the paper cut work of Qiao Xiaoguang, a professor and deputy dean of the Cultural Department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China, and director of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Research Center.

Runs until May 27

In conjunction with the exhibition Tranquil Power: The Art of Perle Fine, a painting by one of Fine’s contemporaries will be on view. Perle Fine and Charmion von Wiegand worked in similar avant-garde artistic circles in New York in the 1930s and 1940s, and both were strongly influenced by the geometric abstraction of Dutch painter Piet Mondrian.

Runs until June 3.

This installation presents the work of three contemporary Native American artists. It is part of the series, Contemporary Explorations, which features focused, rotating displays from the museum’s permanent collection that explore aspects of art from the 1950s to the present.

Runs until October 14