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Tag: Smithsonian Associates

  • Saturday, April 25 – Thursday, April 30 – Outdoor Arizona

    Meet in Arizona and embark on a springtime Smithsonian Associates exploration of some of the Grand Canyon State’s best-known sites (as well as hidden gems) that highlight its rich ecology, geology, stunning landscapes, and architectural masterworks. Wayne Ranney, a geologic educator, author, lecturer, and trail and river guide, leads the outdoor adventure on April 25 – 30. Start your Arizona explorations at Boyce Thompson Arboretum, the state’s oldest and largest botanical garden, set in a beautiful natural environment along Queen Creek Canyon in the Sonoran desert. Featuring plant collections from the world’s deserts, the arboretum is on the National Register of Historic Places and is also considered an important birding area.

    Next, uncover the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin West. On a guided tour, learn about the innovative designs and philosophies that define this architectural masterpiece set against a desert backdrop. Delve into geology and history in Sedona, where red-rock formations and vibrant landscapes inspire awe. Take a Jeep tour into the canyons; view the hilltop chapel inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright; travel scenic route 89A; and enjoy free time for lunch in the culinary mecca of Sedona. Travel to the Grand Canyon’s South Rim and set off on a 3-mile walk along the scenic Rim Trail with your study leader. Learn about the canyon’s formation and the unique ecosystems that thrive here and spend some free time at the visitor’s center. Visit Antelope Canyon X, known for its breathtaking light beams and swirling sandstone formations. This slot canyon is on Navajo land steeped in cultural significance. A guided tour includes insights into the nation’s traditions and the geology of the area.

    Stop at Horseshoe Bend, formed over thousands of years through erosion of the Colorado River, showcasing both natural beauty and geological processes at work. Complete details and pricing are found at https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/programs/outdoor-arizona

  • Wednesdays, January 28 – March 4, 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm Eastern – The Art of Floral Design, Online

    Learn the fundamentals of floral arranging as this online Smithsonian Associates class covers essential base mechanics, sourcing flowers, working with seasonal blooms, and photographing your work. Study design principles and techniques to build successful, balanced arrangements that reflect your personal style. These core skills are designed to help grow your confidence and give you a strong foundation to approach arranging.
    Special Program Information

    The instructor is Arrin Sutliff.
This program includes 6 sessions, 1.5 hours each.
This program will not be recorded.

    General Information

    This studio arts program is a Zoom Meeting to allow for patron and instructor interaction online.
All Studio Arts programs require an online registration for each participant so that the instructor can provide individual attention to every student registered for the online program.
Please refer to the "Materials for this program" section on the registgration page for any applicable supply list information and/or special documents for this program.

    $160 for Smithsonian members, $195 for nonmembers. Register at https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/programs/art-of-floral-design

  • Monday, April 7, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm Eastern – A Geologic Tour of Iceland, Online

    Explore spectacular scenery and a geologic overview of Iceland in a virtual field trip on April 7 led by volcanologist Kirt Kempter, who has led more than 30 tours to the country for the Smithsonian since his first visit in 1995. Geologic highlights include the boundary between North American and Eurasian plates; unusual volcanoes that form beneath vast glaciers; famous volcanic eruptions including those of the small island of Heimaey in 1973 and ice-capped Eyjafjallajökul in 2010; and older historic eruptions that affected global climate and human populations. Kempter employs maps, photographs, diagrams, and Google Earth images to spotlight the key features that make Iceland a bucket-list destination for all geologists. This Smithsonian Associates program is $25 for Smithsonian members, $30 for nonmembers. Register at www.smithsonianassociates.org. Below: Kvernufoss waterfall in Iceland (Photo: Kirt Kempter)

  • Monday, March 10, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm Eastern – The Rewards of Container Gardening, Online

    Karl Gercens, Longwood Gardens’ conservatory manager, explores the exciting possibilities of container garden design and display in this Smithsonian Associates Zoom lecture on March 10. He surveys the wide range of available container materials, including metal, wood, ceramics, and terracotta, and discusses the importance of carefully selecting the plantings that go into them.

    He provides advice on plants that thrive in conditions of sun, shade, and wind (and even in the presence of animals), as well as tips on watering, fertilization, and pest and disease control. Photos of displays at Longwood Gardens offer inspiration for creating your own container garden. $25 for Smithsonian Associates members, $30 for nonmembers. Register at https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/programs/container-gardening

  • Wednesday, December 11, 6:30 pm – 7:45 pm Eastern – The Potentials of Design: How Architecture Can Address Global Issues, Online

    By the year 2100, the global population is predicted to be 10 billion, 2 billion more than now. To house both these coming multitudes and the billions who are unhoused and under-housed today, an estimated 2.4 trillion square feet of new space will be needed—the equivalent of building an additional New York City every month for 40 years.

    Architect Vishaan Chakrabarti, a former director of city planning for Manhattan, sees this as an opportunity to build a more ecologically healthy and equitable world centered on well-designed communities with new forms of affordable, sustainable housing. Drawing from his latest book, Chakrabarti says that caring for the character and culture of communities can be the key to solving urgent global and political challenges. He also delves into architecture’s relationship to history’s greatest social, technological, and environmental dilemmas.

    Chakrabarti believes that designers, policymakers, and concerned citizens can together forge bonds across society to help deal with issues such as global warming, social and racial division, and local land-use battles. Tapping the work of architects worldwide as well as his own, he explores why urbanity—which he defines as a community inhabited by people from many different cultures and classes who spatially interact—is vital to a world in crisis and how it can be relevant in small villages, academic campuses, refugee camps, and cities of all sizes; how daily car use is hurting the climate and our collective culture; and how urbanity would be best supported by better, more affordable forms of transit-based community housing.

    Chakrabarti’s new book, The Architecture of Urbanity: Designing for Nature, Culture, and Joy (Princeton University Press), is available for purchase. This Smithsonian Associates webinar takes place December 11 at 6:30 pm Eastern, and is $20 for Smithsonian members, $25 for nonmembers. Register at www.smithsonianassociates.org

  • Monday, November 4, 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm Eastern – The World of Carnivorous Plants, Online

    Smithsonian Associates presents an online lecture on carnivorous plants on November 4 with Steve Nicholls. Be careful when you next go into your garden: It’s full of killers. You may be familiar with carnivorous plants such as the Venus flytrap, sundew, or pitcher plant, but a surprising number of plants could be classified as carnivorous—including your geraniums and potentillas.

    Many true carnivorous plants have surprisingly good relationships with insects. Some pitcher plants feed ants and give them a secure home, others are complete miniature ecosystems, homes for creatures ranging from mosquitoes to frogs. A few have even turned vegetarian and eat leaves or, even stranger, serve as rest rooms for tree shrews and subsist on their droppings. Once you delve deep enough, nothing in the world of carnivorous plants is quite what it seems.

    Steve Nicholls, a wildlife filmmaker with a lifelong interest in botany and horticulture who has produced and directed several films on carnivorous plants, examines this amazing natural world in intimate detail. $20 for Smithsonian members, $25 for nonmembers. Register at https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/programs/world-of-carnivorous-plants

  • Monday, October 28, 6:45 pm – 8:00 pm Eastern – Julia Child’s Kitchen

    Julia Child’s kitchen in her Cambridge, Massachusetts, home was a serious workspace and recipe-testing lab that exuded a sense of warm mid-century comfort. On display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History for most of the past 20 years, museum goers have made it a top destination.

    The kitchen contains more than 1,000 parts and pieces—tools, appliances, utensils, furniture, artwork, knick-knacks, books, and bits of whimsy—all reflecting Child’s status as an accomplished chef, gastronome, delightful cooking teacher, television trailblazer, women’s advocate, mentor, and generous, jovial friend.

    Drawing on her new book, Julia Child’s Kitchen, curator Paula Johnson, one of the original collectors and keepers of the 20′ x 14′ kitchen, provides an intimate portrait of Child at home and remembrances of cooking with her and examines how the kitchen’s layout, design, and contents reflect Child’s philosophy of cooking as well as a period of social and cultural change in the United States.

    Hear Johnson, curator of food history and director of the museum’s American Food History Project, discuss the beloved cookbook author and television star’s favorite place in the world—her home kitchen. In conversation with Jessica Carbone, a food writer and historian, she also examines how the legacy Child created in this iconic room continues to influence the ways we cook today.

    This Smithsonian Associates Zoom presentation takes place October 28 at 6:45 pm Eastern. $20 for Smithsonian Associates members, $25 for nonmembers. Register at https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/programs/julia-childs-kitchen

  • Thursday, September 12, 6:45 pm – 8:15 pm Eastern – How We Healed the Earth … and How We Can Do It Again, Online

    Glaciers are melting. Oceans are rising. Surface temperatures worldwide are rising. It’s enough to drive us all into eco-despair. But despair not. We have solved planet-threatening problems before, atmospheric scientist Susan Solomon argues, and we can do it again. The path to success begins when an environmental problem becomes both personal and perceptible to the general public, Solomon says. Healing the planet is a long game won not by fear and panic, she explains, but by the union of public, political, and regulatory pressure. Smithsonian Associates presents the author on September 12 at 6:45 pm Eastern for a Zoom discussion.

    Solomon knows firsthand what those solutions entail. She led an expedition to Antarctica in 1986 that made discoveries key to healing the damaged ozone layer. Solomon connects this career-defining triumph to the stories of environmental victories against ozone depletion, smog, pesticides, and lead to extract the essential elements of what makes change possible. The heroes in these stories range from angry mothers to gang members turned social activists to upset Long Island birdwatchers to iconoclastic scientists (often women) to crafters of brilliant legislation.

    Solomon’s new book, Solvable: How We Healed the Earth, and How We Can Do It Again (Chicago University Press), is available for purchase when registering. $20 for Smithsonian Associates members, $25 for nonmembers. Register at https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/programs/how-we-healed-earth This program is part of Smithsonian’s Earth Optimism initiative.

  • Monday, September 16, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm Eastern – Longwood Gardens: Still Growing, Online

    Smithsonian Associates presents an online lecture on September 16 at 7 pm on Longwood Gardens. For more than 115 years, Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, has been recognized as one of the world’s most important and beautiful collections of gardens and glasshouses. As he explores its indoor spaces, Karl Gercens, Longwood’s conservatory manager, draws on his quarter century of making and maintaining displays that have dazzled millions of visitors. Learn how the historic Orangery went from utilitarian citrus production to now displaying more than 50,000 pots of blooming flowers and trace the East Conservatory’s history of facelifts since its 1927 debut. 

    Gercens also previews the centerpiece of “Longwood Reimagined: A New Garden Experience,” a transformation of 17 acres of its conservatory and grounds. The 32,000-square-foot West Conservatory, scheduled to open in November, is built on the 19th-century tradition of glasshouses and incorporates new sustainable technologies. The steel-and-glass structure’s asymmetrical peaks will rise from a pool on which the entire building will seem to float, and its interior islands of Mediterranean-inspired gardens will be set amid pools, canals, and fountains in a tapestry-like design. Register at https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/programs/longwood-gardens-still-growing $25 for Smithsonian members, $30 for nonmembers.

  • Thursday, September 5, 6:45 pm – 8:00 pm Eastern – Plant-based Cooking: A Harvest of Recipes, Online

    Plant-based eating has been evolving for centuries, creating a base of beloved recipes enjoyed around the globe. Food editor and writer Joe Yonan has spent years reporting on and making plant-based foods and his new book, Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking, spotlights vegan food as a unique cuisine worthy of mastery.

    Yonan collects recipes and essays from prominent food writers in the plant-based sphere, illustrating the abundance of vegan food around the world. The book includes an in-depth pantry section, showing how to create homemade versions of foundational ingredients like milks, butters, stocks, dressings, and spice mixes. Building on these elements, he offers recipes that include Smoky Eggplant Harissa Dip; Bibimbap with Spicy Tofu Crumbles; White Pizza with Crispy Cauliflower and Shiitakes; Enchiladas Five Ways; and Black Tahini Swirled Cheesecake, among many others.

    In conversation with chef and food writer Hetty Lui McKinnon, hear Yonan discuss the richness of global vegan cuisine and share tips for flavorful staples, weeknight meals, and celebratory feasts in your own kitchen. This Smithsonian Associates Zoom talk on September 5 is $20 for Smithsonian members, $30 for nonmembers. Register at https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/programs/plant-based-cooking