Oklahoma awakens with colorful and artistic festivals
While eating breakfast about a month ago, my wife and I spotted a cardinal outside our kitchen window. The bird’s brilliant red color made me long for spring to arrive sooner rather than later! With spring comes beauty as nature reawakens from its winter slumber. So here are beauty-themed events, along with various art and film festivals to enjoy.
Celebrate spring at Oklahoma’s largest spring bulb show at the Tulsa Botanic Garden through April 16. Tulsa Botanic Blooms has 150,000 tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and other spring bulbs. Because the arrangement uses early, mid and late flowering bulbs, it displays well for six weeks.
Weekly Bands & Blooms on Thursdays will start March 23 and run through May 4, with live music from 6-8 p.m.
And Sunday, April 2, is the En Plein Air Painting Exhibit and Sale. Over 15 local artists will be painting in the Botanic Gard and will exhibit and sell their paintings at a reception from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Botanic Garden.
April 8-9, explore over 30,000 tulips in the gardens and enjoy family-friendly activities, food trucks and local vendors on the northeastern part of the grounds at the Myriad Botanical Gardens in Oklahoma City to celebrate spring. Bring your friends inside for wine and painting after springtime picture-taking amid the blooms.
The Azalea Festival has been occurring since 1968. Muskogee’s Honor Heights Park hosts what has become one of the biggest festivals during the month of April. The festival celebrates the opening of azalea, tulip, dogwood and wisteria buds as spring temperatures rise.
Take note of other events such as the April 8 Festival of Colors in Guthrie and the April 22 Tulsa Area Iris Society Show at the Tulsa Garden Center.
Enjoy the arts this spring
The upcoming calendar is packed with opportunities to enjoy the arts, too.
Held since 1967, Oklahoma City’s sixday Festival of the Arts celebrates visual, culinary and performing arts. Of course, Global Food Row is a Festival of the Arts fixture. After viewing the wonderful, original artwork, festivalgoers can taste the delicious ethnic food or the festival’s classics.
On the first Friday of every month since 2007, the Tulsa Arts District has hosted the First Friday Art Crawl, when locals and visitors alike can peruse the district’s various art galleries.