Coastal Companion

Your ultimate guide to the coast

Free Admission Telfair Academy, Savannah

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During the week of April 27 – May 3, 2009 there is free admission at the Telfair Academy.

In 1886 the Telfair family home opened to the public as an art museum and school. It now boasts three diverse sites — the original building, the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, a National Historic Landmark building; the Owens-Thomas House, also a National Historic Landmark; and the Jepson Center for the Arts, a contemporary building which houses 20th- and 21st-century art.

Visitors can view the elegant nineteenth-century period rooms in this former Telfair family mansion, as well as the exhibitions Reframing a Perceptual Paradigm: A Jerome Meadows, Installation and Gaming Tables for Whist, Chess, and Other Amusements, at no charge.

Free week at the Telfair Academy

17th Annual Lighthouse Festival & Michelob Ultra 5K 2009 – St Augustine, FL

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St Augustine has one of the prettiest lighthouses on the coast. If you haven’t visited it yet, here is your chance. On Saturday, March 21, it’s time again for the annual Lighthouse Festival. During the festival St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum will offer free admission to the tower, the museum and the grounds during the festival.

The festival has lots of fun activities for both kids and adults. As always there will be special games and crafts for children, great food, pony rides, and archaeological activities. Children can even buy, build and sail their own model boat in the pond.

Radio Disney AM 600 and the Disney Fun Squad Cast will broadcast live from 11a.m. – 1 p.m. Local entertainers will perform throughout the day including live music from Josh n’ Lou.

The Michelob Ultra 5K Run/Walk and the Shepard & Shepard Fun Run will also be held during Lighthouse Festival courtesy of the Junior Service League of St. Augustine. The 5K Run begins at 4:30 p.m. and the Fun Run begins at 5 p.m.; both races will start and finish in front of the lawn of the keepers’ house. Registrater in advance by visiting the Junior Service League of St. Augustine’s website www.jslofstaugustine.org, or participants on the day of the race from 12:30 to 4 p.m.

Last year about 8,000 visitors came to the lighthouse for the festival throughout the day. Free parking will be available at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre (which is probably your best bet for parking) and there is a shuttle that will take you from there to the festival. Paid event parking will also be available at the Lighthouse & Museum.

This festival takes place on Saturday March 21st from 11 am – 6 pm.

For more information call (904) 829-0745 or visit www.staugustinelighthouse.com

Super Sunday at the Museum

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Right after Superbowl Sunday comes another Super Sunday. On February 8 it’s time for one of Savannah’s most popular events – Super Museum Sunday. On this special day you can take your whole gang to participating museums and historic sites in Savannah without paying admission. The event begins at noon to four pm absolutely free.

Super Museum Sunday is part of Georgia Historical Society’s “Georgia Days”, which is an event lasting for the whole month celebrationg Georgia history. For a list of participating museums and venues, click here.

For more information about the event visit www.georgiahistory.com

Gallery Talk and Reception at SCAD Museum of Art – Savannah

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SCAD Museum of Art presents gallery talk and reception

SAVANNAH GA—Savannah College of Art and Design art history professor Jeffrey Hamilton will present a gallery talk in conjunction with the exhibition, “Town and Country: British Taste in the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries,” Sunday, Jan. 18, 1:30 p.m. at SCAD Museum of Art, 227 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. A closing reception for the exhibition is scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 21, 5-7 p.m. The gallery talk, closing reception and exhibition are free and open to the public.

“Town and Country: British Taste in the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries” will be on display through Jan. 23. The exhibition features approximately 30 works by great English masters that exemplify typical British art across a 75-year span. The paintings depict a world of prosperous merchants and their wives, and of the English landed gentry and aristocracy, as they pose for posterity in their finery. Artists represented include Thomas Gainsborough, Sir Joshua Reynolds and John Constable, a trinity of English masters. A masterpiece by John Constable, an oil sketch titled “Noon” depicting an impending storm on Hampstead Heath, is displayed near an almost contemporary mezzotint engraving of the final painting. Glimpses of the English landscape in drawings by Gainsborough or a hunting scene by Francis Sartorius reveal the taste of the times, as do the fashions as they trace the period’s growing sense of realism and romanticism. Five portraits by Joseph Wright of Derby bring together a particularly strong showing of the artist.

The works are drawn from the museum’s permanent collection and from outside lenders. The exhibition is dedicated to H. Thomas Mauldin and Raymond L. Levin.

For more information about the gallery talk, exhibition and to arrange group tours, call 912.525.7191.