Tulip Time is set for May 2-4 in Pella. But heads up: Sometimes the flowers just can’t wait to bloom.
Just like the lilacs and crab apples, Iowa really comes alive in May. Here are just a few highlights from the first weekend in May, when Iowa’s cultural calendar bursts into full bloom.
First up, there’s Tulip Time in Pella on May 2-4. Four hundred years after “tulip mania” shook things up in the Netherlands, Pella’s Dutch descendants throw a party with more 300,000 tulips and a whole lot of Dutch food, music and cultural activities. (Heads-up — or, technically, down: This year’s flowers are unusually short, due to the dry weather, and they’re already starting to bloom.)
Chalk the Walk in Mount Vernon is Iowa’s largest chalk-art festival, based on a 16th-century tradition from Italy, invites artists to cover downtown’s streets in color. See if for yourself May 4 and 5.
For months, the University of Iowa’s Stanley Museum of Art has been gathering stories about the late Pop artist Keith Haring, who visited Iowa City in the ’80s to create a mural for a local elementary school. The exhibit opens on May 4.
The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art closes its exhibit, “Ravenous: Food in Art,” on May 5. This appetizing show features foodie art from the permanent collection, from Rembrandt’s portrait of “The Pancake Woman” to work by notable Iowa artists like Grant Wood, Marvin Cone and Joan Liffring-Zug Bourret.
