Summer at the Cummer returns this week

The 2024 version of Summer at the Cummer starts this week at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens in Jacksonville’s Riverside neighborhood.

Starting this Friday, the museum will offer free admission from 4 to 9 p.m. each Friday through Aug. 9. The free admission includes live music, games and art-making activities.

Each week a new pair of regional musicians will perform at the museum. Arvid Smith is one of the artists performing this week.

During an interview with Smith at the museum Wednesday, he said he will be using several instruments, including the Sitar — a stringed instrument popular in India — and a Harp guitar, a regular guitar with harp strings on it.

Smith said the museum is his favorite place to perform because of the audience and the people who work there.

“It’s a privilege to perform here because it’s an entirely artistic expressive environment and you’re around all this great art and people are here for a specific reason,” Smith said.

The other musical act this Friday is the group Mama Blue.

During the free events, the entire museum campus will be available for you to check out.

New for this year’s Summer at the Cummer is an exhibit called Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories .

The exhibit shows 44 quilts that represent over 300 years of U.S. history. Jacksonville is the final stop for the touring exhibit that came from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The new exhibit is already on display at the museum and will be open through Sept. 29.

The museum’s learning and engagement director, Kim Kuta Dring, said having Summer at the Cummer gives the public a low-risk opportunity to check out the museum.

“It’s really an important way for people to be able to experience the museum without any financial barriers and also in the evening time when people may be off of work,” Kuta Dring said. “So we don’t necessarily have the opportunity to stay open every single night or always be free, but working with our sponsors and the community, we’re able to provide these free opportunities.”

This is the sixth year of the Summer at the Cummer series. The museum also offers free admission on the fourth Friday of each month and the first Saturday of each month.

For more information on Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories or Summer at the Cummer, go to Cummermuseum.org .

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