By Barbara Arnstein
What’s even better than a summer day in a beautiful park? Spending six hours on a summer day in a beautiful park enjoying exciting music performed by uniquely talented musicians, eating juicy barbeque or the picnic you packed, and socializing with friends. On August 21st, from noon to 6pm, Griffis Sculpture Park in East Otto, NY, is hosting its 9th Annual Summer Festival featuring all of those wonderful things. Of course, you have to provide the friends yourself (maybe you can make some new ones there) and you could provide the picnic, or buy delicious Southern barbequed foods from the Jake & The Fatman food truck that will be there.
Nila Griffis Lampman, the Executive Director of the Ashford Hollow Foundation, which owns and operates the Griffis Sculpture Park and the Essex Arts Center in Buffalo, said “Visitors absolutely love our annual summer festival, which is always on the third Sunday in August. It will be a great day of family fun. The performers are a diverse group of local musical talent”.
The performers include the band headlining the event, Jim Donovan and the Sun King Warriors, which plays rhythm-heavy roots rock featuring energetic drumming. Jim is an original member of Rusted Root and co-author of their huge hit “Send Me on My Way”. The popular Buffalo band PA Line has a unique
harmony-packed, funky, Folk-Rock sound, that’s been described as “Mumford & Sons meets Rusted Root”. The enthusiasm of the Buffalo group, Griffin Brady & Sly Boots Circus, and their uniquely inspiring drumming is sure to get the audience happy and dancing! Olean’s Isaac Spaeth and friends will
perform an exploratory musical piece on Larry Griffis Jr.’s sculpture, “The Castle Tower”. The festival will begin with separate performances by solo artists, Ruby from Buffalo and Mike Strongman from Silver Creek.
There will be a vendor village, a kids’ crafts area, food stands, and beer & wine service. The vendors will sell: ceramics, jewelry, tie-dyed t-shirts, candles and more. The annual event is a major fundraiser for the park, one of the nation’s oldest and largest sculpture parks. There will be a shuttle from the bottom of the hill to the top, but if you walk up, you can see the incredible female sculptures around a pond, that look as if they’re about to dive in. Each person can bring a small cooler, lawn chairs, and blankets.
The park will open at noon, and the bands will start playing at 1pm. The event will take place rain or shine. Tickets are $20 for adults and teens but kids twelve and under get in for free. The entry point for the concert is at 6902 Mill Valley Road in East Otto, NY. All the activities for the festival will be at the Mill Valley Road site, and none will be at the Rohr Hill Road site. However, you can also enjoy hiking and the large and small, surreal sculptures everywhere there. There are over 250 spread out over the
park’s 450 acres and twenty kilometers of hiking trails. Kids especially enjoy the metal sculptures like the giant giraffe, and other animals, among the trees at the Rohr Hill
Road site.
Tickets are available online at eventbrite.com. For more information, call (716) 667-2808.