About the Day

Please RSVP for FREE entry. All Parking at West Valley College with free shuttle service to the event.

This free community festival is held throughout Montalvo’s grounds to honor International Earth Day (April 22, 2024). Enjoy food trucks, environmentally themed hands-on workshops, demonstrations, performances, music, Santa Clara County Park Ranger led hikes, and more. Engage with a range of events for every generation that will raise awareness of nature, celebrate the planet, and advocate for environmental justice. Learn from the community, engaged artists, our own Garden Curator, and more.

Bring your family and spend a wonderful day in the park at Montalvo as we celebrate environmental diversity in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Participating artists, artisans, food trucks, musicians, and environmentalists will all contribute their unique perspectives to this gathering, seeking to build common experiences through inclusive arts and Earth Day programming.

Activities
  • Montalvo Service Group Pop-Up Shop: Handcrafted items created by members of our Montalvo Service Group
  • NANO Science Art Collective Installationn: Santa Clara University Art & Art History Department (Cottage Gallery)
  • KPOP Dance Lessons with Lyn Azucena: Join Summer Camp dancer/instructor Lyn Azucena and learn the hottest dance trending moves spanning the globe!
  • Sculpture & Illustration Drop-in workshops with James Green:  Join Summer Camp artist/instructor James Green to explore basic clay skills and illustration skills utilizing nature as inspiration.
  • Santa Clara County Park Ranger Led Hikes Join Santa Clara County Park Rangers on a hike up into the hills behind the Villa and look out over the valley.
  • Storytime with Marcus Curatorial Fellow Clara Kamunde
  • Earth Day Button Making Drop-in workshop: Draw, color, and make your own button from our Montalvo Earth Day templates!
  • ArtSplash Scavenger Hunt Make the most of your day at Montalvo! Play and win!
  • Earth Day Face Painting Station
  • Earth Day Temporary Tattoo Station featuring A Path Forward
  • Chalk The Walk
  • The God’s Eye Yarn Drop-in workshop: Ojos de Dios (oh-ho-day-DEE-ohs), “god’s eyes,” are ritual objects made by the Huichol (wet-chol) indigenous people of Mexico. The Huichol symbolism of the god’s eyes is primarily associated with the prayers for their children – prayers for a good long life, protection and to insure abundant crops. The ends of the sticks represent the basic elements – earth, water, wind, and fire, and the four cardinal directions – north, south, east and west. The center of the eye symbolizes the power of seeing and understanding things we normally cannot see. Huichol people weave a pupil of black yarn or place a mirrored disk in the center of the God’s eye where the sticks cross to enhance the vision of the god’s eyes.
  • Paint + Plant Workshop with Jess Tunis: Paint your little terracotta pot and plant succulents to take home.
  • Lucas Artists Fellow Gretchen Ernster Henderson’s Dear Body of Water Project: How do you care for water? Drop-in and join this collage and writing activity while learning about Wildcat Creek and watersheds near and far. Find your voice to take action, protect, and understand how water interconnects us. Dear Body of Water is a poetic water-harvesting project using mail-art and digital participation to address bodies of water as fellow beings on this Earth to cultivate care for watersheds.
  • Montalvo’s Garden Curator Ann Northrup
    • 1pm & 3pm : Join the 30-minute Montalvo Garden Tour
    • 2pm : Join the Expand Your Garden Demonstration with Montalvo’s Garden Curator Ann Northrup: Learn about plant divisions and cactus cuttings
  • Solar Observing with Unistellar’s eVscope telescopes with SETI volunteers
  • Lawn Games: corn hole & hula hoops
Performances
  • Sewam American Indian Dance Performance: Sewam American Indian Dance was founded by Eddie Madril, an award winning dancer and educator.  Sewam Dance brings the music, arts and culture of Native American dance to audiences around the world. Specializing in the dances of United States Plains Indians, Sewam Dance has performed across the country and internationally, inspiring audiences and sharing the power and beauty of Native American people.
  • Calpulli Tonalehqueh Performance : Calpulli Tonalehqueh, which means “community of warriors who accompany the sun” in the Nahuatl language. Yei Tochtli Mitlalpilli founded the Calpulli Tonalehqueh in 2004 afterbecoming a father, and says, “There’s a respect for the elements: the fire, the water, the wind, the earth.”
  • KPOPUP Youth Dance Performance Founded by Patrick Santos and Francesca Balagtas in July 2017, K-Pop-Up is a San Francisco-based dance class and cover group that strives to bring diverse groups together through the magic of a shared interest in Korean Pop music.
Ticket Information

Free entry. Please RSVP and select the number of people in your party. No ticket required.

Parking & Shuttles

No on-site parking. Free parking and shuttle service will be available throughout the day from West Valley College.

You may be dropped off at Montalvo through a rideshare service such as Uber or Lyft; however, no rideshare pickup service will be allowed onsite. If you are dropped off, please take the shuttle back to West Valley College when you are ready to leave, and call your ride from there.

ArtSplash! A Montalvo Open House