In this fast-paced, encouraging, and non-competitive workshop, participants will use materials they are comfortable with to create a composition on the Sunnylands gardens while exploring the technique of using negative space to define subjects. A group discussion at the end of the workshop will consolidate the new way of looking at the subject.
Materials: Students should bring the materials they are familiar with using: oil, pastel, watercolor, charcoal, pencil, and canvas or paper to draw on. Bring a small easel or a stiff surface to mount paper or canvas. Please wear a hat and bring a refillable water bottle. If students are using oil paints, a tarp must be brought.


Instructor: International painter Gianne de Genevraye has focused on residencies and exhibitions in public spaces in France, Italy and California. As a native Californian, she is acutely aware of water as a precious resource and is using her painting to make the connection between public gardens using drought-tolerant landscaping plants and their incredible, complex beauty.

Painting from life in a beautiful outdoor setting can be both exhilarating and challenging. In this workshop, landscape painter Jessica Schiffman will introduce her step-by-step method to help simplify and organize what is seen and capture rapidly changing light and shadows. Some painting experience is recommended.
Materials: Students should bring the materials they are familiar with using. However, the instructor includes a Materials list.


Instructor: Jessica Schiffman’s oil paintings are focused on both the landscape and the human figure in motion. A full-time artist for over two decades, her background also includes illustrations for sixteen children’s books, and recently, two murals. Jessica’s teaching experience includes the Idyllwild Arts Academy and Summer Program, as well as the Desert Art Center and the Create Center for the Arts. Her work can be seen at the Bill Anson Gallery in Cathedral City, and the Middle Ridge Gallery in Idyllwild. Jessica holds a BFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute.

Based on a true story, The Perfect Game is a comedy, drama about group of boys from Mexico who become the first non-U.S. team to win the Little League World Series. Directed by William Dear in 2009, The Perfect Game is a perfect family film. Rated PG. Run time: 1 hour 58 minutes. See full summary and more information here.


  • Gate opens: 7 pm
  • Film begins: 7:30 pm
  • Friday, September 15: My Family
  • Friday, September 22: A Better Life
  • Friday, September 29: The Perfect Game
  • Sunnylands Center & Gardens,
  • 37977 Bob Hope Drive,
  • Rancho Mirage, CA 92270
  • Filmgoers are encouraged to bring lawn chairs, blankets, and small picnic items for the outdoor screening. Large coolers, alcohol, smoking, and pets are not permitted. Please see information about Sunnylands policies regarding pets and picnics. With limited parking, carpooling is strongly advised. Admission is free.


    Films on the Great Lawn are presented in partnership with the Palm Springs International Film Festival.



    For more information please contact the education department at 760-202-2234 or email education@sunnylands.org.

    A Better Life, released in 2011, tells the story of a father who struggles to keep his son from the gangs in East L.A. and immigration agents, while also giving his son more opportunities than he had. This Oscar nominated movie was directed by Chris Weitz. Rated PG-13. Run time: 1 hour 38 minutes. See full summary and information here.

  • Gate opens: 7 pm
  • Film begins: 7:30 pm
  • Friday, September 15: My Family
  • Friday, September 22: A Better Life
  • Friday, September 29: The Perfect Game
  • Sunnylands Center & Gardens,
  • 37977 Bob Hope Drive,
  • Rancho Mirage, CA 92270
  • Filmgoers are encouraged to bring lawn chairs, blankets, and small picnic items for the outdoor screening. Large coolers, alcohol, smoking, and pets are not permitted. Please see information about Sunnylands policies regarding pets and picnics. With limited parking, carpooling is strongly advised. Admission is free.

    Films on the Great Lawn are presented in partnership with the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

    For more information please contact the education department at 760-202-2234 or email education@sunnylands.org.

    My Family is an epic 1995 drama, following a family through three generations of tragedies and triumphs. Directed by Gregory Nava, this film won Academy acclaim in 1996. Rated R. Run time: 2 hours 8 minutes. See full summary and information here.


  • Gate opens: 7 pm
  • Film begins: 7:30 pm
  • Friday, September 15: My Family
  • Friday, September 22: A Better Life
  • Friday, September 29: The Perfect Game
  • Sunnylands Center & Gardens
  • 37977 Bob Hope Drive
  • Rancho Mirage, CA 92270
  • Filmgoers are encouraged to bring lawn chairs, blankets, and small picnic items for the outdoor screening. Large coolers, alcohol, smoking, and pets are not permitted. Please see information about Sunnylands policies regarding pets and picnics. With limited parking, carpooling is strongly advised. Admission is free.



    Films on the Great Lawn are presented in partnership with the Palm Springs International Film Festival.



    For more information please contact the education department at 760-202-2234 or email education@sunnylands.org.

    Sunnylands Center & Gardens reopens for the season, offering tours and public programs.

    The Center & Gardens is open Thursday through Sunday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
    There is no fee and no reservations are required for entry to visit the Center & Gardens.


    Tickets for Sunnylands’ popular historic house tour are on sale. Tickets for this $48 tour — featuring the art, architecture, and history of the historic Midcentury Modern house — can be purchased only through the Sunnylands website, www.sunnylands.org.

    Sunnylands President David J. Lane

    Sunnylands president David Lane and trustee Diane Deshong addressed Coachella Valley civic and community leaders, along with longtime Annenberg family friends and colleagues, during a reception at the Center & Gardens on Feb. 28, offering thanks for the “friendship, partnership, and the support you show for Sunnylands.”

     

    Palm Springs Mayor Robert Moon, Riverside County Sheriff Stan Sniff, La Quinta Councilman Steve Sanchez, and Sunnylands audit committee member Bill Powers, a former Indian Wells Councilman.

    More than 100 people attended the gathering, including leaders from non-profit and cultural organizations, Riverside County’s top law enforcement officers, elected officials and staff from the cities of Cathedral City, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, and Rancho Mirage, along with state and federal representatives.

    Sunnylands trustee Diane Deshong with Rancho Mirage Mayor Ted Weill and his wife, Jenny Weill, at Sunnylands on Feb. 28, 2017.

    Lane, the former U.S. ambassador who became president of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands in September, vowed to “continue to bring world leaders to the area with an ambitious goal of trying to tackle some of the world’s greatest problems.” In addition, he emphasized that Sunnylands will continue to be an active local partner offering educational and cultural programming that enriches the lives of all who live in the region.

    And, he said, Sunnylands will strive do so with the style and grace of its founders, Walter and Leonore Annenberg. In a divided world, he said, “I interpret our mandate as trying to heal divides.”


    Sunnylands Center & Gardens reprises its popular Music in the Gardens concert series with a free musical act each Sunday in March from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The public is invited to stroll in the Gardens or bring a lawn chair and have a picnic on the Great Lawn while enjoying the performances.

    The line-up this season includes:
    March 5 – Mutts of the Planet: San Diego vocalist Robin Adler and her husband, instrumentalist and music producer Dave Blackburn, have assembled a band that celebrates the music of singing legend Joni Mitchell, along with selections from the Great American Songbook, British rock, bossa nova, and their own compositions.

    March 12 – Songwriters Showcase: This mid-day concert features performers Deborah Liv Johnson, known for the eclectic nature of her songwriting and deft guitar and vocal skills; and Dennis Roger Reed, who has played as a solo artist and with bluegrass, folk, rock, and blues bands for more than two decades. Musician Don Reed will join Rogers on guitar, mandolin, lap steel and more.

    March 19 – Jazzgrass: Idyllwild resident Barnaby Finch assembled Jazzgrass in 1999 to honor the newer and more progressive side of bluegrass. Multi-instrumentalist Don Reed is a featured member of the group. Others include Sam Zorn (fiddle), Bill Saitta (bass), Jeff Olson (drums).

    March 26–Barry Baughn Blues Band: Barry Baughn and his band are well-known throughout the Southern California blues circuit and beyond. Baughn is the lead guitarist, vocalist, and sometime songwriter for the band.

    Concert guests are invited to bring food and picnics, but large coolers, ice chests, grills, and alcohol are not permitted. Seating is not provided. Guests may bring their own chairs. No reservations are required.

    Sunnylands Center & Gardens is located at 37977 Bob Hope Drive in Rancho Mirage.

    The plants are young now, but if all goes well in the coming months, some will burst with showy red, yellow, pink, and purple flowers. Others will mature with a decidedly lower profile, branching out over the ground to add beauty and texture to their surroundings.

    On the historic estate and at the Center & Gardens, the Grounds Department is installing new varieties of plants to spruce up areas that are now more accessible to the public or where experiments in cultivating drought-tolerant foliage failed to take root.

    The most visible of the new plantings is in the circular garden plot directly in front of the Center. Swaths of agave cupreata are being replaced with agave chrysantha. It may not sound like a big change, but it is. The agave cupreata had grown too large, overwhelming the golden barrel cactus beside it and interfering with sightlines of the Center, said Superintendent of Grounds Drew Kerr.

    The profile of the agave chrysantha is smaller, Kerr said, and it has a reputation for standing up to the heat, an important attribute in a garden space drenched in the reflective heat of the paved driveway surrounding it. The desert heat killed an initial attempt to populate the garden with angelita daisies. Agave chrysantha, also known as the golden flower century plant, does bloom with a beautiful yellow flower. But it does so only once after roughly 100 years, and then it dies. So don’t expect flowers in that space anytime soon.

    On the historic estate, however, flowers will be more plentiful in at least two areas undergoing a makeover. Near the driving range tees, just before guests on tour shuttles reach the main house, new plantings lie in a bed of mulch where tall grasses failed to thrive as Sunnylands groundskeepers intensified their water-conservation efforts during the California drought. In time, visitors should see splashes of color from the collection of flowering verbena, “little ollie” shrubs that resemble olive trees, a thick bluish grass known as Daniella Cassa Blue, and a type of deer grass that will sprout pink tassels to complement the nearby oleander.

    The new plantings are an example of Kerr’s attempts to find the right drought-tolerant plants that will allow him to recreate and maintain the historic look of the grounds immediately surrounding around the house.

    “The less you water them, the more the roots get going real deep,” Kerr said of the plants, adding that eventually the landscaping should have a continuous flow of vegetation.

    The same can be said for an area near the golf course’s third tee that once was bare but recently has been dotted with such plants as desert marigold, landscape roses, deer grass, Ruellia, cactus, and Sentinel Maiden grass. Open Air tour shuttles run through this newly groomed territory along the south side of the estate, and the Grounds crew has arranged the plants in clusters – in separate gardens if you will – to create a tableau of “constant visual interest” for visitors, Kerr said.

    With names like “party favor” and “piña colada,” the different hybrids of cactus alone will produce a “striking” bouquet of flowers on the edges of their pads, he said. “They’re pretty amazing.”

    Sunnylands Center & Gardens will participate in this year’s Great California ShakeOut.

    At 10:19 am, an earthquake preparedness drill takes place across the state. All visitors to Sunnylands will take part in the drill and be required to evacuate the building to a safe location as directed by staff and security. A number of organizations will be at Sunnylands to share information on earthquake preparedness:

    Families are encouraged to participate. Programming is appropriate for homeschoolers. For more information, please contact the education department at 760.202.2264 or education@sunnylands.org.