Programs / Events / Services for the Old Bakery & Emporium

2nd Annual MidSummer Festival

Saturday, June 24th, 1 - 4 pm

Our annual Midsummer Festival honoring the Old Bakery & Emporium's Swedish American heritage will be held on June 24th, 2023 from 1 -4 pm!

Mark your calendars and get ready for FREE fun for the whole family!

The festival will include multiple Swedish events and activities, including:

• Live Music by Scandinavian folk artists Mira Dickey & Ian Files (1:30 - 2:15 pm)
• Traditional & contemporary Swedish and Scandinavian songs by the Norrsken Three (“Norrsken” is Swedish for “Northern Lights”) (2:30 - 3:15 pm)
• Live demonstration of Swedish flat-plane wood carving
• Swedish treats by Fika Table
• Flower crown-making station
• Traditional Swedish maypole
• Dala horse piñata’s (3:30pm)

We look forward to celebrating with you!

Click here to RSVP on Eventbrite

FREE Parking will be available in the Governor's Mansion parking lot behind the Old Bakery & Emporium. Guests can enter the parking lot from 10th Street between Congress and Colorado St. (please note that 10th street is one-way headed west)

Empire's Echo Closing Reception

Saturday, August 12th, 1 - 4 pm

Anne Bobroff-Hajal & Craig Campbell use art to explore legacies of conquest, resistance, & endurance in the context of the Russian Empire.

Visitors are invited to dialogue with the history of Russia, whose “great and terrible projects” over centuries can also help us understand Putin’s invasion of Ukraine today. This exhibition sets the quiet resonance of day-to-day life on the periphery of the Russian Empire against the fevered aristocratic competition at its autocratic Moscow center.

Campbell’s “Agit Kino: Tell Them We Are For Peace” focuses on Indigenous peoples of subarctic Siberia. The installation features historic photographs and a tent cinema inspired by the early 20th-century Agitprop tents used by itinerant Bolshevik projectionists to screen news, propaganda, and entertainment for nomadic peoples.

Bobroff-Hajal’s large, comical but deadly serious, icon-like works, influenced by animation and graphic novels, contain hundreds of individually-painted, 3-inch high portraits of Russians from serfs to princes. Their stories are “narrated” by zany Tsarist "godparents,” across centuries of often brutal Tsarist and Soviet autocratic history, shaped by the specific geography on which they live.

The exhibit will be displayed June 1st - August 12th, 2023 at the Old Bakery and Emporium at 1006 Congress Ave. Austin, TX 78701

Click here to RSVP for FREE on Eventbrite

Old Bakery Park Mural Project

The City of Austin Parks & Recreation Department and the Old Bakery & Artisan Emporium are partnering with the Downtown Austin Alliance to transform Old Bakery Park.

This Community Activated Parks Project will include an active community engagement process to explore ideas about how to revitalize this downtown greenspace through a new Writing on the Walls mural that tells the story of this area of Austin.

Give your feedback to let us know what you'd like to see in this future downtown mural. 

Take the survey today!

Thank you to the talented artists and local leaders who have joined our community engagement events regarding this project so far.

Your feedback is valuable, and we look forward to working together to create a beautiful new mural!

Call for Art By Military Women!

The Old Bakery & Emporium has partnered with Austin Veteran Artist Festival to bring you a new exhibition entitled Military Women Surviving. 

We are currently accepting submissions of art in all mediums created by active duty or veteran military women that live in the greater Austin area.

To apply please send 3-5 images of your work with an artist statement to herlinda.zamora@austintexas.gov by August 4th, 2023

There is no fee to apply. 

The exhibit will take place at the Old Bakery & Emporium at 1006 Congress Ave in Austin, Texas, and open on November 4th, 2023. 

Online gallery: The accepted artists agree to allow their art to become part of an online gallery operated by the Austin Veteran Arts Festival (AVAFest) and the Veterans Suicide Prevention Channel (VSPChannel), a 501c3 nonprofit organization that is chaired and founded by Glenn Towery and the creators of AVAFest. 

For more details contact:

• AVAFest Curator/Judge: Juanita Cole Towery, Secretary of the Veterans Suicide Prevention Channel
  • 323-849-8511, juanitacoletowery@gmail.com
• Executive Producer: Glenn Towery
  • 323-849-8511

Learn more about AVAFest & VSPChannel:

www.vspchannel.vet

www.avafest.org

Roku Television Channel: www.veteransartsandwellnessnetwork.org

Website TV Channel: www.vspchannel.vet/now-showing/the-vsp-channel

Become a Consignor

We are currently reviewing work of new consignors and would love to welcome new creators into our Old Bakery & Emporium family!

The Old Bakery & Emporium welcomes artists and artisans who work in a large range of mediums. Our store features work from Austin creators who are age 50+, and whose work embraces the one-of-a-kind aspect of handmade art and items. We are especially looking for traditional crafts that express any and all cultural heritages, for example: weaving, beadwork, leather work, jewelry, metal work, embroidery, woodwork, etc.

To be considered an Artist Consignor, one work must present handcrafted work, as well as meet our age requirement.

To receive additional information about becoming an Artist Consignor, please email Herlinda Zamora.

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Past Events:

Abstract Rhythms

Abstract Rhythms encompasses the work of three artists who met through their common love of art: Joseph Jay, Malina Cipleu, and Larry Akers. 

Although working in different mediums, their art is connected through a sense of harmony, rhythm, and fluidity. The artists invite the viewer to tune into the cadence of the artworks and to find the relationships between light and sound, pattern and rhythm that infuse these works. 

SAVE THE DATE! 

When: April 8th, 2023 from 1 - 5 pm

What: Abstract Rhythms Opening Reception

Where: Old Bakery & Emporium, 1006 Congress Ave. Austin, TX 78701

Both the opening reception and the exhibit are free to attend. Abstract Rhythms will be on display at the Old Bakery & Emporium through May 13th, 2023

Walking in My Shoes: The Art of Robert R. Jones

The Austin Parks and Recreation Department’s Old Bakery & Emporium presents Walking in My Shoes exhibit and opening reception on Saturday, January 14^th, 2023, from 1 – 4 pm. The event will take place at the Old Bakery & Emporium located at 1006 Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas.

The exhibition will showcase the work of artist Robert R. Jones, as the Old Bakery recognizes and highlights African American art during Black History Month. "Walking In My Shoes" is an artistic exploration into the notion of walking in someone else's shoes. This perspective shift gives the viewer a different angle from which to experience love, entertainment, and empathy.

The opening reception will feature:

Panel discussion entitled “The Artist, the Author, and the Collaboration” Event Moderator: Dr. Cindy Brandimarte, Author of two award-winning books Inside Texas and Texas State Parks and the CCC with a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Texas Book signing & conversation with Joleene Maddox Snider, author of Claiming Sunday: The Story of a Texas Slave Community

The event and exhibition are free to attend. Click here to RSVP on Facebook!

Jones’ art will remain on exhibit from January 14 until March 18, 2023, at the Old Bakery and Emporium.

Downtown Austin Holiday Stroll 2022

 The Old Bakery & Emporium will be playing a special role in this year’s annual Holiday Stroll presented by the Downtown Austin Alliance.

On Saturday, December 3rd from 5 pm – 10 pm the Old Bakery will be hosting the first public engagement event to get community feedback for a new mural on the south-facing wall of the park located at 1006 Congress Ave in Austin, Texas.

Community members will learn about the project and share their vision for a new mural. The event will feature several opportunities for people to provide feedback and share their vision including an online poll, a life-sized timeline of the building’s history, and a downtown mural coloring book where people can draw and share their vision for the new mural.

This event welcomes folks of all ages and includes several fun and festive activities for the whole family including: photo opportunities with Santa, ornament decorating craft table, and  winter wonderland featuring igloos for exploring!

Join the Old Bakery and Downtown Austin Alliance Foundation and share your vision for the next downtown mural!

 

 

Tom Lea Combat Warrior Art Opening - 10/22/22

The exhibition will highlight twelve giclee prints of Tom Lea's works and photographs from the Tom Lea Institute in El Paso, Texas. The Tom Lea Combat Warrior Art exhibit focuses on Tom Lea's Life Magazine WWII series. The exhibition also includes U.S. combat veteran and Director & Founder of AVAFest, Glenn Towery. 

Furthermore, the exhibit will feature work from combat veterans Peter Buotte, Lorenzo Quinonez, Kurt Ritterpusch, Franklin Mendez, Raphael Melis, Ben Freeman, and Patrick Redbird. 

Ceremonial Performance: 

Traditional American Indian Veterans Association

Event Speakers:

• Moderator: Mike Warren from FOX 7 Austin
• Adair Margo: Founder of the Tom Lea Institute spoke about How Tom Got the War Out of his Head
• Holly Packard Cobb Executive Director & Producer of the Tom Lea Insitute provided an introduction to Tom Lea's WWII Art video presentation
• Event Producer and Honorable Judge Bill Stubblefield spoke about Tom Lea's historical importance
• Event Producer and Founder of AVAFest, Glenn Towery, spoke on the event's meaning

Click here to View Photos from the Event

MidSummer Festival - Summer 2022

 

MidSummer Festival
Saturday, June 25, 2022
at the Old Bakery & Emporium
1:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Brought to you by the Old Bakery & Emporium and Oakwood Cemetery Chapel!
 

• Try traditional Swedish strawberry cake from The Fika Table Bakery
• Be entertained by Swedish Magician Bertil Fredstrom "Black Bert" and his jugglers
• Learn the difference between gnomes (tomte) and trolls from Amy Evenson
• Help break open a Swedish Dala Horse piñata and sign-up to win one to take home
• Make a flower crown and wear it just like people at festivals in Sweden do
• Listen to Swedish music
• Cool off with delicious paleta (frozen pop) from Mom & Pops

This is an indoor and outdoor FREE public event.
Fun for the whole family!
 

 

The MidSummer Festival is the final event in the To Fika series. The series was done by the Oakwood Cemetery Chapel. In Swedish culture, Fika is a daily cultural tradition in which people stop working and spend time with colleges, coworkers and friends over coffee and sweets. Fika is about companionship, fellowship, chatting and socializing.

To learn more about Swedish immigrants that helped build Austin read the beautifully researched digital exhibit by Oakwood Cemetery chapel: To Fika.