Freak flags were flying in downtown Berkeley as a parade of modern-day, art-loving hippies promenaded from the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive to the UC Theater.

This colorful soiree, Share the Love Gala, raised $750K for museum programming, exhibitions and education efforts May 2. And that terrific total earmarks $107K for BAMPFA’s student work-study program.

“Since opening our new downtown space last year, it feels like we’ve awoken from a decades-long sleep: We’ve doubled the amount of art on display, film screenings, music events and programing,” enthused BAMPFA Director Larry Rinder. “And our membership is up by 200 percent!”

Organized by White Rain Productions and led by Nion McEvoy and Leslie Berriman, Carla and David Crane, and Carla Emil and Rich Silverstein, guests first tripped out on the museum’s “Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia” exhibition.

“Tonight is a tribute to the artists and innovators who spearheaded the countercultural revolution,” McEvoy toasted. “They were artists, philosophers, scientists, filmmakers, gardeners, designers, activists, poets, writers and musicians. And it’s the musicians and music of hippie modern that has stayed in our hearts for so many years.”

A Paula LeDuc family-style supper and live art auction preceded dance sets by Surrealistic Superjam starring authentic Summer of Lovesters Country Joe McDonald and Pete Sears.

“I hopped a ride in the hippie tour bus to the theater,” Sears said, setting the scene. “Out on the street were the parade people as a video screen in the car showed a documentary about LSD. All of the sudden, I started to wonder if I’d accidentally dosed,” he joked.

Art attack: Fantastical rainbow-hued ribbons by artist Lorena Perez Villars rustled from the Spanish Colonial tower crowning the San Francisco Art Institute campus, heralding a new era for this renowned 147-year-old cultural institution on Russian Hill.

Instead of the typical grin-grip-and-dinner kind of gala, on April 29 SFAI turned itself into a canvas where students and some very famous alum re-imagined spaces with hand-crafted installations that ranged from a tea lounge to an Alpine Tiki lounge-turned-radio station to a punk club replete with backstage scene.

Dubbed The Original Disrupter, this festive fete (organized by Kate Rittman, Lisa David, Helen Pascoe and Sydney La Londe) raised $350K for SFAI student scholarships and honored local visionaries and alum: sculpture artist David Best; Burning Man founder Larry Harvey; movie producer Regina Scully; RealReal founder Julie Wainwright; tattoo artist Don Ed Hardy; and 92-year-old architect Paffard Keatinge-Clay, who relished visiting his brutalist addition to the SFAI campus.

Atop Clay’s quad, guests savored his unique vantage points framing the bay and Telegraph Hill as they plotted their artistic bar-hopping route. Food trucks filled a parking lot next to a black-light Peace bar by SFAI alum Tony Labat and Whitney Lynn, whose space pulsed with glow-in-the-dark art and a DJ.

Surveying the scene, artist-anthropologist Enrique Chagoya fondly recalled his student years.

“It was wild then, with a lot of freedom to do our art and explore social issues,” he said, with a laugh. “But the Art Institute provided the best in my formative years. It was so good, I felt guilty studying here.”

David Best, renowned for his intricate Burning Man sculptures, erected a hand-crafted temple-bar paying homage to his fellow SFAI alum and staff such as Bill Geist, Jay DeFeo, Mark Rothko, Richard Diebenkorn and Joan Brown.

“I started taking classes here at age 6, when my father, John, studied here. At 16, I took the train from the Peninsula with Jerry Garcia to study,” Best said. “The Art Institute is a big part of my life. All the time I was building the bar, I thought of these people who I loved so dearly.”

That’s exactly the immersive spirit that SFAI President Gordon Knox strives to cultivate for the student body.

“Tonight students can engage in a public forum with visitors, donors and board members. Moving intense ideas they’re exploring with their hand and eye to canvas or installation is one thing,” Knox said. “But this is like a crazy art opening — a launchpad, propelling students to learn how to operate as artists and active agents in the world.”

Bada-bling: For luxury-goods connoisseurs who may sniff that the once-gleaming luster of Tiffany & Co. has dimmed, think again.

Not only did the 180-year jeweler recently throw some robin-egg blue Twitter shade at President Trump, imploring he support the Paris Climate Agreement for the safety of our children and, well, the entire planet, but Tiffany is also making marks amid the Millennial market.

In that bid to adorn all ages, the company recently launched its Lady Gaga-inspired HardWear Collection at the Tiffany & Co. Union Square flagship, where EssEff swans alighted at the revamped boutique’s outdoor patio.

Hosted by tech entrepreneur Alison Pincus and model Anne Vyalitsyna, these style-setters sang praises for the bold 18K gold or sterling silver bling they’d wrapped and stacked in multiples around wrists, necks and ears.

“I’ve been a fan of Tiffany since I was a teenager, at bat mitzvah age, and it was so exciting to receive gifts from Tiffany,” enthused Pincus. “I’m also fascinated by how Tiffany is evolving as a brand. And this line just epitomizes that new, fresh look.”

Catherine Bigelow is The San Francisco Chronicle’s society correspondent. Email: missbigelow@sfgate.com Instagram: @missbigelow