Calendar of Events

The WordPlayers of Knoxville will tour Walk, Don’t Ride! in the East TN area throughout the month of February. The first public performance is Feb. 2 at 7:00 p.m. at Fountain City UMC, 212 Hotel Rd. in Fountain City. Public performances are free and no reservations are required. For more information and a full schedule of public performances, please visit www.wordplayers.org or call 865.539.2490.

Public Performances
Feb 2: Fountain City UMC, 212 Hotel Road, Knoxville, TN 37918, 7:00 PM
Feb. 3: Bessie Smith Cultural Center, 200 E M L King Blvd, Chattanooga, TN 37403, 2:00 PM
Feb 13: Emerald Academy, 220 Carrick Street, Knoxville, TN 37921, 5:30 PM
Feb. 17: Oak Valley Baptist, 194 Hampton Rd, Oak Ridge, 37830, 4:00 PM
Feb. 19: Walters State-Greeneville, 6:00 PM
Feb. 20, Walters State-Morristown, 6:30 PM
Feb. 25, Fifth Ave. Baptist, 2500 E 5th Ave, Knoxville, TN 37914, 4:00 PM

“Walk, Don't Ride – A Celebration of the Fight for Equality” by Peter Manos is a presentation of drama and song depicting events that helped shape American freedom. Events included are: The Montgomery Bus Boycott, The Nashville Lunch Counter Sit-ins, and The Greyhound/Trailways Freedom Rides. For some, those events are part of a powerful personal experience. For some, they are part of a seemingly distant history. And perhaps for others, they are unfamiliar. But without a doubt, a couple of generations ago, those events changed the course of America.

This project is funded under an agreement with the TENNESSEE ARTS COMMISSION and sponsored by New City Resources. “Walk, Don't Ride” is an example of the best kind of “edu-tainment,” and has been booked in eight different counties and fifteen different venues, including middle schools, colleges, and churches.

For more information, please call 865-539-2490 or visit www.wordplayers.org.

L&N STEM Academy Honors and AP Studio Art students are showing their artwork at Java Old City, 109 South Central, through the month of February.

An opening reception will be held from 5-7 pm Friday, February 2, 2018. Information: CHERI JORGENSON: cheri.jorgenson@knoxschools.org

Dogwood Arts showcases emerging and established furniture artists creating one-of-a-kind tables on First Friday. This exhibition runs from February 2-24, 2018 at the Dogwood Arts Gallery.

Dogwood Arts provides artists the opportunities to showcase their talents at First Friday events and month long exhibitions. Traditional gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm. First Friday hours are 5:30pm-8:30pm.

Dogwood Arts, 123 W. Jackson Ave, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-637-4561, www.dogwoodarts.com

A reception will take place on Friday, February 2, from 5:00-9:00 PM as part of First Friday activities downtown to which the public is invited to meet the artists and view the artwork.

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present its 12th annual National Juried Exhibition, a new exhibition featuring selected works from 44 artists throughout the United States. The National Juried Exhibition was developed in 2006 to provide a forum for local artists to compete on a national scale and display their highest quality work. The exhibition encompasses all styles and genres from both emerging and established artists working in a variety of media such as photography, acrylic, pencil, fibers, oil, paper, and more. Over $1,000 in cash awards will be announced at a brief awards ceremony at 6:00 PM on February 2. View images of the exhibition at www.knoxalliance.com/nje-12.

Jeffrey Morton served as juror for the exhibition. Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, Morton is a resident of Signal Mountain, TN. During a two-year residence in Japan, earlier in his career, Morton was drawn to Japanese art and culture which influences his work to this day. He has exhibited his work regionally and nationally, including the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Wilmington, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the Harrison Center for the Arts, Indianapolis, and the Hunter Museum in Chattanooga. Educated at Yale University and Temple University, Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, Morton is a professor of art at Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, GA. Morton is a recipient of a 2015 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission.

On display at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, in downtown Knoxville. Exhibition hours are Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM. Information: (865) 523-7543 or www.knoxalliance.com.

A reception will take place on Friday, February 2, from 5:00-9:00 PM as part of First Friday activities downtown to which the public is invited to meet the artists and view the artwork.

John Humphries is a visual artist, gardener, and designer focusing on communicating, through abstraction, stories and phenomena from nature and mythology. This creative work takes the form of watercolor drawings and ceramic objects. He took an unusual path to get where he is today. Originally from Texas, pausing briefly on the Ozark Plateau and along the Puget Sound, he now finds the Miami Valley is the perfect location for locking in roots. During life travels he has completed degrees in Architecture and Fine Arts in Design, following a brief foray as a saucier. He teaches Architecture and Interior Design as a Professor at Miami University, OH.

“The watercolor drawings for this exhibition are emotional and technical but with a colorist's sensibility,” says Humphries. “They link the visual language of landscape, color theory, and constructed elements.” Humphries makes his watercolor drawings by researching a natural phenomenon, creating various codes to represent these elusive conditions, and then organizing the codes into a series or constellation. Constellations of Drawings includes collaged photographic elements and other constructed pieces of wood floating above the plane of paper.

On display at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, in downtown Knoxville. Exhibition hours are Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM. Information: (865) 523-7543 or www.knoxalliance.com.

A reception will take place on Friday, February 2, from 5:00-9:00 PM as part of First Friday activities downtown to which the public is invited to meet the artists and view the artwork.

Brandon T. Lutterman lives in Middlesboro, KY and is Assistant Professor & Program Director of Fine Art at Lincoln Memorial University. For over ten years, he has taught full range of undergraduate courses in the studio arts as well as ceramic studio set-up, management and maintenance. He received a Master of Fine Arts, Ceramics from Kansas State University and from Minnesota State University-Mankato.

“My current body of work is created to celebrate life and to help people recognize that we need to be stewards of all forms of life, not just our own,” says Lutterman. “There is a precious balance at stake between the needs and desires of the industrial man and the needs of our diverse population of organisms, fish, plants, animals, and ecosystems. My goal through my work is to prompt more awareness, appreciation, and preservation of our environment and species.” Lutterman’s work is versatile, including naturalism, utilitarian, and sculptural forms. He uses multiple techniques and styles of art to convey a concept. His glazes are developed through ongoing glaze research, as he aims to develop unique surfaces at low, mid, and high fire temperature ranges. For more information, visit http://www.luttermanceramics.com/.

On display at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, in downtown Knoxville. Exhibition hours are Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM. Information: (865) 523-7543 or www.knoxalliance.com.

A reception will take place on Friday, February 2, from 5:00-9:00 PM as part of First Friday activities downtown to which the public is invited to meet the artists and view the artwork.

The Hungry Month pieces evoke the hardships and beauty of winter. Done in watercolor, scratchboard, acrylic and glasspaint, the colors are muted, and the images are of the inedible - the scarce, precious and beautiful - in the month of February.

Yvonne Hosey was born during a February blizzard in Manhattan but has spent most of her life in the South where she experienced her first snow in Atlanta at the age of nine. Practicing as a nurse here in the state of Tennessee has brought her in contact with many people who know the true meaning of the Hungry Month.

On display at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, in downtown Knoxville. Exhibition hours are Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM. Information: (865) 523-7543 or www.knoxalliance.com.

By: Kenneth Jones

“Dynamic! Rich! Impressive! Cleverly crafted! Articulate! Razor-sharp!” Salt Lake Tribune

A gentle children’s book with an apparent hidden message stirs the passions of a segregationist senator and a no-nonsense state librarian in 1959 Montgomery, just as the Civil Rights Movement is flowering. Inspired by true events, Alabama Story puts politicians, star-crossed childhood friends, and one feisty author in a struggle for the soul of the Deep South.

Clarence Brown Theatre, 1714 Andy Holt Ave on the UT campus, Knoxville, TN 37996. For information: 865-974-5161, www.clarencebrowntheatre.com. For tickets: 865-974-5161, 865-656-4444, www.knoxvilletickets.com

A new special exhibit - "The Battle of Campbell Station" - will open January 22 at the Farragut Museum and remain through Friday, June 15.

The exhibit features items from the personal collection of local community member Gerald Augustus, including artifacts from the battle, fought Nov. 16, 1863, on the land surrounding the Farragut Town Hall.

A special "Friends Only" exhibit preview will precede a lecture by Augustus on Sunday, January 21. Friends are invited at 1:30 p.m. for refreshments. General admission begins at 2:30 p.m. If you are not a Friend and wish to join, you are welcome to register during the preview. The lecture on the battle begins at 3 p.m.

The Farragut Museum is committed to preserving the heritage of its East Tennessee community and features a remarkable collection of artifacts from the area, including an extensive collection of the personal belongings of Admiral David Glasgow Farragut, first Admiral of the U.S Navy and hero of the Civil War. Housed in Farragut Town Hall located at 11408 Municipal Center Drive, the museum is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and offers free admission.

Farragut Town Hall, 11408 Municipal Center Dr, Farragut, TN 37934. Hours: M-F 10-4:30. Information: 865-966-7057, www.townoffarragut.org/museum

Opening Reception: Saturday, January 20, 8:30pm - til*

C For Courtside is pleased to present its inaugural exhibition, "A Half Note Familiar." The show will include the works of its founding members Lynne Ghenov, Joshua Bienko, John Powers and Rubens Ghenov along with four artists specifically selected by each C for Courtside Directors. Mirroring the intentions of the space itself, "A Half Note Familiar” seeks to consider work from inside and outside the region in a way that contributes to and influences broader contemporary dialogues.

* In solidarity with justice seeking peace minded artists and creative individuals across the world, we are participating in an International Day of Art Action on the one-year anniversary of the United States Presidential UNauguration. We join Laurie Anderson (the brainchild of The Day of Art Action) in our intentions, seeking to unite, connect and celebrate a spirit of love, peace and understanding based in the simple hope that artistic production symbolizes.

Lynne Ghenov has selected Melissa McGrath's work due to the approximation of their praxes and content. Melissa’s work is a response and reflection of a consistent trauma and disaster that has occurred in the landscape where she was raised inscribed on paper through fire. Lynne uses ledger gridded paper salvaged from her parents’ home office acquired after her mother’s death, wherein memory organically and symbolically investigates itself in form within the confines of the stoic gridded structure.

Joshua Bienko’s selection of Eleanor Ray sits in the attraction to slippages that can occur between works. What at once might appear quiet and tragic, holds the potential to become loud and humorous, and vice-versa. Though a dissimilarity may seem obvious at first, they also, perhaps surreptitiously and subtly begin to harmonize more than contrast, operating in cahoots as it were, in a psychological and physical interior space.

John Powers and Kim Faler are engaged in parallel explorations of systems, pattern, sub-pattern, language and personal narrative. Their shared interest in small, potentially mundane moments, rubs against evocations of the unseen forces and glacial timelines that frame our world. Their included works here variously address the passage of time, energy exchange, collapsed narratives and the veil separating the familiar from the anonymous.

Lastly, Rubens Ghenov here compeers his work to that of Claudia Peña Salinas’. Both of Latin American descent (Brazilian and Mexican respectively), their work strangely resides akin to the geometric abstraction of Central and South American artists, though the impetus here may emanate elsewhere. A specific coloration and insertion of memorabilia and objects are inherently present in both, forging an architectonic of the personal mired in the historical and the fictive.

C for Courtside is an artist-run curatorial project space located just north of downtown Knoxville. Founded in the fall of 2017 with the intentions of facilitating multiple creative activities, the Directors (John Powers, Joshua Bienko, Lynne Ghenov and Rubens Ghenov) will work to add to the exciting artistic development and momentum already at foot in the Southeast. In addition to exhibitions, C for Courtside will host artist lectures and guest speakers, live performances, pop-up shows, experimental theatre, justice seeking organizations in need of a place to meet, and other situationist aligned activities. Each endeavor will aim to extend the space of the gallery beyond its physical limitations, while fostering a community based in and on the exigencies of art-making. The launch of the space has been made possible in part by the support of Ann and Steve Bailey Opportunity Grant.

C for Courtside Gallery, 513 Cooper Street, Knoxville, TN 37917
Info: cforcourtside@gmail.com

Between 2006 and 2009, an international team of historians, archaeologists, and geographers traveled to France to rediscover and document where Fentress County-native Sergeant Alvin C. York made his heroic stand. In the Footsteps of Sergeant York, a traveling exhibition from the Museum of the American Military Experience, showcases this groundbreaking research and allows visitors to retrace the steps of one of America's best-known military heroes.

Through the new interactive exhibit, the East Tennessee Historical Society invites you to step back into the the trenches of WWI, to hear the sounds of war, view clips of the film on York's life, see items from the York home along with other interesting artifacts, and experience the front line that made the man from Pall Mall, Tennessee an international superstar.

In the Footsteps of Sergeant York will be on display in the Rogers-Claussen Feature Gallery at the East Tennessee History Center. The exhibit and corresponding programming is presented in partnership with the Museum of the American Military Experience, Tennessee State Parks, The Sergeant York Patriotic Foundation, the University of Tennessee's Center for the Study of War and Society, and the Knox County Public Library.

East Tennessee Historical Society, 601 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Museum hours: M-F 9-4, Sa 10-4, Su 1-5. Information: 865-215-8824, www.easttnhistory.org

"Ebony Imagery XVII" - a Mixed Media Exhibition by African American Artists from Tennessee;
"Travelogue: Colma, California's Religious Stained Glass" - photographs by Nicole Ferrara; and
"Selections from the Permanent Collection" - featuring International Artists including Henri Matisse, Karl Appel, Salvador Dali and many others.

Opening Reception: Sunday Afternoon, January 14, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM, Gallery Talk at 4:00 PM. The event is free and open to the public. Bring your friends and family!

Oak Ridge Art Center, 201 Badger Avenue, Oak Ridge, TN 37830. Hours: Tu-F 9-5, Sa-M 1-4. Information: 865-482-1441, www.oakridgeartcenter.org