Calendar of Events

Momentum Dance Lab will join forces with composers James Carlson, Lucie Novoveska, and Mark Volker to present Art Moves at the Knoxville Museum of Art. General admission is $10 in advance and $12 at the door, $6 for students with ID at the door, and free for children 4 and under. Art Moves is an interactive celebration of the arts, showcasing the original music and dance of local composers and choreographers inspired by works of art in the KMA's permanent collection and current exhibitions. Each afternoon performance will include choreographed pieces in several locations throughout the museum as well as improvisations by dancers and musicians. Seating will be available. In addition to a few choreographic reinterpretations of old favorites and some new pieces drawn from works in the permanent collection, this year’s show will feature an improvisation inspired by the Anne Wilson exhibit, Wind/Rewind/Weave, which will be on display at the museum from January 22-April 25. Artwork will also be performed alongside videography by Ren Cummings, juxtaposing images of the artwork with the music and dance it provoked. Art Moves was founded in 2003 by music director and composer James Carlson and choreographer Angela Hill. Each production of Art Moves is different from the last, exploring the ever-changing content of the museum. With new dimensional layers of “art within the art” incorporated in the movement, as well as some reinterpretations of old favorites, this year’s show promises to be just as memorable as years in the past. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to support the local arts community while enjoying a family-friendly afternoon of original art, music, and dance. Momentum Dance Lab was founded in August of 2007 with the mission of creating an adult contemporary dance collective striving for excellence in dance through artistic exploration, performance, and education. Momentum is currently comprised of seven Knoxville area dancer/choreographers sharing a passion for high quality contemporary and modern dance. The collective offers classes in modern technique and improvisation to the community, and is very excited to present Art Moves for the third consecutive year! For more information: 865-670-2748, www.momentumdancelab.com, momentumdancelab@gmail.com. Tickets: 865-523-7521, www.KnoxTIX.com

The brightest young musicians in Knoxville will shine at the Tennessee Theatre, when Knoxville Choral Society's Young Classical Musicians Competition winners will perform the selections that distinguished them from the crowd in this year's contest. We're proud to announce the winners and the pieces they'll perform:
Jerry Feng, 15, Piano: Juba Dance by R. Nathaniel Dett
Bixby Kennedy, 18, Clarinet: Solo de Concours by André Messager
Mark Laseter, 18, Tenor: Fair House of Joy by Roger Quilter

The concert will also include selections from the Knoxville Chamber Chorale plus Knoxville Choral Society's exuberant performance of John Rutter's Gloria and Ralph Vaughan Williams' O Clap Your Hands. Tickets are $20 and may be purchased at Tennessee Theatre.com or at the door.

Historic Tennessee Theatre, 604 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. For information: www.knoxvillechoralsociety.org. For tickets: 865-684-1200, 865-656-4444, www.knoxvilletickets.com

Invite bluebirds to your yard. Build them a home at our informative workshop. The only cost is that of the bluebird box itself. Please call 577-4717 ext. 10 to register.

Ijams Nature Center, 2915 Island Home Ave, Knoxville, TN 37920. Hours: Grounds and trails open during daylight hours. Visitor Center: Monday: by appointment only for tour groups and school trips; Tuesday-Saturday: 9AM-5PM; Sunday: 1-5PM (March 1 - November 30). For information: 865-577-4717, www.ijams.org

This workshop will help you create a backyard haven for birds. We'll cover feeders, food, nest boxes and birdbaths. Please call 577-4717 ext. 10 to register.

Ijams Nature Center, 2915 Island Home Ave, Knoxville, TN 37920. Hours: Grounds and trails open during daylight hours. Visitor Center: Monday: by appointment only for tour groups and school trips; Tuesday-Saturday: 9AM-5PM; Sunday: 1-5PM (March 1 - November 30). For information: 865-577-4717, www.ijams.org

Featuring nationally renowned heirloom gardener, John Coykendall, along with historic garden designer, Terumi Saito Watson. Coykendall will have on hand many varieties of heirloom vegetable seeds, and will discuss maintaining seed purity in the garden. Seeds will also be available for sale. Watson will discuss heirloom landscaping with historic plants. She and Coykendall have worked together on several projects including The Flower Market and the heirloom vegetable garden at the University of Tennessee. Fee is $25 per person. Reservations are required. Ramsey House Plantation, 2614 Thorngrove Pike, Knoxville, TN 37914. Open year around (except Mondays & Holidays). For information: 865-546-0745, www.ramseyhouse.org

Tasty buffet, cocktails & live music by the Vibraslaps; silent and live auctions filled with exciting items including travel and getaway packages; complimentary parking in the Market Street Garage on Walnut Street. This year's Affair on the Square helps to fund important programs such as Spanish for grades 1-5, Science Labs, Information Technology, and extra help for classrooms through Teaching Assistants.

At the Square Room in Market Square. For auction preview: www.sequoyahfoundation.com

Reception February 26, 6:30-8:30 PM
213 Hotel Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37918. Information: 865-357-2787, www.fountaincityart.com

In this recent series of photographic studies of botanical subjects-Flora and Fauna, Maryland artist Robert Creamer concentrates on a blending of his interests in technology and the aging process. These photographic images were captured using a scanner as a camera. The work began as “look what technology can reveal.” Digital technology is a vital and integral part of this process but is not what interests the artist the most. The scanner is a tool that enhances his ability to observe. These images are about time, transformation and transitions. As noted by the curator of Creamer’s 2007 exhibition Transitions at the Smithsonian Institution Museum of Natural History, “Robert Creamer has a deep respect for change—its subtle palette and patterns, the surprising structure of decay, and the integrity that graces every stage of life. In a Creamer photograph a browning petal becomes as glorious as the newly opened bloom. The numbered museum specimen transforms into contemporary sculpture. The arresting detail and Baroque luminosity of these photographs are the result of a lifetime behind a camera and a recently discovered technique—the flatbed scanner. Creamer’s careful use of rich blacks or negative space helps emphasize the light of the subjects and allude to the mystery of an ever-present dark.”

To quote Creamer,” Photography has been very good to me. Photography most of all has given me the opportunity to explore, be curious, and allowed me an avenue to interpret the world around me as an artist, a teacher and as a professional architectural photographer.”

First Friday Opening Reception March 5, 5:00 – 9:00pm; the artist will be present.

UT Downtown Gallery, 106 S. Gay St, Knoxville, TN 37902. Hours: Wednesday-Friday: 11AM - 6PM; Saturday: 10AM - 3PM. For information: 865-673-0802, http://web.utk.edu/~downtown

The banjo is nearly synonymous with mountain music—and what more fitting place to learn to play this instrument than the Museum of Appalachia? The pioneer history museum is offering a two-day beginners’ banjo workshop for adults taught by professional musician and instructor Anna Denison. As frost melts off the cabin roofs and sheep frolic in the pastures, students will be “up and picking” favorite gospel songs and old standards like Cripple Creek, Old Joe Clark, and Wildwood Flower. They’ll learn an old-time playing style called “up-picking.” Chords, tablature and rhythm will be covered. No musical experience is necessary. Workshop hours are 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday, and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Cost of the workshop is $95, with a $12 materials fee. A homestyle lunch from the Museum café is included. Students furnish their own banjo; rentals are also available (contact the instructor in advance). Sign-up dead is Wednesday, Feb. 24. Anna Denison specializes in group lessons for adult beginners in guitar, banjo, and mandolin. She has taught at the University of Tennessee, Pellissippi State Technical College, Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning, Knoxville Center for Crafts and Fine Arts, and Columbia State Community College, as well as holding classes at her own studio in Knoxville. She holds a bachelor’s degree in music education and church music from Lambuth University. She began teaching instrument lessons full time in 2000. She is also a regular musician and “porch picker” for the Museum of Appalachia. To sign up for the workshop, contact the instructor at 865-604-2589, or e-mail musiclessons@knology.net.

Museum of Appalachia, 2819 Andersonville Hwy., Clinton, TN 37716 (16 miles north of Knoxville at I-75, exit 122, then one mile east). Open every day except Thanksgiving and Christmas. Information: 865-494-7680, www.museumofappalachia.org

Celebrating their 15th anniversary season, The WordPlayers aims for the sky with this entertaining and thought provoking musical revue. With book and lyrics by Helen Kromer and music by Frederick Silver, this unique work promises an extraordinary evening. For Heaven’s Sake! will make you laugh, cry and think as it takes a satirical look at the church of today. You will be stirred to ask important questions and inspired to make a difference in your world.

Feb. 25, 26, 27 @ 7:30 pm, Feb. 28 @ 2:30 pm, and March 4, 5, 6 @ 7:30 pm
TICKETS: $12 Adults, $10 Seniors/Students; $8 Groups of 10 or more; Thursdays are “Pay What You Can” nights. Tickets may be purchased online at www.cmajor.net (Events) or at the door (cash or check) All seats are general admission. Performed at The WordPlayers' Theatre at Middlebrook Christian Ministries, 1540 Robinson Rd. at Middlebrook Pike, Knoxville, TN 37923. For information: 865-539-2490, www.wordplayers.org

Celebrating their 15th anniversary season, The WordPlayers aims for the sky with this entertaining and thought provoking musical revue. With book and lyrics by Helen Kromer and music by Frederick Silver, this unique work promises an extraordinary evening. For Heaven’s Sake! will make you laugh, cry and think as it takes a satirical look at the church of today. You will be stirred to ask important questions and inspired to make a difference in your world.

Feb. 25, 26, 27 @ 7:30 pm, Feb. 28 @ 2:30 pm and March 4, 5, 6 @ 7:30 pm.
TICKETS: $12 Adults, $10 Seniors/Students • $8 Groups of 10 or more • Thursdays are “Pay What You Can” nights. Tickets may be purchased online at www.cmajor.net (Events) or at the door (cash or check) All seats are general admission. Performed at The WordPlayers' Theatre at Middlebrook Christian Ministries, 1540 Robinson Rd. at Middlebrook Pike, Knoxville, TN 37923. For information: 865-539-2490, www.wordplayers.org

RACHEL CLARK, BRIENA HARMENING, and JESSICA KREUTTER. Reception on March 5, 5:00-9:00 PM.

RACHEL CLARK: I consider the contemporary artist a deejay, mixing eclectic signs of culture and art. Using this analogy, I’ve created a painting index of one hundred paintings using personal and cultural icons to construct a range of associations within a grid installation. Rachel Clark received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2004. That same year she was an artist-in-residence at the Ox-Bow School of Art in Saugatuck, Michigan. In 2009, Clark curated a group of forty-two art students and professional artists to form the exhibition “Seven Times Standard”. Clark is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and lives between Knoxville, TN, and Athens, OH.

BRIENA HARMENING: The alter ego has been used by many performance artists to explore alternate personalities or to investigate identities other than themselves. Two years ago I created an alter ego, “Ilene”, as a way to explore autobiography through storytelling. Ilene’s character is a combination of my southern heritage, the southern stereotype, and myself. The stories, not always flattering, are nonfiction and comment on the diverse personalities of family members, relationships, class, and the belief systems within family units. Briena Harmening is an autobiographical, narrative artist that works in multi-media. She received her BA from Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, Florida, and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Recently, her work has been exhibited in Video Artists Explore Southern Identity, at the Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and Museum of Art in Nashville, Tennessee, and the 2nd Annual Narrative Shorts International Film Festival at California State University, Chico, California.

JESSICA KREUTTER: I am interested in the discarded object that retains a trace of time. These objects hover on the rim of what is acceptable and what is not, of life and death, of remembering and forgetting. They connote a time of transition, an intermediate time where another realm is absorbing the previous. It is also a place of fantasy and imagined time, where the histories buried in the object are invented and the future is anticipated, yet unknown. In this atmosphere, I want to imagine what forms materialize from the shadows left behind. Jessica Kreutter graduated from Lewis and Clark College with a degree in Anthropology and Sociology, and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Before enrolling in her graduate studies, Jessica worked as a ceramic sculpture artist and art teacher in Portland, Oregon. Her work can be found at Guardino Gallery, Mary Lou Zeek Gallery, and Beet Gallery. This year, she will take part in a group exhibition at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, as well as Clay? III , a show that investigates the increasingly important role of ceramics in contemporary art. Last year, Jessica was a visiting artist for the ceramics department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as working as the summer ceramic studio assistant at The Mendocino Art Center


Ewing Gallery, 1715 Volunteer Blvd, Knoxville, TN 37996. Hours: Monday & Thursday: 10AM-8PM; Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday: 10AM-5PM; and Sunday: 1-4PM. For information: 865-974-3200, www.ewing-gallery.utk.edu