Calendar of Events

At UT Visitors Center (Kingston Pike & Neyland Drive) as a benefit for the Opera. Highlights include: playing croquet on the green, gourmet picnic under the Great Tent, high tea, trophies for the tournament and vintage costume; and more! Playing in the tournament is optional!

Registration at 10:30 AM, croquet tournament at 11:00, picnic 12-2:30, high tea 4-5:30, awards at close.

For more information: 865-524-0795, 865-588-8371, www.knoxvilleopera.com

Featuring headliners "The Carolina Chocolate Drops". Joy of Music School Executive Director Francis Graffeo says, “These fine musicians will be an inspiration to the 130 students and 60 volunteers who teach them at the School. We appreciate the Chocolate Drops making time in their very busy schedule to perform for us, and to help support this charity event for our work with those deserving kids and their music.” General Admission Tickets: $35. Premium Tickets: $100, include Reserved Seating, a private, post-concert party with the Chocolate Drops, and a signed poster. Tickets for the concert are available online at www.knoxbijou.com, The Joy of Music School or Knoxville Breakfast Rotary Club.

Bijou Theatre, 803 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. For information: 865-525-6806, www.joyofmusicschool.org

The Gatlinburg Fine Arts Festival (GFAF) is an outdoor family event that features quality artists from around the country along with Appalachian music from area artists. Volunteers from the community produce the festival to benefit the Sevier County Arts Council and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, an internationally recognized visual arts center, providing creative experiences year round. 2010 will be the sixth year of the festival and large crowds are expected. Gatlinburg is a thriving tourist destination and a gateway city to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, with over 9 million visitors annually. The festival is being held in the center of the city along River Road and on the grounds of Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies.

Free admission! http://gfaf.net/

Celebrate the music, dance, crafts and arts of the British Isles and Appalachia. Featured performers include: The Cluster Pluckers, The Boys of County Nashville, Liz McGeachy & Tim Marema, Lark in the Morn English Country Dancers, and more! Plus some 60 artists and craftspeople demonstrating and selling their wares; children's activities, historic building visits, dance, and more. Admission $8; two-day $12; K-12 $4.
Information: 888-214-3400, rugbylegacy@highland.net, www.historicrugby.org

6th annual MayFest Fine Arts and Master Crafts Faire produced by James-Ben: Studio and Gallery Art Center. Coinciding with Greeneville’s Iris Festival, the MayFest Fine Arts and Master Crafts Faire is the brainchild of James-Ben Stockton, director of Greeneville’s regional destination gallery in the downtown historic district. The MayFest Faire will be located in the parking area between James-Ben: Studio and Gallery Art Center and the General Morgan Inn, at the corner of North Main and Church Streets. Hours for the festive occasion are from 10 AM to 5 PM on Saturday, May 15th, and from noon until 5 PM on Sunday, May 16th. As in previous years, the artist and artisans assembled will stimulate sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. Visually focused art will be represented by Barbara Miller, Sam Bass, Lorna Paquin, and Michele Howe. Visual with the added element of touch is represented at the MayFest Faire by Claude Harden, Tom Cogburn, and Dell and Jane Hughes. Sound, taste, and smell will be brilliantly represented at the Mayfest Faire. Local recording artist Dane Hinkle, joined by friends and special guests, will sing a fine mix of his compositions and classics to the accompaniment of acoustic guitar and his amazing harmonica.

James-Ben: Studio & Gallery Art Center, 129 North Main Street, Historic Morgan Square, Greeneville, TN 37743. Information: 423-787-0195.

Vision, Language, and Influence brings together for the first time the work of three photographers of the American South over a 50-year period. Walker Evans (1903-1976) is represented by incisive images of Alabama sharecroppers stemming from his epic collaboration with James Agee on Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Eudora Welty (1909-2001) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning Southern writer and photographer who traveled across Mississippi in the 1930s and early 1940s taking photographs and documenting rural and small-town life in her home state. Baldwin Lee (born 1951) is a professor of photography at the University of Tennessee, and a former assistant to Walker Evans. Complementing the 50 or so works by Evans and Welty are more than 30 of Lee’s images of African-American life in the South taken during the 1980s with the support of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Vision, Language, and Influence was organized by the Knoxville Museum of Art in collaboration with Baldwin Lee.

Free admission. Hours: Tues-Thurs 10-5; Fri 10-8; Sat 10-5; Sun 1-5. 1050 World’s Fair Park Drive, Knoxville, TN 37916. 865-525-6101, www.knoxart.org, info@knoxart.org

The Knoxville Watercolor Society will host a showing of new paintings by its members at the Fountain City Art Center from May 14 to June 11. There will be an opening reception on May 14 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM at the Center. The reception is free and open to the public.

In “Student Exhibits,” Mary Secrist’s students’ watercolors will be on display at the same time as the KWS exhibition, a perfect teamup!

213 Hotel Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37918. Information: 865-357-2787, www.fountaincityart.com

The Tennessee Artists Association is hosting a fine arts show and sale in Farragut in a BIG WHITE TENT located in Village Green Center on Kingston Pike. This is an opportunity for local artists to display and sell their fine art in a festive environment.

Tennessee Artists Association: 865-675-2285, www.tennartists.org

The Tennessee Artists Association is hosting a fine arts show and sale in Farragut in a BIG WHITE TENT located in Village Green Center on Kingston Pike. This is an opportunity for local artists to display and sell their fine art in a festive environment.

Friday, 12-7 PM (with reception at 5 PM)
Saturday, 9-6
Sunday, 12-4

Tennessee Artists Association: 865-675-2285, www.tennartists.org

SEC Men’s and Women’s Outdoor Track and Field Championship at Tom Black Track at LaPorte Stadium at The University of Tennessee. Open to the general public; All-Session Tickets: $20 for adults and $10 for students; $10 for adults and $5 for students. More than 700 male and female athletes from 12 universities in the Southeastern Conference. Info: (865) 974-1212 or etrainer@utk.edu

An exhibit featuring the work of TVUUC members and friends will be on display at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. This show displays the TVUUC congregation's wide range of artistic talent and is displayed in the entry exhibit hall at TVUUC. The public is encouraged to share the vision and artistic skill of the TVUUC community. Free and open to the public!

Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, 2931 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919. Information: 865-523-4176, www.tvuuc.org

With instructor Mary Biggs. Part of the "Diversity in Dance" series.
Sundays.

Circle Modern Dance: 865-524-7615, www.circlemoderndance.com