Calendar of Events

Unarmed Merchants is honored to have the paintings of Cynthia Markert & Asa McEwan for the month of July. This will also be the final month that Unarmed Merchants will be open in its current capacity. I am very grateful for the opportunity that I have had for almost 4 years now. So help me celebrate a good time with these two wonderful artists - at an awesome gallery in the best city I have ever called home. Not to mention there will be plenty of refreshments, fun, surprises and free stuff.

Unarmed Merchants, 129 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-549-5769, http://www.allknox.com/businesses/4

WDVX Radio and the multi-talented Sean McCollough of The Lonetones and the John Myers Band have teamed up to create "Kidstuff," a fun and educational weekly radio show, airing Saturday mornings at 9:00 A.M. Kidstuff is a show full of high-quality music geared to the young and the young at heart. The show presents live and recorded music and will eventually include a live audience once a month. Listeners will hear traditional music and original music from a variety of genres, cultures, and even music performed by kids themselves.

WDVX, 301 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-544-1029, www.wdvx.com

Classic movies to be shown this summer:
June 24: "North By Northwest" with Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint
July 8 & 10: "The Sound of Music"
August 5 & 7: "Some Like It Hot"
August 13 & 14: "Gone with the Wind"
August 19: "West Side Story"

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

Korean artist Kwang-Young Chun (b. 1944) began work on his series of Aggregations in the 1990s. Today, he is recognized internationally for these sculptural forms. The basis of his work is individual, triangular, Styrofoam shapes. Individually, these shapes are minuscule. Taken together, however, their visual impact is immense. This concept of the aggregate is what drives Chun’s work.

The Styrofoam shapes are covered in Korean mulberry paper. In Korea, the paper is a mainstay and has many utilitarian uses from floor and window coverings to candy and medicinal wrappers. It also resonates with personal meaning for the artist, who recalls trips to an herbalist as a small child. Medicines wrapped in mulberry paper hung from the ceiling of the shop, the paper protecting the contents from dampness and insects.

Chun uses pages recycled from old books to cover the geometric forms. These pages are covered in Korean and Chinese characters, adding another layer of cultural and personal meaning. He hand ties the paper over each shape, twisting pages into string to complete the wrapping. In this way Chun is able to integrate traditional materials into a contemporary context.

There will be an exhibition preview party Thursday, June 9, 2011 from 5:30-7:30pm.
Curated by Susan Moldenhauer. Funded in part by the National Advisory Board of the UW Art Museum and the Wyoming Arts Council through the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wyoming State Legislature.

Knoxville Museum of Art, 1050 World's Fair Park Dr, Knoxville, TN 37916. Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10AM-5PM; Friday, 10AM-8PM; Sunday, 1-5PM. For information: 865-525-6101, www.knoxart.org

Learn about the plants and animals that come out in the evening! Wear your walking shoes and let us guide you and your family through the Gardens during twilight.
Meet the Flowers - Tuesday, June 7, 6:30 p.m.
Explore your Senses - Tuesday, July 5, 6:30 p.m.
Taste Buds - Tuesday, August 2, 6:30 p.m.
Going on a Bug Hunt - Tuesday, September 6, 6:30 p.m.

The 70 photographs presented in this stunning exhibition are drawn from the recent book, Sudan: The Land and the People, written by U.S. Ambassador Timothy Carney ( the last ambassador to Sudan) and his wife and collaborator, journalist Victoria Butler. Award-winning photographer Michael Freeman spent over two years compiling extraordinary images of the rich ethnic, cultural and geographical diversity of Africa’s largest country. Bordered by nine nations, Sudan holds the key to regional stability and prosperity. It has long had the potential to be the engine of economic development for the whole of northeastern Africa. Sudan’s wealth lies not only in its plentiful natural resources, but in its ethnic and cultural heritage.

For millennia, immigrants and invaders from the Mediterranean and the Middle East have come together and blended with African ethnic groups to produce peoples of great beauty who share a turbulent past and rich cultural heritage. Armed conflict, drought and famine have plagued Sudan since its independence in 1956.

McClung Museum, 1327 Circle Park Dr, Knoxville, TN 37996. Hours: Monday-Saturday, 9AM-5PM; Sunday, 1-5PM. For information: 865-974-2144, http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu

"NIKON SMALL WORLD" traveling exhibition of 20 award winning photomicrographs that allow the museum visitor to see the unseen. Dynamic images at the intersection of science and art show the beauty and complexity of life as seen through a light microscope. AMSE Lobby.

American Museum of Science & Energy, 300 S. Tulane Avenue, Oak Ridge, TN 37830. Hours: Monday-Saturday 9AM-5PM; Sunday 1-5PM. For information: 865-576-3200, www.amse.org

The Museum garden will provide a living demonstration of vegetables typically grown in pioneer Appalachia.
In a real‐life demonstration of “farm to table,” the Museum restaurant will feature garden vegetables on the daily menu.
Visitors will receive an educational brochure highlighting farm implements
throughout the Museum. Signs will highlight cider presses, corn grinders,
an M‐30 tractor, farm wagons, butter churns, plows, harrows and rakes, scythes, an
“underground dairy” or root cellar, bee hive, cantilever barn, and numerous other agriculture‐related artifacts and structures throughout the Museum.

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

Allowing guests to meet some of the zoo's favorite animals. Go behind-the-scenes to meet rhinos, giraffes, penguins, or tortoises. Have the opportunity to feed or even touch the animal. You'll also get to meet the animal's keeper and take a souvenir photo of you and your new friend! 10 person limit per session; $20 per person.

Tortoise Time - Saturdays at 11:00 AM
Penguin Party - Saturdays at 1:00 PM
Giraffe Gathering - Saturdays and Sundays at 2:30 PM

Knoxville Zoo, 3500 Knoxville Zoo Drive, Knoxville, TN 37914. Open every day except Christmas. Information: 865-637-5331, www.knoxville-zoo.org

Learn how to capture a perfect garden photograph while enjoying an early morning walk through the gardens. A member of our staff will lead an hour-long walk focusing on the best lighting and garden location during that particular walk. This event is a unique opportunity to have time with fellow photographers and garden lovers while having some serious photography time in the garden. Photography walks will be held every third Friday: May 20, June 17, July 15 and August 19. Walks begin at 7:30 a.m. and depart from the Friendship Plaza at the entrance to the Gardens.

We are excited to have a variety of monthly walks. Walks are rain or shine, and will be cancelled only in the event of dangerous lightening. All walks are FREE and meet at the entrance to the Gardens. (Advance registration appreciated, but not required.)

Featuring nineteenth century Tennessee-made earthenware and stoneware
Tennessee Turned: Earthenware and Stoneware Made in East Tennessee 1800-1900 is a major exhibition of nineteenth-century pots made in East Tennessee. This once-in-a-lifetime grouping of more than 200 distinctive regional pieces will make for an unforgettable exploration of this chapter of Tennessee history.
“This pottery, of which we are justifiably proud, provides a unique link in the continuum of the American potting tradition as it spread across the United States.”

The exhibit will explore all aspects of nineteenth-century pottery production in East Tennessee, as well as featuring comparative examples from other parts of the state. Visitors will learn how to “read” a pot, how a pot was made in the nineteenth-century, the difference between earthenware and stoneware, and the importance of pottery for households.

On Friday, June 3, ETHS will host the Smoky Mountain Pottery Festival at the History Center for an opening reception, pottery demonstrations, and a viewing of the Tennessee Turned exhibit. Two special “Pottery Day” events to be held June 25 and September 17 will invite the public to bring in pottery objects they may have in their families for possible identification and to be documented photographically for historical purposes.

East Tennessee Historical Society, 601 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Museum hours: Monday-Friday: 9AM-4PM; Saturday: 10AM-4PM; Sunday: 1-5PM. For information: 865-215-8824, www.easttnhistory.org

An exhibition of artworks by current workshop instructors that represents their most recent explorations or relates directly to the class they are currently teaching. The Instructor Exhibition augments classroom and studio experiences by providing examples of contemporary work by national and international visual artists. In the Sandra J. Blain Galleries

Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, 576 Parkway, Gatlinburg, TN 37738. For information: 865-436-5860, www.arrowmont.org