Calendar of Events

Historians have long mulled over the big and small questions surrounding the American Civil War. Scholars and enthusiasts alike look at the 1860s from every angle and still come up with new theories and ideas. As part of a four month sesquicentennial celebration of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, Knox County Public Library invites the public to join in a free five-part reading and discussion series called “Let’s Talk About It: Making Sense of the American Civil War.” The library is one of 65 public libraries nationwide receiving grants to host the book discussion series developed by the American Library Association and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Library has multiple copies available for check out of each of the three books being discussed. Attendees are encouraged to bring a bag lunch as well as an appetite for meaningful discussion. All programs begin at noon and occur in the East Tennessee History Center Auditorium, 601 South Gay Street , Knoxville , Tennessee , 37902 :

November 2 at 12 PM, March (2005), by Geraldine Brooks

November 23 at 12 PM, Selections from America’s War: Talking about the Civil War and Emancipation on their 150th Anniversaries (2011), by Edward L. Ayers

January 4 at 12:00 PM, Selections from America’s War: Talking about the Civil War and Emancipation on their 150th Anniversaries (2011), by Edward L. Ayers

January 25 at 12:00 PM, Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam (2002), by James McPherson

February 22 at 12:00 PM, Selections from America’s War: Talking about the Civil War and Emancipation on their 150th Anniversaries (2011), by Edward L. Ayers

For more information about the series please visit www.knoxlib.org/lincoln or contact Mary Pom Claiborne, 865-215-8767.

November 1 - Dec. 30 "NOISE!" a traveling exhibition, features 10 interactive exhibits that take a playful look at the physics of sound waves, as well as how music and sound affects out mood. Appropriate for students in K-8. AMSE Second Level.

The American Museum of Science and Energy, located at 300 South Tulane Avenue in Oak Ridge, is open Monday through Saturday from 9 am - 5 pm and Sunday 1 - 5 pm. Admission is Adults $5, Seniors (65+) $4, Students (6 - 17) $3 and Children (5 and under) free. Group rates are available for 20 or more with advance reservations. For more information on AMSE memberships, exhibits, programs, and special events, go to www.amse.org. To schedule a group visit, call AMSE at (865) 576-3200.

November 1 - Dec. 4 "Notable Trees of Tennessee" a photography exhibit of 36 trees selected by the Tennessee Urban Forestry Council. The trees photographed include different species, a cross section of both rural and urban locations throughout the state, and a mix of historic and live trees. Examples of leaf venation and cross section of tree species are displayed. AMSE Lobby

The American Museum of Science and Energy, located at 300 South Tulane Avenue in Oak Ridge, is open Monday through Saturday from 9 am - 5 pm and Sunday 1 - 5 pm. Admission is Adults $5, Seniors (65+) $4, Students (6 - 17) $3 and Children (5 and under) free. Group rates are available for 20 or more with advance reservations. For more information on AMSE memberships, exhibits, programs, and special events, go to www.amse.org. To schedule a group visit, call AMSE at (865) 576-3200.

Jean Hess presents works “Surface Calm” at Clayton Center for the Arts Blackberry Gallery. “Surface Calm” uses surface as a surprise factor. Hess builds up 30-40 layers of resin, paint and phosphorescent dust. According to the artist, “ The depth of the layers hels refract light up from lower layers so there is a kind of glow that one could not achieve with a single layer.” Themes in the artists’ work include geometric patterns inspired by her gandfather’s fabric designs, a lifelong interest in botanical structure of flowers and plants, old family documents such as old school textbooks. To the artist, the issue of meaning involves the artists’ belief set, what the work of art is about and the viewer’s response. “Because of these three very different takes on works of art and their place in the social dialogue, it is very hard for me to claim that my own work has the same meaning to me as another. ….So the show title “Surface Calm” means one thing to me and perhaps many other things to viewers. “ says Hess.

The Blackberry Farm Gallery at Clayton Center for the Arts is one of two art galleries open to the public daily from 10 am to 5 pm. Clayton Center for the Arts: 502 East Lamar Alexander Parkway, Maryville, TN 37804. Info: 865-981-8590, www.ClaytonArtsCenter.com

November 1-27 Art Market Gallery of Knoxville is
pleased to present an exhibit of recent works by Lil Clinard of Loudon and
Elaine Fronczek of Knoxville.

Award-winning watercolor and acrylic painter Lil Clinard strives to express
her response to the natural world through brush stroke, texture, color,
light and composition rather than the control of photographic detail.
Fiber artist Elaine Fronczek fashions clothing and home décor items from
unique fabrics that she creates through a process called wet felting, a
method that dates back over 8000 years that she often combines with the more
modern technique of needle felting.

A First Friday Reception for the exhibit is planned for November 4 from
5:30-9 pm with complimentary refreshments and live music.
Member owned and operated by over 60 regional artists, Art Market Gallery is
located at 422 South Gay Street in Knoxville next to the Downtown Grill &
Brewery. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 11 am-6 pm & Sunday 1-5 pm.
For more information, call 865-525-5265, visit artmarketgallery.net or join
us on facebook: facebook.com/Art.Market.Gal

Conceived by Rebecca Feldman; Music and Lyrics by William Finn; Book by Rachel Sheinkin; at the Carousel Theatre. This Tony Award winning musical comedy that's a hit with critics and audiences alike! Six lovable nerds, in the throes of puberty, battle for a spelling championship that is a perfect evening of musical F-U-N. Who knows? YOU may find yourself Season Ticketson stage!

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

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee plays October 27 through November 13 in the Carousel Theatre. This delightful new musical is a real time event where ten finalists compete for the chance to go to the national spelling bee in Washington DC. Through the course of the bee we get up close and personal with all the contestants and learn of their dreams and challenges. As participants gradually are eliminated we see the trials and tribulations of adolescence in high comic relief.

The Tony award winning musical was based upon C-R-E-P-U-S-C-U-L-E, an original improvisational play created by Rebecca Feldman and performed by The Farm, a New York-based improvisational comedy troupe. It opened on Broadway in 2005 and ran until January 2008. The musical is now produced in theatres across the country to rave reviews!

OCTOBER 27 - NOVEMBER 13 Carousel Theatre.

In observance of the Civil War’s 150th anniversary, Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center is hosting an exhibition from the Tennessee State Museum, Common People in Uncommon Times: The Civil War in Tennessee. The exhibition focuses on how the war affected the lives of Tennesseans through personal stories of participants whose sagas illustrate a land divided.

The narrative of personal struggle and endurance during the Civil War is presented on 10 graphic panels taken from the State Museum’s collection of photographs and artifacts from the era, as well as from other collections across the state. Each panel portrays a different theme: Confederate leaders, Union leaders, African-Americans, civilian home front, common soldiers, war on the water, reconstruction and commemoration.

Admission to the special exhibition is included in the museum admission price, and free for Heritage Center members. For current hours and admission rates, visit www.gsmheritagecenter.org

"Windows to Heaven: Treasures from the Museum of Russian Icons, Clifton, MA" brings together historically significant works from the collection, dating from 1590 AD to present day. This spectacular exhibition helps demonstrate how religious structures and organizations are created by civilizations to reflect their own spiritual, social and political needs.

Frank H. McClung Museum, 1327 Circle Park on the UT campus, Knoxville, TN
Information: 865-974-2144, http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu

Featuring artists John Bissonette, Brian Jobe, and Greg Pond. Contemporary Focus is an annual KMA series that serves as a vital means of recognizing, supporting, and documenting the development of contemporary art in East Tennessee. Each year the series presents emerging artists who work in new and experimental ways. Contemporary Focus 2011 features three artists who work through different methods but share an aesthetic concern exploring concepts of space in innovative ways. John Bissonette uses traditional materials such as paint and canvas to produce colorful scenes of urban decay. His images reference banners or flags from abandoned storefronts and display windows once used to attract the attention of passersby, but now exist as mute abstract shapes. Brian Jobe transforms three-dimensional objects using brightly colored zip-ties. The thousands of ties extend otherwise ordinary objects into new, imposing forms. Greg Pond works with computer technology to program interactive, responsive sculptures, often using sound as a primary medium. His structures act as generative bases for tracking, manipulating, and projecting sounds made by audience members as they move through the exhibition space.

Opening reception is Thursday, August 25. KMA members are invited from 6-7pm, with the event opening to the public at 7pm. Artists will be on hand for questions and a cash bar will be provided.

Throughout the run of Contemporary Focus 2011, each artist will present a lecture or workshop about their artwork:
Saturday, September 17, 1-4pm Artist in Action with Greg Pond
Friday, September 23, 1-4pm Artist in Action with Brian Jobe
Wednesday, October 19, noon-1pm, Dine & Discover with John Bissonette
Saturday, October 22, 1-4pm, Artist in Action with John Bissonette

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

The exhibition consists of faxes submitted by nearly 100 artists sent to the initial showing of FAX at The Drawing Center, New York, along with seminal examples of early telecommunications art. The KMA will invite additional artists to submit works through a working fax line in the gallery throughout the duration of the exhibition. All the transmitted pages will be archived or displayed together with the active fax machine, which may produce new faxes from invited artists at any moment. The result—an ongoing cumulative project—is a show concerned with ideas of reproduction, obsolescence, distribution, and mediation. Here, reproducible yet erratic faxes displace traditional notions of the hand‚ still commonly associated with the medium of drawing, and foreground the role of drawing as a generative process.

FAX is a traveling exhibition co-organized by The Drawing Center, New York, and Independent Curators International (ICI), New York, and circulated by ICI. The guest curator is João Ribas. The exhibition and the accompanying catalogue were made possible, in part, by members of the Drawing Room, a patron circle founded to support innovative exhibitions in The Drawing Center’s project gallery; and by support to ICI from The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, and ICI Benefactor members Agnes Gund, Gerrit and Sydie Lansing, and Barbara and John Robinson.

Opening reception is Thursday, August 25. KMA members are invited from 6-7pm, with the event opening to the public at 7pm.

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

Now in its fifth year, this world-class exhibition of 25 large-scale sculptures can be viewd in downtown Knoxville and the McGhee Tyson Airport. The 2011 exhibition juror will be John Henry and will feature up to 35 large-scale, outdoor sculptures. The selected sculptures will be exhibited in downtown Knoxville. For more information: 865-637-4561, www.dogwoodarts.com