Calendar of Events

On Wild Animals, Trampled by Turtles' seventh studio album, themes of impermanence run deep, both lyrically and sonically. The quintet's hybrid folk sound continues its evolution pushing the band further into the grey area between genres that defies pigeonholing. Trampled By Turtles formed in 2003 in Duluth, Minnesota. From their beginnings on the Midwestern festival circuit, they have reached new heights with each album. The release of 2012's Stars And Satellites saw the band play to more fans than ever, sell close to 100,000 albums, make their first national television appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman, and have their first concert feature, Live at First Avenue, broadcast on Palladia. This year will see the band headline Red Rocks Ampitheatre for the first time and the kickoff of their own festival, Festival Palomino, which will take place September 20, 2014 outside Minneapolis. Wild Animals is the sound of a band at the peak of their potential, strengthened from a decade together, winning some and losing some, but growing none-the-less. The album captures the intense nature that goes with being alive, melding the universal and the personal.

Bijou Theatre, 803 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information/tickets: 865-522-0832, www.knoxbijou.com, www.ticketmaster.com

The Sundress Reading Series will be hosting Eric Scott Sutherland & Matthew Haughton at The Birdhouse community center.

This month will feature a dynamic reading from Matthew Haughton and Eric Scott Sutherland!
Matthew Haughton's latest book of poetry is Stand in the Stillness of Woods (WordTech Editions). His chapbook, Bee-coursing Box (Accents Publications), was nominated for the Weatherford Award for Appalachian Poetry Book of the Year. His poems have appeared in many journals including Appalachian Heritage, Now & Then, The Four Way Review, Still, Stirring, Border Crossing, and The Louisville Review. He is currently a student at the Bread Loaf School of English, where he is on a generous fellowship from the C.E. and S. Foundation. Haughton works as a school teacher in his native Kentucky.

Known for his high-energy readings, Eric Scott Sutherland is the epitome of a working class poet. He is an ISA Certified Arborist, a community/event organizer, and author of two chapbooks and two full length collections: incommunicado and his latest, pendulum. He is the creator and host of Holler Poets Series, a monthly celebration of literature and music since 2008. In 2011, he was officially proclaimed Poet Laureate of Al's Bar, the home venue for Holler. Eric makes his home in the heart of Lexington, Kentucky.

The SAFTA Reading Series is an award-winning literary reading series that is held monthly at 3PM at The Birdhouse near The Old City in downtown Knoxville. Writers from all over the country are invited to visit and read from their work. Past performers have included Nick McRae, Emilia Phillips, Karen Skolfield, Amy Wright, Alan May, Jan LaPerle, Marilyn Kallet, T.A. Noonan, Darren C. Demaree, Joseph Bathanti, Kevin Brown, Leigh Anne Hornfeldt, and Samantha Milowsky.

Sundress Academy for the Arts: 195 Tobby Hollow Ln, Knoxville, TN 37931, (865) 560-6106, safta@sundresspublications.com, http://www.sundresspublications.com/safta

Symphony in the Park is a wonderful evening with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra benefiting Ijams’ quality environmental education programs, 300-acre wildlife sanctuary and care of our non-releasable animals! This elegant and enchanting outdoor event is a highlight of Knoxville’s fall social calendar. This year, we recognize Keurig Green Mountain as the recipient of the Ijams Spirit Award for the company’s dedication to conservation in our region. This year’s event will also highlight the work of local painter Richard Pratt and special guest musical artist Harvey White and his Pinnacle Band.

What’s more, this year mark’s Maestro Lucas Richman’s final performance at Ijams since he is about to begin his farewell year with KSO. For more information please call Mary Thom Adams at 8645-577-4717 ext.117 or email mtadams@ijams.org

Symphony in the Park Tickets - PLEASE RSVP BY AUGUST 31ST. The non-deductible portion of each dinner ticket is $50. For more information or to make reservations by phone, call (865) 577-4717, ext. 123.

Ijams Nature Center, 2915 Island Home Ave, Knoxville, TN 37920. Hours: Grounds and trails open during daylight hours. Call for Visitor Center hours. Information: 865-577-4717, www.ijams.org

Saturday, September 6 & 13 - Registration: 10:30 a.m.
Kerr Building / Chilhowee Park

Participate in the Tennessee Valley Fair's fourth annual Lego Extravaganza. Individuals and teams of all ages are welcome to enter this live Lego build event. No preregistration required. Hundreds of individuals and families competed in this event in 2013.

Prefer to take your time building your Lego masterpiece at home? Entries are also being accepted for the Lego Build Exhibit. Entries are submitted prior to the Fair and remain on display all 10 days, September 5-14. Categories include: Original Free Build, Children's Toy and Patriotic. The registration deadline for the Lego Build competition is August 22.

The Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, Tennessee’s only tribally owned museum and Fort Loudoun State Historic Area are partnering for the Great Island Festival on September 6-7, from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. each day.

At Sequoyah Birthplace Museum visitors will have the opportunity to step back in time to experience Native American food, Cherokee arts and crafts demonstrations, music and dance. Special demonstrations and displays will include Cherokee life in 1700’s and a Civil War encampment and the Civil War battle re-enactment will be at 3:00. The 23rd Annual Fall Festival’s theme is “The Americanization Program of the Cherokee”. Visitors will be able to meet and talk with Cherokees from the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Nation in North Carolina. Cherokee cooking demonstrations will be held in our newly reconstructed 1800’s dog-trot log cabin with Johnnie Sue Meyers. Meet and chat with Miss Cherokee and have your name written in Cherokee. Special entertainment will be provided by the Warrior Dancers of Ani-Kituhwa who are the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation official ambassadors. The Cherokee Historical Society will be performing a special program on the Trail of Tears. One of this year’s highlight will be the Tennessee State Parks Birds of Prey program on both days. Cherokee Storyteller, Lloyd Arneach will be telling Cherokee stories on both days as well as selling his book and cd’s.

Other activities include posters from Cherokee Elementary school. Darts, beads, talking sticks, face painting and free Cherokee name cards will be available for children. We will also host a children’s blowgun competition on Saturday and an adult blowgun competition on both days. Traditional Indian Fry bread and Indian tacos, and other food and drinks will be sold. At the 18th century Trade Faire at Fort Loudoun visitors of all ages will enjoy strolling thru the Faire as they did in the 18th Century. There will be demonstrations throughout the day in artillery and musketry, along with several battles and skirmish re-enactments, the big battle demonstration daily at 1:30. Merchants and artisans will be on hand to peddle food and wares reminiscent of the time. Period food will be sold by Liberty Free Tavern. Visitors can learn about slate tombstone carving, 18th century salt making, blacksmithing and carpentry.

Music and other entertainment acts will include The Traveling Caudells, a traditional vocal duo; Out of the Ordinary, featuring a hammered dulcimer, English guitar, harp and vocals; and the Beggar Boys, talented singers and fiddlers. Common Stocks Curious Booth of Wonders, and the Amazing Juggling Budabi Brothers will also delight and astonish visitors of all ages. Returning this year will be Faire Wynds Circus, featuring musicians, a conjuror, equalibrialist, contortionist and an escape artist. Musical acts Thunder and Spice will bring to you music that will make you want to sing along.

The festival is named for the “Great Island,” a Cherokee village site 250 years ago. Today, Fort Loudoun State Historic Area and the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum occupy an island created by the Tellico Lake Project. Tickets are $5.00 each and children 12 and under are free. Advance tickets available at both locations. We will have a shuttle bus available between the museum and Fort Loudoun State Historic Area.

Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, 576 HWY 360, Vonore, TN 37885. Information: 423-884-6246, www.sequoyahmuseum.org

It is our immense pleasure to invite the community to the next First Friday Art Opening at the Blount Mansion Visitors Center. We are privileged to have acquired many wonderful pieces over the years, and now we are going to display them for our visitors. This exhibit will showcase some of the best art that the Blount Mansion Association has collected since 1926. These prints and portraits help to make the house truly an amazing experience and help to tell the story of Knoxville, Tennessee, and the United States. The show will include portraits of some of our most famous Tennesseans, such as Territorial Governor William Blount and his half-brother, Tennessee Governor Willie Blount, as well as Charles McClung and John Sevier. Visitors will also see great historical figures such as George Washington, Henry Knox, and Louis Philippe, King of France. Knoxville’s prominent citizens are featured here as well, with portraits of Charles McClung and Mary Boyce Temple. There is also a set of three John Catesby prints and other decorative pieces that will showcase the breadth of the collection here at the Governor’s House.

As part of the First Friday, the opening reception will be from 5:00 to 7:00 on Friday September 5th here at the Blount Mansion Visitors Center at 200 West Hill Avenue in Knoxville. There will be beverages and light refreshments available. This is a free event and all are welcome. Please come and enjoy the event and have fun!

info@blountmansion.org (865) 525-2375

Recent works by painter Victoria Simmons of Knoxville and jeweler Sissy Caldwell of Maryville will be on display at the Art Market Gallery for the month of September. An opening reception for this featured exhibition will be held from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Sept. 5, during Downtown Knoxville’s monthly First Friday Art Walk. There will be complimentary refreshments and live music by the Accidentals.

Victoria Simmons is an award-winning artist whose works are in private collections throughout the United States and abroad. Besides two solo exhibitions, her paintings have been juried into many regional and national shows. A long-time hiker and birdwatcher, Victoria has spent most of her life creating images from nature. Although dogs and horses remain her favorite subjects, she loves painting animals of all kinds, and wildlife and birds of the Smokies will be featured for this show.

Soon after retiring as an executive from TVA, Sissy Caldwell discovered a bead shop with exquisite seed beads and crystals that could be stitched into jewelry. Always having sewn and done embroidery, quilting, crocheting, and knitting, she took classes in off-loom bead weaving, andFeatherbells jewelry was born. Sissy’s artistic signature is a blend of various jewelry-making techniques, such as off-loom bead weaving with precious metal clay or glass, in order to create distinctive jewelry and gifts.

Owned and operated by about 60 professional regional artists, the Art Market Gallery, at 422 South Gay St., is a few doors from Mast General Store and next to Downtown Grill & Brewery. Hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday; 1 to 5 p.m., Sunday. The gallery is wheelchair accessible, and parking in the abutting garage and on the street is free on weekends and after 6 p.m. weekdays. For more information, call 865-525-5265, or visit artmarketgallery.net, or facebook.com/Art.Market.Gallery.

Bliss Home is pleased to present Secret Life of Plants by Knoxville photographer, Dennis Sabo, for September's First Friday. Bliss Home, located at 29 Market Square, will host an opening reception on Friday, September 5th from 6pm to 9pm. Complimentary Steamboat Sandwiches will be provided and Dennis' art will be featured for the month of September.

Dennis Sabo, a Loudon resident, is an internationally honored photographer specializing in contemporary abstract, and landscape photography. His award-winning work has appeared in various publications, television, the Internet and institutions, among them NOVA, PBS, National Geographic, and Blue Planet. A frequent lecturer and workshop instructor, Sabo is mostly known for his fine art abstracts of the natural world. He has refined the fine-art photograph into an interpretive collage of color and texture. The title for this exhibition is Secret Life of Plants an impressionistic and expressionistic art view of this very special component of nature. www.dsabophoto.com

shopinbliss.com | 865.394.6951

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present a new exhibition of photography entitled “America Divided” by Antuco Chicaiza of Sweetwater. The work in “America Divided” is meant to create a dialog about the division that government and society has created in America today. Several pieces only show a rectangle with eyes on a white canvas. “The rectangle not only shows the part of a person on which we usually focus, but it is also means to represent the hyphen, that separates us as a nation,” says Chicaiza. The exhibition will be displayed in the Balcony gallery of the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville from September 5-27, 2014. A public reception will take place as part of First Friday activities on Friday, September 5, from 5:00-9:00 PM with complimentary hors d’oeuvres provided by The Melting Pot and music by Cat’s Away. The First Friday reception also features a Jazz Jam Session hosted by Vance Thompson and Friends from 7:00-9:00 PM in the Black Box Theatre.

Antuco Chicaiza has shown his work in solo exhibitions at Casa HoLa in Knoxville, the Clayton Center for the Arts in Maryville, The Rose Center in Morristown, The Nashville International Airport, the Embassy of Ecuador in Washington, DC, and the Latino Arts Center in Milwaukee, WI.

“America Divided” will be on display at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street. Gallery hours are Monday-Friday 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM and Saturday 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM. For more information, please contact the Arts & Culture Alliance at (865) 523-7543, or visit the Web site at www.knoxalliance.com.

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present a new exhibition entitled "CHIAROSCURO! The Excitement of Strong Lights, Shadow and Color”, featuring original artwork by three local artists: Susan Mink Colclough, Olga Rader, and Bill Womac. The exhibition will be displayed in the main gallery of the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville from September 5-27, 2014. A public reception will take place as part of First Friday activities on Friday, September 5, from 5:00-9:00 PM with complimentary hors d’oeuvres provided by Qdoba Mexican Grill and Jason’s Deli and music by Cat’s Away. The First Friday reception also features a Jazz Jam Session hosted by Vance Thompson and Friends from 7:00-9:00 PM in the Black Box Theatre.

Susan Mink Colclough is a native of Southwest, Virginia. A classically trained pianist, she grew up knowing the great connection that all of the arts have with one another. Tutored in oil-painting, she acquired a deep appreciation for the Impressionist Movement. She studied art in Paris and Southern France and has painted plein air in the gardens, olive groves, and footprints of Vincent Van Gogh. Colclough has taken advantage of her travels across the United States and her experiences in the cultures of Czechoslovakia, England, Germany, Austria, Ireland and the British West Indies to expand her painting endeavors and increase her love of the whole artistic experience. She currently resides and practices in her studio in Walland. For more information, visit www.susanminkcolclough.com.

Olga Rader is a versatile artist with a multi-faceted background. Born in Kazakhstan and raised in Uzbekistan, Olga was exposed to Arabic, Asian, and Eastern European influences, which continue to find their way into her work. She graduated from Moscow University with degrees in Art and Animation Direction, and followed that with a career at Souzmultfilm, the largest animation studio in Russia. Upon moving to the US in 1997, she began concentrating on all forms of her artistic expression; oil painting, sculpture, doll making, iconography, and children’s art (illustrations and murals). She has exhibited at numerous locations in Los Angeles and Knoxville, TN. She is currently an exhibiting member of Bunker, a group of LA-based expatriate artists from Russia and Armenia, the Knoxville Art and Culture Alliance, A1 Lab Arts, and Fine Arts Blount. Olga's interests include Hatha Yoga and Tai Chi, which she has taught in both California and Tennessee. Olga’s art is infused with spirit, strength and character that mirrors her own personality and life story, and is absolutely unique. For more information, visit www.olgarader.com.

Bill Womac began painting at an early age but only became serious about it after studying art at the University of Tennessee. As his career involved much travel, he was never able to fully concentrate on painting until a few years ago when he stopped traveling and opened Boyd Thomas Clothing in Maryville. During his travels, he spent many hours in galleries from Seattle to Sarasota, New York to Palm Beach, and Santa Fe to Sedona. His greatest influences for his work come from other artists. Womac finds an artist whose work inspires him and takes classes and workshops from them on an annual basis, including Bob Burridge, Bill Buchanon, Robert Joyner, and Skip Lawrence. Womac works primarily in acrylics and layers his paintings using both brushes and the palette knife to achieve the desired textures. He paints in a loose, casual style featuring abstract figurative works as well as more recognizable still life and iconic representations.

“CHIAROSCURO!” will be on display at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street. Gallery hours are Monday-Friday 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM and Saturday 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM. For more information, please contact the Arts & Culture Alliance at (865) 523-7543, or visit the Web site at www.knoxalliance.com.

Frutos Latinos is an exhibition by Hispanic artists who live and work in the Southeastern region of the United States including June Crowe, Susana Esrequis, Astrid Galindo, Angel Luna, Cecilia Stella Martin, Rosalina Tipton, Irene Torrealba, Loren Velazquez and Luis Velasques. Many are from the Knoxville area. This exhibition takes the form of a contest. Artists who are associated with HoLa Hora Latina submit their work, and gallery attendees will vote on the best pieces. This is the third year that HoLa will be awarding a prize and the second time that the winner will be selected by the audience.

First Friday, September 5, 5:30 to 9 PM

HoLa Hora Latina, 100 S. Gay Street, Suite 109, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-335-3358, www.holaknoxville.org, www.holafestival.org

The 95th annual Tennessee Valley Fair is one of the state's largest multi-day events attracting nearly 140,000 people each year. Known for its innovative exhibits, livestock shows, concert series, action sports, exciting rides and a variety of unique fun foods, the Tennessee Valley Fair offers tremendous family entertainment!

2014 Headline Entertainment Lineup:
Friday, September 5 - Air Supply | Reserved Seat - $15
Saturday, September 6 - Fairest of the Fair Pageant | Reserved Seat - $5
Sunday, September 7 - Jon Pardi | Reserved Seat - $5
Monday, September 8 - Cole Swindell | Reserved Seat - $12
Tuesday, September 9 - Parmalee | Reserved Seat - $10
Wednesday, September 10 - Big Daddy Weave* | Reserved Seat - $5
Thursday, September 11 - Scotty McCreery | Reserved Seat - $22
Friday, September 12 - Ginuwine | Reserved Seat - $10
Saturday, September 13 - The Fairview Union | FREE show w/ paid admission
Sunday, September 14 - Sawyer Brown | Reserved Seat - $15

*Midweek Retreat is a new event aiming to empower East Tennessee youth to engage in Christ-like service within their communities - a special $7/pp group rate (includes fair admission + concert) will be offered between June 3 - September 4.

Tickets go on sale Tuesday, June 3 at 10:00 a.m. This presale includes concert tickets, discounted admission tickets and ride wristbands.

Tennessee Valley Fair: 865-215-1471, www.tnvalleyfair.org