Calendar of Events

Location: Clayton Center for the Arts, Denso Gallery, Maryville College
Address: 502 E Lamar Alexander Pkwy, Maryville, TN 37804
Exhibit Dates: February 2, 2015 thru March 2, 2015

Details TBA.

Clayton Center for the Arts: 502 East Lamar Alexander Parkway, Maryville, TN 37804. Tickets are available at the Clayton Center Box Office M-F 10AM-6PM or by phone or online: 865-981-8590, www.ClaytonArtsCenter.com

February is FREE at the Great Smoky Mountain Heritage Center in Townsend. The Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center is a private non-profit museum located in Townsend, Tennessee,near the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The Great Smoky Mountain Heritage Center's mission is to preserve, protect and promote the unique history and rich culture of those that inhabited the Great Smoky Mountain region. In doing this, we wish to preserve and keep alive the history of the pioneers and Native Americans who lived in the East Tennessee mountain communities, reported Bob Patterson, Executive Director. Patterson commented that Free February is a different approach to sharing the resources of the museum with the region.

Join us at the Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center to celebrate the cultural heritage of East Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains region. Our gallery exhibits, educational programs, demonstrations and festivals guide you on an historic journey through time to visit the diverse cultures of Townsend and Tuckaleechee Cove.

Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center, 3/4 mile east of traffic light at the Highway 321 and 73 intersection towards the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Townsend, TN. Hours: Monday-Saturday, 10AM-5PM. Information: 865-448-0044, www.gsmheritagecenter.org

This is the fifth installment of an annual group show of 3-4 artists living and working in East Tennessee. LIFT: Contemporary Printmaking in the Third Dimension examines the work of international contemporary artists who use a variety of strategies to bring a sculptural dimension to printmaking. Featured artists include Enrique Chagoya, Lesley Dill, Olafur Eliasson, Robert Gober, Red Grooms, Jane Hammond, Hideki Kimura, Nicola Lopez, Leslie Mutchler, Oscar Munoz, Marilene Oliver, Dieter Roth, Graciela Sacco, and Jonathan Stanish. This exhibition is the culmination of a series of lectures, demonstrations, studio visits, and the creation of an online video archive documenting each artist’s studio practice. The series is intended to garner support for contemporary art in East Tennessee, and is accompanied by an illustrated publication. Organized by the KMA. Located in the Hall & Rogers Gallery.

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

Contemporary Focus is vital to the KMA’s mission to support and highlight art and artists of East Tennessee, bring them together with the museum’s audience in meaningful ways, and provide incentive for them to maintain their studio practice in the region. The public is invited to a free opening preview at the museum Thursday, January 29 5:30-7:30pm. Contemporary Focus 2015 artists will be on hand to answer questions about their work: Caroline Covington, Mira Gerard, and Karla Wozniak. The three artists selected have a common interest in creating works that examine the uncertain terrain between personal experience and external reality, abstraction and representation, and civilization and nature.

Contemporary Focus is an exhibition series launched by the KMA in 2009 that recognizes, supports, and documents the development of contemporary art in East Tennessee. It features the work of innovative emerging artists who are living and making art in this region, and who are exploring issues relevant to the larger world of contemporary art. The exhibition gives artists an opportunity to exhibit recent work, or consider creating a new body of work. In addition to giving feature artists the opportunity to showcase their latest work in a museum setting, it also allows them to engage with KMA audiences in gallery talks and lectures about their approach to making art, and about the challenges and benefits of basing their studio practice in East Tennessee. In several cases, inclusion in Contemporary Focus has created important new exhibition opportunities for the featured artists.

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

The work in this exhibition explores the non-objective and propositional quality that sculpture can have, and the ways in which we can understand something devoid of specificity and illustration. Presented on custom-built risers and linear structures, individual components are often physically or conceptually networked together with arrangements of objects ranging from the random and chaotic to the precise and articulate. Through careful positioning and intentional framing the works are suggestive of abstracted models and diagrammatic systems that allude to a sculptural logic that is both pragmatic and allusive at the same time.

Paul Sacaridiz will be lecturing at UT in room 109 of the Art and Architecture building on Thursday, January 22 at 7:30 PM. There will be an opening reception the following evening, Friday, January 23, with the artist at the UT Downtown Gallery from 5-9PM. We hope you can make it to these events.

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

Drawn from the McClung Museum is an innovative exhibition project involving 28 artists, each of whom will produce original prints in response to objects from the collection of the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture. The exhibition will pair the objects and the prints to address how we perceive and interpret art, science, and culture. Like the museum itself, the objects are varied, ranging from a mastodon mandible and an Egyptian ibis mummy, to a Victorian hair necklace and an Ojibwa men’s ceremonial dance apron.

The exhibition is being held in conjunction with the SGC International Printmaking Conference, which will bring 1,500 printmakers to Knoxville from the United States and abroad March 18–21, 2015.

McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, 1327 Circle Park Dr on the UT campus, Knoxville, TN 37996. Hours: Monday-Saturday, 9AM-5PM, Sunday, 1-5PM. Information: 865-974-2144, http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu

Arrowmont invites exhibiting artists and their families, members of our community and the public to the 17th Sevier County Biennial Juried Exhibition celebrating the creative talent within Sevier County. The opening reception will be held Friday, January 16 from 6:00 – 8:00 PM in the Sandra J. Blain Galleries and the exhibit will be on display through March 13, 2015. The Gallery is open Monday – Friday 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM and Saturday 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM. Tours are available by reservation, and can be arranged by calling 865-436-5860. The opening reception, gallery and tours are free to the public.

Arrowmont is grateful to Sherry Masters, owner of Art Connections in Asheville, North Carolina, who served as juror this year. With over 140 entries and 103 works of art accepted into the exhibition, this show is a glowing testament to the artistic talent and dedication of Sevier County residents. Of the works accepted, 13 were chosen to receive awards. The artists will be presented their awards on the evening of the gallery reception.

Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, 556 Parkway, Gatlinburg, TN 37738. Information: 865-436-5860, www.arrowmont.org

Free and open to the public - Opening reception January 16 from 6 to 7:30 p.m.; artists’ talks at 6:30 p.m.

Claudia Dean - I Live in Knoxville Now
Through her watercolors, Dean tries to express Knoxville through images of its places. She begins with a photograph, which allows her to isolate and formalize the image before she draws. The photographs are "snapshots" of places that resonate for her and she wants to express the feeling of intimacy and significance in the image. She acknowledges her love of craft and repetition in the quilt pieces, which are intended to convey feeling or emotion in a more musical way than the representational images. She carries over discoveries and lessons learned in each type of work to the other. Dean was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and studied painting and printmaking at Kansas City Art Institute. She was a craft jeweler in Albuquerque for many years, selling work in craft galleries in the southwest and California. In 2003 Dean moved to Knoxville with her family and returned to two-dimensional artwork.

Mark Evans - En Plein Aire
Evans has always enjoyed taking pictures in national parks, and he likes to bring joy and beauty to the viewer. He entitled this show “En Plein Aire” because just as the invention of oil paints in tubes allowed people to work outdoors in the countryside and get the images they wanted, digital photography has allowed Evans to create the images he wants. He started taking photographs as a child with his father’s old camera. He shot black and white film and did his own darkroom work because he couldn’t afford color slide film. What he really liked was slide shows of people’s trips. Eventually he could afford slide film and he hasn’t been in a darkroom since. He’s been doing digital photography for five years. eBooks of Evans’ national park pictures can be found at marksparks.us.

Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, 2931 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919. Gallery hours: Monday-Thursday 9AM-5PM, Friday 9AM-4:30PM, Sunday 9AM-1PM. Information: 865-523-4176, www.tvuuc.org

The Arts Council of Roane County (ACRC) announced that its 2015 Roane Open Art Show will hold its official opening January 19 at 6:30 p.m. at the O'Brien Art Gallery on the campus of Roane State Community College. In previews since January 8, the exhibit features nearly 20 local artists displaying paintings, sculptures, photographs, pottery, mixed media works, and short films. In a departure from previous ACRC art shows, which ran for just a single weekend, this year’s exhibition will be in place through February 28. Admission is free.

The show will feature short documentary films by Lenoir City filmmaker Jesse Brass, each of which features the work of one artist and provides a glimpse into their passions, motivations, and processes.

The Grand Opening of the show is open to the public. Many of the artists with works on display will be on hand for the event and awards will be presented to the best works in several categories as judged by Roane State Art Department Associate Professor Stacy Jacobs.

Subsequent to the opening, the public is invited to check the Event page of the ACRC website at ArtsCouncilRC.org for gallery hours. Specially scheduled visits can be arranged for groups of five or more by emailing artscouncilofroanecounty@gmail.com at least one week in advance. The ACRC particularly encourages art teachers in Roane County Schools to consider class trips to the gallery.

O’Brien Art Gallery, Roane State Community College, 276 Patton Lane, Harriman, TN, 37748. Information: www.roanestate.edu/art/gallery

Arts Council of Roane County: artscouncilofroanecounty@gmail.com

Historic Westwood was built as a “wedding promise” in 1890 by John Edwin Lutz and his wife, Ann Adelia Armstrong Lutz, on property owned by her grandfather, Drury P. Armstrong. The couple moved into the Queen Anne Victorian mansion from Adelia’s parents’ home, Bleak House, a short distance away on Kingston Pike. The Lutzes’ home, designed by notable architects Baumann Brothers, was constructed of brick and stone with a slate roof in the grand Richardsonian Romanesque style popular in the late 19th century and originally was surrounded by 12 acres. Four generations of the same family lived in the house between 1890 and 2012. The distinctive serpentine wall was constructed in 1933 for the wedding reception of Cecil Holloway, Adelia and John’s granddaughter, to Albert Matheny II, who were married at St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral.

Tours: Monday-Thursday, 10am-4pm or by appointment
Info: 865-523-8008, 3425 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919. http://historicwestwood.org

The Mabry-Hazen House Museum, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is located on six acres atop Mabry’s Hill in Knoxville,TN. Built in 1858 and housing three generations of the same family from 1858-1987, the Mabry-Hazen House served as headquarters for both Union and Confederate forces during the Civil War. This stately, elegant home of the Victorian and Civil War periods showcases one of the largest original family collection in America. Containing original artifacts including china, silver, crystal, and antique furnishings, this home is a rare view into the past. The Civil War, a gunfight on Gay Street in 1882, and a Breach of Promise lawsuit in the early 1930’s are only a few stories that bring life and color to those who visit the museum.

Tours: Monday-Friday: 11am – 5pm; Saturday: 10am – 3pm (or by appointment)
Info: 865-522-8661, 1711 Dandridge Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37915. www.mabryhazen.com

Located on Bethel Avenue and down the road from the Mabry-Hazen House, the Bethel Cemetery contains more than 1,600 Confederate dead, including roughly one hundred who were killed in the battle of Fort Sanders. In addition, around 50 “Union Men” and 20 Civil War veterans are interred here. The monument to the Confederate dead was erected by the Ladies Memorial Association and was unveiled on May 19, 1892. The cemetery was cared for and maintained by the Winstead family from 1886-1989. The last family descendent and caretaker, Miss Mamie Winstead, willed the cemetery to the Hazen Historical Museum Foundation in 1989. Meeting her wishes, the Foundation recently opened a small museum which details the history of the cemetery as it pertains to the Civil War in Knoxville.

Tours: Saturday: 10am-3pm or by appointment
Info: 865-522-8661, 1917 Bethel Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37915.

Tuesdays at 6:00 PM and Saturdays at 10:30 AM - A fun great workout!

A technique and fitness-oriented class that offers a solid foundation for developing a graceful dance style. Students learn basic hip and arm movements, head slides, basic traveling steps and turns, and basic combinations for dancing at home and socially. No previous dance training is necessary. No two sessions are identical, so students may remain in Belly Dance basics as long as desired and still learn new movements.

Anyone can learn! Try out one class for $15 but if you sign up for 4 or more then it's $12 a class. At 1563 Crestwood Drive, Louisville, TN 37777. For more info contact Alexia at alexia@alexia-dance.com or call 865-898-2126. Website: www.alexia-dance.com