Calendar of Events

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

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

The sessions are open to any and all who wish to play and are hosted by Vance Thompson, Jamel Mitchell, Keith Brown, Clint Mullican and Nolan Nevels. Bring your axe and sit in, or just have a seat on one of the comfy couches and take it all in. It's free either way.

Upcoming dates (select Sundays): January 3 & 17; February 7 & 21; March 6 & 20; April 17; May 1 & 15; June 5 & 19

Located in the Black Box of The Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Knoxville Jazz Orchestra: 865-573-3226, www.knoxjazz.org

This 30-minute documentary, filmed and produced by Jupiter Entertainment, begins in 2009 as Richard Jolley began work on what would become "Cycle of Life, Within the Power of Dreams and the Wonder of Infinity".

Every Saturday & Sunday at 3 PM.

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

Marble Springs State Historic Site is the last remaining home of John Sevier. Born in Virginia in 1745, John Sevier made a name for himself as a Revolutionary War Hero during the Battle of Kings Mountain (1780), a key player & Governor of the short-lived State of Franklin (1784-1788), and ultimately was elected to serve as the first Governor of the State of Tennessee (1796). Marble Springs was the approximate 350 acre farm that Sevier lived on from 1801-1815, the last years of his life. Sevier named his farm Marble Springs because of the Tennessee Rose Marble that was quarried on site and the natural springs that flowed on the property. While visiting Marble Springs, you will have the opportunity to tour several historic structures that are designed to represent various aspects of John Sevier’s life & times. These structures include: The Tavern, The Loom House, The Smoke House, The Spring House & the John Sevier Cabin and detached kitchen.

Tours: Wednesday – Saturday, 10:00am to 5:00pm and Sunday, 12:00pm to 5:00pm (or by appointment)
Info: 865-573-5508, 1220 West Gov. John Sevier Highway Knoxville, TN 37920. www.marblesprings.net

Saturdays at 12:30 at 4th and Gill park

Wednesdays at 12:00 at The Birdhouse
http://www.birdhouseknoxville.com

Instructor: Karl Hess, $5-20/class
Contact: https://facebook.com/knoxvilletaichi

The exhibit will showcase interesting artifacts from the museum's permanent collection that have not been displayed in many years or have never been on display. Spanning numerous decades, featured items include personal household items such as electronics, tools, clothes, hats and hat boxes, children's toys, and more. In addition, the vignette in the Doris Woods Owens Gallery will display furniture and household items from an 1890s-era bedroom.

Farragut Folklife Museum, 11408 Municipal Center Dr, Farragut, TN 37934. Hours: Monday-Friday, 10AM-4:30 PM. Information: 865-966-7057, www.townoffarragut.org

The Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority (McGhee Tyson Airport) and the Arts & Culture Alliance of Greater Knoxville are pleased to present “Arts in the Airport”, a new exhibition featuring selected artwork from 36 artists in the East Tennessee region. “Arts in the Airport” was developed to allow regional artists to compete and display work in the most visited site in the area. The current exhibition features contemporary 2- and 3-dimensional artwork and is exhibited in the secured area behind McGhee Tyson Airport’s security gate checkpoint through April 8, 2015. Please note: the exhibition is normally available for viewing only by visitors flying in or out of the airport. Otherwise, artists and their guests may view the exhibition during the opening reception and by appointment with Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority staff. Contact Becky Huckaby, Director of Public Relations, at (865) 342-3014.

Juror Joshua Bienko, Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, provided this statement about the exhibition: “The Arts in the Airport show is an incredible collection of artists work dealing with a wide array of ideas in a variety of mediums. It is an opportunity to peek into the minds of so many talented artists living among us. For me, Art does not provide answers, theories or quantifiable data in as much as it prods questions, provokes interpretations and resists resolutions. The works selected for the show are intended to begin conversations and dialogues. They are organized in a way that encourages dialectics to immerge, questions to form and conflicts to exist. I am so happy to have had the opportunity to engage with the work of these local artists who attest to the vibrancy of the arts here in the greater Knoxville area.”

The following artists’ works is on display: Sheila Chesanow of Athens; Anne Freels of Clinton; Veronica Fay of Crossville; Amy Masters of Gatlinburg; J. Brooks Brann, David Butler, Valentino Constantinou, Delia Foster, Marcia Goldenstein, William Goolsby, Beauvais Lyons, Tom McDaniel, Rose Montgomery, Althea Murphy-Price, Dick Penner, Indra Sahu, Jenny Snead, Daniel Taylor, Clay Thurston, Mary Julia Tunnell, Marilyn Avery Turner, Richardson Turner, Hawa Ware, Lida Rice Waugh, and Kurt K. Weiss of Knoxville; Steve Chastain of Louisville; Mary Bogert, Carl Gombert, Adam Griffin, John Patterson, and Bill Womac of Maryville; Eric Buechel of Pleasant Hill; Yvonne Bartholomew-Thomas of Seymour; Pat Clapsaddle and Marty McConnaughey of Sharps Chapel; Tyson Smith of Townsend.

A gallery of images may be viewed at http://www.knoxalliance.com/album/airport_fall14.html. For more information, please contact the Arts & Culture Alliance at (865) 523-7543.

The exhibit, Made in Tennessee: Manufacturing Milestones, at the Museum of East Tennessee History through April 4, chronicles the history of manufacturing and manufacturers in Tennessee over the past two-and a-half centuries. A companion student K-12 curriculum has been developed and is available for teachers and students. As with all exhibitions and programs developed by the East Tennessee Historical Society and the Museum of East Tennessee History, Made in Tennessee features a “grassroots” approach, turning to communities and individuals across the state for help in identifying content and artifacts.

The exhibition begins at the workstation of Knoxville Glove Company employee Margaret Newcomb, who personally sewed more than 10,800,000 industrial gloves from 1953-2013. Visitors are invited to “clock in and out” using a time card and an authentic time clock and will enjoy more than 80 artifacts of iconic Tennessee products, from Jack Daniels to JFG coffee to an Alladdin/Stanley thermos to an employee-signed hood of a Volkswagen. The perimeter of the exhibit includes 20 “Did You Know?” facts about manufacturing in Tennessee, such as did you know that Mastercraft, the world’s largest producer of ski, wakeboard, and luxury performance power boats, built their first ski boat in a two-stall horse barn in Maryville in 1968? Visitors will encounter other surprising facts: Did you know that in 1810, there were 14,000 registered distillers in the state, producing some 25.5 million gallons a year? Intriguing is the fact that by 1980, the Marathon was the only car that had been produced completely in the state, yet by 2010, Tennessee was the “#1 state in car manufacturing strength.” Following its run at the Museum of East Tennessee History, Knoxville, the exhibit will be made available to museums across the state through 2017.

East Tennessee Historical Society, 601 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Museum hours: Monday-Friday: 9AM-4PM, Saturday: 10AM-4PM, Sunday: 1-5PM. Library: Monday-Tuesday: 9AM-8:30PM, Wednesday-Friday: 9AM-5:30PM, Saturday: 9AM-5PM, Sunday 1-5PM. Information: 865-215-8824, www.easttnhistory.org