Calendar of Events

Free and open to the public; Opening reception July 17 from 6 to 7:30 p.m.; artists’ talks at 6:30 p.m.
Exhibit runs through end of August

Art Group 21: Friends and Artists
Art Group 21 is comprised of many award-winning artists with professional art training from all over the United States as well as from other countries. Established in the early 1980's by a small group of art graduates needing the fellowship and support of like-minded, working artists, Art Group 21 is a work/study group for mutual support and artistic growth of the members in their pursuit of excellence in the arts. Programs include workshops, lectures, critiques, field trips and group exhibits. The group maintains that the various art forms are a part of the aesthetic total and are mutually reinforcing, thus encouraging the uniqueness of each artist’s vision.
“Friends and Artists” features the recent work of several members.

Lisa Kurtz: Clay for the Wall
Inspired by the sea, “Clay For The Wall” focuses on texture, forms and creatures found in and on sand and water. Kurtz calls these three dimensional canvases: sculptural explorations integrating texture, form, clay and glaze to highlight her two muses – the ocean and clay. She throws and hand builds her clay pieces and often integrates the two methods to create her sculpture, wall art and functional pottery. Her work emphasizes the malleable qualities of clay with lots of texture. By stretching and altering the work while it is still wet, Kurtz welcomes and encourages the spontaneous “happy accidents” that take place while working in the medium and in the firing process. Her current work explores the contrast between raw, earthy, stretched slabs of clay and smooth, thrown glazed forms. Kurtz has been a potter for over 36 years. An award-winning ceramic artist, she currently teaches clay at Cleveland State in Cleveland, Tennessee.

At Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, 2931 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919. Gallery hours: Mon-Thurs 9 AM - 5 PM and Sunday 9:30 AM - 1:30 PM. Information: 865-523-4176, www.tvuuc.org

Jazz, Food, Drink, Gratitude. On July 9 an extraordinary former student, now in the Juilliard Graduate Jazz Studies Program, shows his outsize character: He’s giving back. Don't miss it!

The Joy of Music School announces Juilliard Jazz for Joy, a unique, delicious and inspiring evening. Enjoy food and drink and music while supporting Knoxville's volunteer-driven organization that builds children and teens through the power of music.

The Taber Gable Quartet, in from New York for this special engagement, are planning a fiery program. Taber's bandmates are drummer, Jonathan Barber, Guitarist Andrew Renfroe (a classmate of Taber’s at Juilliard), and bass player, Lesly Valbrun.

Hallerin Hilton Hill of Newstalk 98.7 WOKI is the evening's emcee. Surprise special guests are in store as well.

Taber—the first Joy of Music School student to attend Juilliard—wants everyone to support the school that provided him a foundation, momentum, and opportunity. He understands his contribution, by way of this concert, will help more and more children see their lives changed through the art and discipline of music.

Enjoy exquisite food and drink from Holly’s Eventful Dining. Juilliard Jazz for Joy takes place on Thursday, July 9, 2015, at 6:30 p.m. at the Emporium Center, 100 South Gay Street, Knoxville, Tenn. Admission is $25, $50 and $125. The top level (VIP Table) tickets include a private reception afterward with Taber and his friends. All proceeds support free music lessons and instruments for financially disadvantaged children and teens in Knoxville. Tickets available by calling 865-525-6806, or order online at https://joyofmusicschool.ejoinme.org/MyPages/JuilliardJazzforJoySpecialEvent/tabid/696049/Default.aspx.

We're about to have our one year anniversary on July 1st and want to thank Knoxville for being so welcoming to us! We've met some of the most amazing people, enjoyed meals at great venues and have found Knoxville is the best place to be passionate artists. We've got lots in store to celebrate in the coming month such as new "Paint Your Pet" classes, Cookies and Canvas classes for the kids, flash sales to be on the look out for, a special on our Private Events and even a special Christmas in July! We'll be kicking it all off at the Festival on the Fourth at Worlds Fair Park so make sure to come out and paint with us at our booth.

Wednesday, 7/8, 6 - 9 pm
Dragonfly at R.J's Courtyard

Sunday, 7/12, 2 - 4 pm
Bugged Out at Basement Community Art Studio

Monday, 7/13, 6 - 9 pm
Stadium at Chuy's

Tuesday, 7/14, 6 - 9 pm
Still Life 1 at Downtown Grill and Brewery

Wednesday, 7/15, 6 - 9 pm
Dogwoods at Club LeConte

Thursday, 7/16, 6 - 9 pm
Purple Meadow at Baneberry Golf and Resort

Monday, 7/20, 6 - 9 pm
"Paint Your Pet" at Carolina Ale House

Thursday, 7/23, 6 - 9 pm
Night Owl at Original Copper Cellar

Monday, 7/27, 6 - 9 pm
Full Moon's Ride at Knoxville Uncorked

Tuesday, 7/28, 6 - 9 pm
Birch and Poppies at Mind Yer P's and Q's (Farragut)

Wine & Canvas: Knoxville, TN, 865-356-9179, http://www.wineandcanvas.com/knoxville-tn.html

July 04, 2015 ANIMAL PROGRAM: Ijams Creature Feature
July 04, 2015 ANIMAL PROGRAM: Ijams Creature Feature
July 04, 2015 ANIMAL PROGRAM: Ijams Creature Feature
July 11, 2015 ANIMAL PROGRAM: Ijams Creature Feature
July 11, 2015 ANIMAL PROGRAM: Ijams Creature Feature
July 11, 2015 ANIMAL PROGRAM: Ijams Creature Feature
July 18, 2015 PUBLIC PROGRAM: Wagging Walk
July 18, 2015 ANIMAL PROGRAM: Ijams Creature Feature
July 18, 2015 ANIMAL PROGRAM: Ijams Creature Feature
July 18, 2015 ANIMAL PROGRAM: Ijams Creature Feature
July 19, 2015 IJAMS CREATIVE SERIES: Family Drum Circle
July 25, 2015 ANIMAL PROGRAM: Ijams Creature Feature
July 25, 2015 ANIMAL PROGRAM: Ijams Creature Feature
July 25, 2015 ANIMAL PROGRAM: Ijams Creature Feature

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

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present a new exhibition by Susan V. Adams and Barb Johnson entitled “ORGANIC AND MECHANIC”. The exhibition features mixed media works by two artists who have been friends since they both moved to Knoxville in the late 80s. Susan V. Adams developed her work while exhibiting in local shows and her gallery, and Barb Johnson has been connected to the art world through her background in art education and teaching. “ORGANIC AND MECHANIC” will be displayed in the Balcony gallery of the Emporium Center. A public reception will take place as part of First Friday activities on Friday, July 3, from 5:00-9:00 PM and features a Jazz Jam Session hosted by Vance Thompson & Friends from 7:00-8:45 PM in the Black Box Theatre. Complimentary hors d’oeuvres will be available and chocolate fondue will be provided by the Melting Pot of Knoxville.

Susan V. Adams loves to create. She is a member of the Southern Highland Craft Guild, has exhibited in galleries and shows throughout Knoxville, and has done commissions for several private collections. The focus of her art is botanicals of the East Tennessee and the Appalachian regions. For this show, she has also forayed into farmer’s markets for vegetables and berries, hence the reference to “organic” in the exhibition’s title. Adams photographs, collects and researches botanicals and draws inspiration from antique botanical art.

Barb Johnson finds art as a staple in her everyday life, translating scenes and subjects into works of art. For many years she taught art in a Knoxville high school, which proved her full-time priority. Today, creating art is a full-time passion, and she offers private art lessons in her West Knoxville studio. The word “mechanic” in the exhibition’s title refers to Johnson’s series of acrylic paintings of the large Mendelson Warehouse in Dayton, Ohio, where old mechanical objects were displayed and sold. Every shelf in the warehouse provided opportunities for painting compositions. The “Mendelson” series has won several awards in area juried art shows, and one work is currently in Knoxville’s Arts in the Airport exhibition. For more information on Barb Johnson, please visit www.barbjohnsonart.com.

“ORGANIC AND MECHANIC” is on display July 3-31, 2015 at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, downtown Knoxville. Exhibition hours are Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM. Additional special hours are posted at www.theemporiumcenter.com/visit.html. 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 group exhibition by the Artists of 17th Street Studios titled “Amalgam Volume 3”. 17th Street Studios is located at the corner of 17th Street and Highland Avenue in Redeemer Church of Knoxville, and at any given time, houses painters, sculptors, illustrators, drawers, and graphic artists. This is their third annual group exhibition, which features original work by eleven local artists: Ashley Dawn Addair, April Bachtel, Jalana Cooper, Michael Giles, Jon Hendricks, Michelle Jephcott, Carri Jobe, Sarah McFalls, Janet McMullen, Beth Meadows and Tony Sobota. “Amalgam Volume 3” will be displayed at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville from July 3-31, 2015. An opening reception will take place on Friday, July 3, from 5:00-9:00 PM and features a Jazz Jam Session hosted by Vance Thompson and Friends from 7:00-8:45 PM in the Black Box Theatre. Complimentary hors d’oeuvres will be available and chocolate fondue will be provided by the Melting Pot of Knoxville.

The artists and designers who make up the 17th Street Studios each have a unique background and a specific creative inclination. Their differing goals as artists result in bodies of work that notably contrast from one another. Yet, as these professionals inhabit the same space, a conversation is sparked, similarities are discovered, and a fusion of ideas begins to take shape. The mission of 17th Street Studios is to host artists in Knoxville by providing studio spaces and a working community. These studios serve as workshops for artists to develop their art practice and fulfill their calling. For more information, please visit http://17thstreetstudios.gutensite.com.

“Amalgam Volume 3” will be on display at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street. Gallery hours are Monday-Friday 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM. Additional special hours are posted at www.theemporiumcenter.com/visit.html. For more information, please contact the Arts & Culture Alliance at (865) 523-7543, or visit the Web site at www.knoxalliance.com.

Reception, Friday July 3, 5-9PM

The Land Report Collective deals with landscape in fundamental ways and as a foundational reference point. Brown considers the politics of mountaintop removal in his construction of objects and installations. Jobe crafts meeting places for public interaction through the delineation of pathways and works with stacked brick and wood. Jones responds to desert environments with model scale sculpture and stop-motion animation. Kikut incorporates a lifelong interest in the horizon line in a new series of paintings with flat Midwestern landscapes as his muse. Shadwell views landforms from a non-traditional lens creating mountains out of matchbooks and photo-realistically drawing facets of garbage bags and diapers to appear as monumental.

Jason S. Brown
Brian R. Jobe
David L. Jones
Patrick Kikut
Shelby Shadwell

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC! 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

“CUBA: TRANSITION, DREAMS, AND TRANSFORMATION”
Knoxville’s Hispanic Organization, HoLa Hora Latina, will present a dramatic display of photographs of Cuba during the month of July. A special reception for the three photographers, who are experienced Cuban travelers and leaders of the Hispanic community in Knoxville, is scheduled for the evening of Friday, July 3rd 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM in the Casa HoLa suite #112 of the Emporium Center. The photo exhibit will be open to the public at the Casa HoLa suite during normal business hours through the end of July. There is no admission charge to attend the opening reception or to visit the photo exhibit during July.

The photos of Cuba are unusual because they visually reveal how Cubans are dreaming and also how visitors might be dreaming of Cuba. The collection of photographs shows the results of intensive visits to Cuba. With the changing diplomatic relations, Cuba has come into the limelight and media coverage has been intense since travel to Cuba by American is now a realistic dream of change.

The photographers of this special exhibit include:
Maria B. Clark, PhD, Associate Professor of Spanish language and literatures at Carson-Newman University. She visited Cuba in 1992 and 2014 to participate in international literary conferences. While hailing from Germany, she is well traveled in Latin America because of her research interests and love for Hispanic peoples and cultures. The selected photos from her recent trip focus on some iconic places as well as everyday public spaces of Havana in transformation, as thriving tourism creates new crossroads and dreams for its inhabitants.

Astrid Galindo, a local artist, was in Cuba during the difficult time after the Soviet Union collapsed and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Cuban people were stoical and creative and suffered with fortitude. Artistic creativity was latent during that period that she called "The Bicycles Period” because riding bicycles was almost the only means of transportation and, as demonstrated in her photographs, was an art form.

Rosa Mar is currently the Executive Director of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and an active leader in the Hispanic Community. She is a member of the class of 2012 Leadership Knoxville, a recipient of the YWCA awards for women’s achievement, and a board member of the HoLa Hora Latina. Her trip to Cuba was part of a program sponsored by the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce and gave her special insight, as well as photo opportunities, into the Cuban culture.

HoLa Hora Latina, 100 S. Gay Street, Suite 112, Knoxville, TN 37902. Gallery hours: Tuesday-Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Information: 865-335-3358, www.holafestival.org

Recent works by painter Diana Dee Sarkar of Knoxville and ceramic artist Eun-Sook Kim of Oak Ridge will be on display at the Art Market Gallery. An opening reception for the featured artists will be held during Downtown Knoxville’s monthly First Friday Art Walk beginning at 5:30 p.m., July 3. There will be complimentary refreshments, and Matt Tillery will perform eclectic blues/rock music from the 1960s to the 2000s as well as original pieces on acoustic guitar.

During 34 years as a physician with a busy practice, Diana Dee Sarkar’s creative outlet, besides playing violin in symphony and competitive ballroom dancing, was painting portraits and landscapes of people and places she encountered while doing volunteer medicine in Third World countries. In 2005, the self taught artist decided to obtain an art education. She studied oil painting at Woodstock School of Art and attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. The Wichita, KS, native earned an MFA in figure painting at the Academy of Art University, where she has continued to study pastel landscape painting with such notables as Gil Dellinger and Susan Ogilvie. Enjoying plein-air painting in several countries, Diana Dee will show pastels featuring varied landscapes of East Tennessee and Georgia.

Eun-Sook Kim received a B.A. in English literature from Ewha Woman’s University in Seoul, Korea. Accepted into a graduate program at University of Tennessee, she moved to Knoxville, married, and resumed her studies after raising her children, earning an M.F.A. in ceramics in the 1990s. Her award-winning work has been in juried shows nationally and internationally, and shown in area solo exhibitions.. She founded and, for many years, directed both the Corner Gallery and the Upstairs Gallery in Oak Ridge. Kim, who also does Chinese brushstroke painting, leads workshops, teaches, and lectures. She belongs to the National Council for Educators of Ceramic Art, the Tennessee Association of Craft Artists, and Foothills Craft Guild. Her work has appeared in ceramics magazines published globally.

Owned and operated by 62 professional regional artists! Art Market Gallery, 422 S. Gay St, Knoxville, TN 37902. Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 11AM-6PM, Sunday 1-5PM. Information: 865-525-5265, www.artmarketgallery.net

This is a group show by local artists who are members of the Tennessee Artists Association featuring a variety of works in pastels, watercolors, oils, acrylics and mixed media.

Hours: Monday thru Friday, 9 AM to 4PM
Westminster Presbyterian Church's Schilling Gallery, 6500 S Northshore Dr, Knoxville, TN 37919. Info: (865) 584-3957

Tennessee Artists Association: www.tnartists.org

The Knoxville Watercolor Society will exhibit recent works from its members. Opening reception Saturday June 27, 2015 7:00 – 9:00 and features Gallery Talk at 6:30. For more information about the Knoxville Watercolor Society, membership requirements and to view members' art works go to www.knxvillewatercolorsociety.com.

Oak Ridge Art Center, 201 Badger Avenue, Oak Ridge, TN 37830. Hours: Tu-F 9-5, Sa-M 1-4. Information: 865-482-1441, www.oakridgeartcenter.org

We organized this exhibition back in 2012. It's been on the road since then, and now we are showing it one more time before we have to send these beautiful works of art back to Japan. If you missed it the first time, now is your chance to see it. If you loved seeing the original show, come back and see it again!

Curated by Sam Yates and Hideki Kimura, professor of art at Kyoto City University of Arts, Redefining the Multiple unites 13 printmakers from Japan who bring the techniques and concepts of printmaking to a wide range of contemporary and traditional media. Of the selected participants, four make three-dimensional objects and installations, two paint with printmaking tools and techniques, three use digital photography and technology, while others utilize traditional and recognizable printmaking methods.

This exhibition is a diverse selection of objects and images from the hands of an equally diverse group of artists, including men and women of various ages from their mid-twenties to mid-sixties. The artists reside and work in different regions throughout Japan, and the visual content of their work ranges anywhere from formal abstraction, to iterations of traditional Japanese cultural images. The featured artists are: Hideki Kimura, Junji Amano, Kouseki Ono, Koichi Kiyono, Shuji Chiaki, Toshinao Yoshioka, Shunsuke Kano, Naruki Oshima, Marie Yoshiki, Nobauki Onishi, Shoji Miyamoto, Arata Nojima, and Saori Miyake.

The Ewing Gallery is currently operating with abbreviated, summer hours. We are open Tuesday - Friday from 12-5pm. The Gallery is closed Saturday - Monday.
Ewing Gallery, 1715 Volunteer Blvd on the UT campus, Knoxville, TN 37996. Information: 865-974-3200, www.ewing-gallery.utk.edu