Calendar of Events

by John Steinbeck; directed by Paul Barnes. At the Carousel Theatre.

"John Steinbeck’s adventure paints an inspirational portrait of the American spirit and a heartbreaking testament to the bonds of friendship." American Theatre Wing

This classic follows two migrant workers during the 1930s dustbowl depression who drift from job to job across the farms and fields of California, holding fast to their friendship and dream of one day having an acre of land they can call their own.

Clarence Brown Theatre / Carousel 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

Recent works by painter Marie Merritt of Rutledge and potter Millie Derrick of Sevierville will be on display at the Art Market Gallery. An opening reception for the featured artists will begin at 5:30 p.m., Oct. 2, during Downtown Knoxville’s monthly First Friday Art Walk, with complimentary refreshments and music performed by The Accidentals.

Marie Burchette Merritt draws inspiration from the rich history and heritage of her native east Tennessee and southern Appalachia and translates its beauty into stories told on canvas. Her award-winning oil paintings preserve historical characters and pastoral landscapes of vanishing rural farmlands. Keeping with tradition, the University of Tennessee graduate and sought-after instructor combines transparent and opaque paints in time-honored techniques reminiscent of the old masters, to set a mood of reflective observation.

Millie Derrick was born in the small Tennessee town of Church Hill and is an accomplished potter currently living in Sevierville, close to the Great Smoky Mountains. She hand builds functional and decorative clay pieces, each of which has a distinctive signature edging. Millie earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art from East Tennessee State University and has continued her education at Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts in Gatlinburg. She also conducts pottery workshops for students of all ages in her home studio.

Owned and operated by more than 60 professional regional artists, the Art Market Gallery is a few doors away from Mast General store and next to Downtown Grill & Brewery. Art Market Gallery, 422 S. Gay St, Knoxville, TN 37902. Hours: Tu-Th & Sa 11-6, Fri 11-9, Su 1-5. Information: 865-525-5265, www.artmarketgallery.net

The Town of Farragut Arts Council presents decorative artist Barbara Enser as the featured artist for September and October. Located at the Farragut Town Hall, the exhibit highlights her paintings of various birds.

A Niagara Falls, New York, native, Enser's exhibit features bird paintings done in various media - including colored pencil, acrylics and oils - and painted birdhouses. A graduate of State University of New York at Albany, Enser taught high school mathematics at West High School in Knoxville in the 1980s, as well as at schools in Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and North Carolina. She is a member of the Rocky Top Decorative Painters, the Middle Tennessee Decorative Artists and Society of Decorative Painters.

Each month, the work of an artist or group of artists is featured in specially designed cases on the second floor of the rotunda in the Farragut Town Hall. For more information about this exhibit or to access a Featured Artist of the Month application, please contact Lauren Cox at lcox@townoffarragut.org or 966-7057 or visit www.townoffarragut.org/artsandculture.

The Farragut Town Hall is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is located at 11408 Municipal Center Drive directly across from the Farragut Branch Post Office.

Oak Ridge Art Center invites you to the 47th Annual Open Show, a juried mixed-media exhibition open to all artists which showcases exceptional work produced throughout our region. Open Show 2015 will be displayed September 12 through November 7.

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 12, 7:00-9:00PM. Gallery opens at 6:00PM for viewing with a gallery talk at 6:30.
Daily gallery hours: Tuesday through Friday 9:00AM-5:00PM, Saturday through Monday, 1:00-4:00PM.

201 Badger Avenue, Oak Ridge. 865 482 1441 or www.oakridgeartcenter.org for more information.

This exhibition will take the viewer through the evolution of Himalayan artistic styles from the 8th century through the present. From gilded statues of deities, to complex and colorful paintings of religious figures, the objects in the exhibit explore how trade, travel, and the evolution of Buddhism helped foster a strong artistic tradition that continues today.

Exploring the rich history of Himalayan style art in a chronological fashion, the Tibetan bronzes and paintings featured will progressively lead the viewer through the major stylistic developments that took place and provide an introduction to the techniques used to produce these works as well as to the complex religious iconography depicted in them.

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 the public to view Time, a collaborative exhibit by Blair Clemo and Jason Hackett, in the Geoffrey A. Gallery. The exhibit showcases an array of utilitarian and sculptural ceramic works measuring time through developed surfaces, symbolic image, and historic and geologic form. Clemo’s work explores time as a significant venture in labor while Hackett’s work is intuitively developed around the concept of time.

Blair Clemo is an Assistant Professor of Craft and Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. He received his MFA in Ceramics at New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University in 2010. Originally from Doylestown Pennsylvania, Clemo spent many years out west studying ceramics and working at small production potteries in Idaho and Montana. He has been an Artist-in-Residence at The Northern Clay Center (Minneapolis, MN), the Da Wang Culture Highland (Shenzhen, China), the Zentrum für Keramik (Berlin, Germany) and The International Ceramics Studio (Kecskemét, Hungary) funded by the 2013 NCECA International Partnership Grant. Clemo’s utilitarian and installation work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally and abroad. For more information, visit his website at www.ablairclemo.com.

Jason Hackett is currently the Studio Manager for the Department of Craft and Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, the same place from which he received his Master’s degree in Fine Arts in 2005. Prior to obtaining his Master’s degree, Jason held studio management positions for Jun Kaneko and Pewabic Pottery’s Education Studios. His artworks have been exhibited nationally and internationally at the Alexandria Museum of Art, San Angelo Museum of Fine Art, The Mobile Museum of Art, The Virginia Museum of Fine Art, The Taubman Museum of Art, The City Museum of Aviero in Portugal, Galateea Gallery in Bucharest, and the Visual Arts Center of Richmond. Jason was awarded the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship in 2013 for his collaged ceramic works.

Gallery hours are Monday - Friday 9am - 5pm and Saturday - Sunday 10am - 4pm. Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, 556 Parkway, Gatlinburg, TN 37738. Information: 865-436-5860, www.arrowmont.org

The Knoxville Museum of Art presents The Paternal Suit: Heirlooms from the F. Scott Hess Family Foundation. This unique and challenging exhibition questions where personal stories end and national history begins. Los Angeles artist F. Scott Hess explores this and other questions in this multimedia exploration of the artist’s paternal ancestry going back four centuries.

Meet the artist; cash bar - Thurs, Aug 20, 5:30-7:30 PM

The Paternal Suit consists of over 100 paintings, prints, and objects created by Hess, but presented as legitimate historical artifacts, and supported by photographs, documents, and historical ephemera. Each object and artwork bears an artist’s name and detailed provenance and has been executed in the style of the century from which it supposedly originates. Sculpture, ceramics, furniture, toys, newspaper clippings, historic photographs, guns, and costumes advance the story. Hess does not claim authorship for the works on display, instead, he ascribes to them fictional artists, referring to himself as the director of the “F. Scott Hess Family Foundation.” The exhibition follows Hess’s ancestral lineage from 17th-century England to South Carolina and Georgia, where family members became key players in the War Between the States (1860–65). Through the prism of his ancestry, Hess examines the impact of false history and deception within each generation and throughout society as a whole, and questions the authority of these perceived “truths.” The ultimate subtext for the installation, which traces the trajectory of the Iverson, Patton, Nolan, and Hess family lines, is the seven-year old artist’s abandonment by his own father after a parental divorce.

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 Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House in April 1865 may have legally ended the Civil War, but it did not end East Tennessee’s bitter internal war. As Union and Confederate veterans returned home, fierce partisanship and settling of old scores often continued. Some Confederates, feeling unwelcome in their own homeland, left the region, many never to return. Yet, as the months and years passed, the vast majority on each side began to work together to mend their differences and to rebuild their war-ravaged lives and communities. The new exhibit Memories of the Blue and Gray: The Civil War in East Tennessee at 150 will explore early attempts at reconciliation and how we as East Tennesseans continue to remember the Civil War 150 years later.

The exhibition will feature more than 125 artifacts from the collections of ETHS, Gerald and Sandra Augustus, Drs. Anthony and Jill Hodges, and others, highlighting reconstruction, reunions, the Sultana disaster, cemeteries and monuments, commemorative art, educational institutions, collecting of artifacts and memorabilia, and state and local preservation efforts. Clothing varying from period gowns to a Ku Klux Klan uniform to a Confederate reunion frock coat will be on display, alongside a brush believed carried by a soldier who survived the explosion and sinking of the Sultana, a piece of furniture made by the former slave Lewis Buckner, and the diaries of Ellen Renshaw House. Featured Civil War Reunion memorabilia will range from 1881 to 2013 with the 150th anniversary of the battle of Fort Sanders. The “Looking Back” Civil War artifact documentation program of the Tennessee State Library and Archives will be represented with an odd-shaped shoe, fashioned by the Union for a Confederate soldier from Grainger County who lost half his foot in the Battle of Franklin. In addition to artifacts, the exhibition will include a video of Civil War collectors Gerald and Sandra Augustus and a slide show highlighting East Tennessee’s Civil War cemeteries and monuments.

The exhibition is presented in conjunction with the Blue & Gray Reunion and Freedom Jubilee to be held in Knoxville, April 30-May 3, 2015. Four days of special programming highlighting Knoxville and the region’s Civil War history begins with the state's Civil War Sesquicentennial Signature Event with lectures by nationally recognized speakers, a performance by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Civil War artifact documentation by the Tennessee State Library and Archives, student and teacher programs, a Blue & Gray Dinner, and more. Weekend activities include music, vintage baseball games, bus tours to historic homes, forts, and cemeteries, living history, heritage groups, exhibits, a service of remembrance, a Peace Jubilee, fireworks, and more. For more information on the programs of the Blue & Gray Reunion and Freedom Jubilee, please visit www.eastTNhistory.org/BlueGray.

The Museum of East Tennessee History is open 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, Monday through Friday; 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, Saturday; and 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm, Sunday. Museum Admission is $5.00 for adults, $4.00 for seniors, and FREE for children under 16. Each Sunday admission is FREE to all and ETHS members always receive FREE admission. The Museum is located in the East Tennessee History Center, 601 South Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37901. For more information about booking the exhibition, scheduling a school tour, or visiting the museum, call (865) 215-8824, email eths@eastTNhistory.org, or visit www.easttnhistory.org.

Where: Downtown Knoxville and McGhee Tyson Airport
When: April 4, 2014-March 20, 2015
How Much: Free

Art comes in all shapes and sizes. We invite you to experience some of the larger variety with Art in Public Places, an annual event featuring large-scale outdoor sculptures in Knoxville’s downtown public spaces and also at McGhee Tyson Airport. These larger scale pieces are thought provoking and awe-inspiring.

By displaying these works outdoors, we celebrate not only the art of sculpture but Knoxville’s natural beauty during this year-round outdoor exhibition.

The exhibition presently on view, an interesting and inspirational collection of works by sculptors from across the nation, was selected and awarded by noted sculptor Kenneth M. Thompson. Kenneth holds a Master of Liberal Studies in Sculpture from the University of Toledo and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from Siena Heights College, in Adrian, MI. While many of his sculptures are in Ohio and Michigan, Thompson’s work can be seen in other states. He has done 41 pieces of public sculpture across the country. Ken has been making sculpture for over thirty years out of his car-dealership-turned-studio in Blissfield, Michigan. From this facility he operates Flatlanders Sculpture Supply and Art Galleries as well as Midwest Sculpture Initiative, which provides exhibitions that feature outdoor sculpture. Fourteen shows are planned for next year, he says. He also serves or has served on numerous arts-oriented boards.

The Art in Public Places Knoxville program, the 2015-2016 year being its 9th is a featured presentation of Dogwood Arts in partnership with the City of Knoxville Public Art Committee. The 2014-2015 Art in Public Places Knoxville Co-Chairs are Bart Watkins and Jason Brown.

To purchase a sculpture, please call [865] 637.4561.

Dogwood Arts: 865-637-4561 www.dogwoodarts.com

Ijams Hallway Gallery Presents: The Artwork of Broadway Studio and Gallery Artists

This month's Hallway Gallery shows off the amazing collaboration of the artists of Broadway Studio and Gallery. Bright, colorful, and diverse- you won't want to miss out on seeing the first group showing of these talented artists.

More events at http://ijams.org/events/. 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 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