Calendar of Events

A Lesson Before Dying scholarly lecture with Dr. Stephen Bright at UT's McClung Museum. Complimentary dinner and conversations. As president and senior counsel of Southern Center for Human Rights and a professor at Yale Law School, Dr. Bright is recognized as one of the foremost experts nationwide on the death penalty and wrongful incarceration. RSVP to Hana Sherman at hsherma1@utk.edu.

A Big Read event. The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. The Big Read aims to encourage reading for pleasure and enrichment by providing citizens with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book in their communities. The grant for The Big Read 2016 was awarded to Friends of the Knox County Public Library. A full schedule of events can be found at www.knoxlib.org/bigread.

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

Second Thursday square dance at the Laurel with live old-time music and calling. Featuring The Hellgramites and callers Leo Collins, Stan Sharp & Ruth Simmons. No experience or partner needed, come as you are. (No taps, please.)

Admission: $7 ($5 for students & JCA members)

The Laurel Theater is located on the corner of 16th and Laurel Avenue in the historic Fort Sanders neighborhood of Knoxville near the UT campus. Jubilee Community Arts, 1538 Laurel Ave, Knoxville, TN 37916. For information: 865-522-5851, www.jubileearts.org.

Dr. Stephen Bright, president and senior council of Southern Center for Human Rights and Yale Law School Professor
Supported by the Mildred Haines and William Elijah Morris Lecture Endowment Fund

Thursday, February 11, 7 p.m.
McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, 1327 Circle Park Drive - Free and open to the public

The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. The Big Read aims to encourage reading for pleasure and enrichment by providing citizens with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book in their communities. The grant for The Big Read 2016 was awarded to Friends of the Knox County Public Library. A full schedule of events can be found at www.knoxlib.org/bigread.

Knox County Public Library: 500 West Church Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-215-8750, www.knoxlib.org

Doors at 6:30, Presentations at 7:20
$5 + donation recommended

Presenters:
Jody Collins - Graphic Designer / Photographer / Illustrator / Videographer in Knoxville
Barbara Steppe - Doula, FreeSpirit Birth in Knoxville
Dale Mackey - Pie Maker/Writer/Maker/Small Business Owner, The Central Collective in Knoxville
Kellen Catani - Designer, Maker, Purebred Wood and Craft co. in knoxville
Chris McAdoo - Artist, Graphic Designer, Best Behavior Creative Club in Knoxville, TN
Julie Jack - Art Professor, Artist, Small Business Co-Founder and Co-Owner, Tennessee Wesleyan University in Athens, Tennessee
Dean Novelli - local history researcher & writer in Knoxville
Jack Neely - Writer, Knoxville History Project in Knoxville
Matthew Cummings - Artist/Designer, Matthew Cummings Studios in Knoxville
Sean Alsobrooks
Sara Alsobrooks
Shawn Poynter - Photographer, Shawn Poynter Photography in Knoxville

At The Bijou Theatre, 803 S Gay St, Knoxville TN 37902. http://www.pechakucha.org/cities/knoxville/events/5665a8a7bfb6ffd306000005

How the New York School Rose to Prominence in the 20th Century

Jennifer Brickey, Assistant Professor of Art Faculty Lecture: Booze, bars, and big egos, after WWII the center of the art world moved to NYC and has not been the same since. Bursting with emotional angst, painters of the 20th century found solace in flinging paint, flying high, and really bad attitudes.

Pellissippi State Community College, Goins Auditorium, Hardin Valley Campus: 10915 Hardin Valley Road, Knoxville, TN 37932. Information: 865-694-6405, www.pstcc.edu/arts

William Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus” will play on the CBT mainstage February 10-28 with 7:30 pm and 2:00 pm performances. A Pay What You Wish Preview performance will be held Wednesday, February 10, a talk back with the actors will take place Sunday, February 21 following the matinee, and the Open Captioned performance is Sunday, February 28 at 2:00 pm. The production is for mature audiences only.

Believed to be Shakespeare’s first tragedy and most graphically violent, “Titus Andronicus” was created as a crowd-pleasing shocker, full of murder, intrigue, betrayal, and revenge. Returning victorious from war, Titus has lost many sons in battle. And he has no idea that his worst nightmare is yet to take place. His prisoner of war, Tamora, Queen of the Goths, is bent on getting revenge for the loss of her son at Titus’ hands. The two become tangled in a cruel cycle of revenge in which they lose more than either one could ever imagine. Although the tragedy is consistently popular, it is rarely performed.

“The central idea in the play is that when justice and rule of law is subverted by man’s pursuit of revenge, man is capable of unspeakable violence. Even the most principled and civilized man (like Titus) can become barbaric,” said Director John Sipes.

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

Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts is exhibiting an interactive installation Working Memory, by Chalet Comellas in the Geoffrey A. Wolpert Gallery. A closing reception will be held Friday, March 11th from 6-8pm. Admission is free and the community is encouraged to attend with their friends and family.

Working Memory is an interactive installation composed of a quilt-like structure made of fabric, ephemera, paintings and sound. The exhibit creates narratives from memories by reinventing materials such as clothing, textiles and found objects. The viewer can shift and change the work to construct new narratives.

Chalet Comellas is an interdisciplinary artist who works in painting, sculpture, fiber art, video and new-media installation. Chalet is an Assistant Art Professor at Florida State University where she received her Master of Fine Arts in 2012. She has performed and exhibited her work in museums, art fairs and galleries including In Light Richmond, hosted by 1708 Gallery in Richmond, VA (2014), Grace Exhibition Space in Brooklyn, New York (2013) and Fountain Art Fair in Miami (2012). Chalet has participated in several public art projects in Florida including an outdoor video installation commissioned by the Tampa Museum of Art during Art Basel Miami (2006). For more information, visit her website at www.chaletcomellas.com.

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

Edward S. Albers, Jr. has a unique way of capturing travel memories. Rather than the traditional camera, he travels with paints, a sketchbook, and a folding stool and often skips shopping for a scenic spot and an hour of sketching. Visitors to the Museum of East Tennessee History can vicariously travel the world with Bud Albers through a selection of his most interesting and beautiful paintings, such as Dublin Doorway, Saint Basil’s Cathedral, Russia, and Hong Kong Harbor from Victoria. Local pieces include a painting of Bud’s grandfather Andrew J. Albers, seated in his carriage and holding his small son, Edward S. Albers, Sr., who became Bud’s father. In the background is the family’s beautiful home that stood on the corner of Market and Locust, until torn down to make way for the present Medical Arts Building. The painting reproduces the scene from an old photograph. The exhibition, Bud Albers Recollections: Works from Life and Travels, is on view in the Bilo Nelson Auditorium of the East Tennessee History Center.

Albers is a retired businessman, philanthropist, and artist, whose family is deeply rooted in Knoxville and East Tennessee. He has a strong interest in history, and his vision was instrumental in the creation of the Museum of East Tennessee History.

East Tennessee Historical Society, 601 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Museum hours: M-F 9-4, Sa 10-4, Su 1-5. Information: 865-215-8824, www.easttnhistory.org

Artist: Jeffrey Morton
Reception: Monday, February 8 (3:00pm – 5:00pm)

Exhibition Statement:
If place, according to art critic Lucy Lippard, is the latitudinal and longitudinal map of a persons life, then my art has literally helped me find a home. As a transplant from the Northeast Untied Stages to Southeastern Tennessee, now fifteen years ago, my art has taught me about the significance of being grounded in a place, a specific location. Unique to the American South is the Kudzu plant that thrives in a climate different from its home. In Japan, Kudzu is a decorative plant with a pretty purple flower; however, in its new location, Kudzu is used to fight erosion. At first I thought that this foreign plant doesn’t belong here, and neither do I. But after crawling through the topography of Signal Mountain, TN and navigating the invasive vine, making drawings and paintings from it, I have learned to love the strange plant and the landscape of my adopted home. Simply put, my art argues that geography matters, and even an undesired geography, can shape and mold human life. – Jeffrey Morton

The exhibit is free. Hardin Valley Campus of Pellissippi State: 10915 Hardin Valley Road, Knoxville, TN 37932. Bagwell Center Gallery hours: M-F 10-6:30. Information: 865-694-6405, www.pstcc.edu/arts

The Farragut Museum Committee and Farragut Arts Council will host two free events in honor of Black History Month this February at Farragut Town Hall. The theme for this year's celebration is "Honoring Service and Talent."

An art show featuring the work of Gwendolyn Campbell-Johnson, a Tennessee artist and art teacher at Farragut Middle School, will be on display starting Monday, Feb. 8 through Friday, Feb. 19 during regular Town Hall hours (Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.). Campbell-Johnson holds a bachelor's degree in art education from Tennessee State University; her art focuses upon African American origins, history and identity development.

On Sunday, Feb. 21, a reception will take place at 2 p.m. to honor Campbell-Johnson as well as Bill Valentine, who will give a presentation following the reception at 3 p.m. A Vietnam Veteran dedicated to teaching about soldiers from a past era, Valentine will present an entertaining and informative one-man act entitled "The Buffalo Soldier." Buffalo Soldier is the name synonymous with the all African American regiments in the United States Army established by Congress in 1866. Valentine has presented this lecture at no charge to bring history alive in local schools, churches, colleges and civic organizations.

The reception will also feature museum tours and light refreshments.

The Farragut Museum is committed to preserving the heritage of its East Tennessee community and features a remarkable collection of artifacts from the area, including an extensive collection of the personal belongings of Admiral David Glasgow Farragut, first Admiral of the U.S Navy and hero of the Civil War. Housed in the Farragut Town Hall located at 11408 Municipal Center Drive, the museum is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and offers free admission. For more information, visit www.townoffarragut.org/museum, like Farragut Museum on Facebook, or contact Museum Coordinator Julia Barham at jbarham@townoffarragut.org or 966-7057.

Opening reception Feb. 12 from 6 to 7:30 p.m.; artists’ talks at 6:30 p.m.

Heather Hartman is interested in the constant flux of the visual world, and our temporary space within it. Through common distortions of light, shadow and atmosphere the familiar can become abstracted and unfamiliar. Thus -- for a fleeting moment -- the mundane is transformed into the sublime. Using a material-driven painting process, her work explores how these phenomena affect her sense of perception and physical location. She uses reductive abstraction to synthesize memories, found images and photographs of her surroundings into multilayered compositions. She has developed a process that involves painting on layers of paper and translucent polyester mesh, allowing her to explore illusionism both in paint and in actual space. The resulting images are a combination of blurry, atmospheric forms and distorted shadows that lie beneath washes of color, and intense passages of light. http://heatherhartmanart.com

Jessica Payne - This series of paintings developed after Payne took three years off from painting to focus on art journaling. After enrolling in a number of online technique courses, she found that she most enjoyed learning about and playing with layering. In her current work, Jessica uses bold color and extensive layering to create depth and mystery. She builds up many layers of paint by constantly painting over her work while leaving some of the previous layers exposed, creating windows or portals to other worlds. She uses glitter, mica flakes and iridescent paint to catch the light and allow the painting to dramatically change, depending upon the light source. Her approach to her art is very spontaneous and playful and draws inspiration from color and imagery found in the garden and forest surrounding her house. www.JessicaPayneArt.com

Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, 2931 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919. Gallery hours: 10 AM – 5 PM, Monday through Thursday and 10 AM – 1 PM, Sunday. Information: 865-523-4176, www.tvuuc.org

“Faith, Family, and Friends” is the featured exhibit for February at Rose Center in Morristown. From Africa to Appalachia Foundation for Education and the Arts organized the exhibit and an opening reception and celebration that will be held at 2 PM on Sunday, February 7. The reception and program will be a Tribute to the Art and Life of Sammie Nicely (1947-2015). A moving musical program featuring choirs, instrumentalists, vocalists and more is being coordinated by Yolanda Treece. Special guests will share their thoughts on how important Faith, Family and Friends were to Sammie. Blues great Wallace Coleman will close the program.

The Rose Center, 442 West Second North St., Morristown, TN, 37814. Hours: M-F 9-5. Information: 423-581-4330, www.rosecenter.org