Calendar of Events

I am pleased to announce my one man show at Maryville College. My large scale contemporary artwork will be on display for the month of February. There will be a reception held from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., Thursday, February 2nd at the Denso Gallery at the Clayton Center for the Arts located at:
502 East Lamar Alexander Parkway
Maryville, Tn. 37804

With featured artist Synthia Clark throughout the month!

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

By John Patrick Shanley.

From the Tony and Academy Award winning playwright of “Doubt” and Moonstruck.”

Filled with beautiful language and set in the rural hills of Ireland, this romantic comedy reminds us that – early or late – love always arrives on time. Farmers Anthony and Rosemary are clueless when it comes to love. To find it, they will have to overcome a land feud, family rivalries, and their own fears about romance.

Pay What You Wish Preview night on February 1

Clarence Brown Mainstage, 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

YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND with The Railsplitters

Yonder Mountain String Band has always been more than a bluegrass band, with a sound touching on everything from reggae to rock. Hear them live this winter on the U.S. Cellular Stage!

Bijou Theatre, 803 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information/tickets: 865-522-0832, www.knoxbijou.com, www.ticketmaster.com

1st Wednesday of each month - $15 admission includes lunch.

TOP BRASS WITH THOMAS HEFLIN & MITCH BUTLER
Though sometimes overlooked, the quintet with a front line of trumpet and trombone has a rich history in straight ahead jazz. Giants like Clark Terry & Bob Brookmeyer, Woody Shaw & Steve Turre, JJ Johnson and Nat Adderley, et al, left behind an enormous body of work. For this special concert, trumpeter Thomas Heflin (a former KJO member) and trombonist Mitch Butler team up to pay tribute to the great masters of brass who pioneered this exciting sound.

Thomas Heflin - trumpet
Mitch Butler - trombone
Keith Brown - piano
Tommy Sauter - bass
Kenneth Brown - drums

4 Market Square, Knoxville, TN 37902. Knoxville Jazz Orchestra: 865-573-3226, www.knoxjazz.org

Chef Mike Costello and Amy Dawson bring their traveling Appalachian kitchen back to The Central Collective for a special winter popup dinner featuring new twists on mountain traditions, heirloom preserves from summer's harvest, local pastured meats, Tennessee artisan dairy products, and a variety of wild harvested ingredients.

Cost: $75 for six-course BYOB small plate dinner. The Central Collective, 923 N. Central Street, Knoxville, TN 37917. Information: 865-236-1590, info@thecentralcollective.com, www.thecentralcollective.com

The University of Tennessee Percussion Studies area will showcase the program’s newly launched resident chamber percussion group, Ensemble Knox, at 8:00 PM on Wednesday, February 1st, 2017 in their “home show” performance at the University of Tennessee’s Sandra G. Powell Recital Hall.
The evening’s concert will be anchored by a collaboration between Ensemble Knox and Australian-born soprano Jessica Aszodi. She has been a soloist with ICE,
the Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, Victorian Opera, the Center for Contemporary Opera, the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic, the San Diego and Chicago Symphony Orchestras (Chamber Series), Wild Up, and the Sydney Chamber Opera.
Currently residing in Chicago, Aszodi will join Ensemble Knox for a performance of “Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedővel” (2000) by György Ligeti, whose work is a cycle of seven Hungarian songs for low mezzo-soprano and four percussionists. The work sets to music the poems of twentieth-century Hungarian poet Sándoe Weöres, while the diverse instrumentation includes non-percussive instruments such as slide whistles and chromatic harmonicas as well as traditional instruments that in tandem will fill the stage.
February’s concert will also feature three contrasting works including Juri Seo’s recent work “vv,” a vibraphone quartet that showcases her penchant for resonance, as well as Nico Muhly’s “Ta and Clap” for percussion quartet, and Aurél Holló’s “Gamelan-bound/beFORe JOHN2.”

Ensemble Knox is made up of UT graduate students and is directed by Andrew Bliss.
For more information, please visit percussion.utk.edu or contact Andrew Bliss, UT’s Director of Percussion Studies at abliss@utk.edu. The concert is free and open to the public.
Wednesday, February 1st, 2017 at the University of Tennessee’s Sandra G. Powell Recital Hall.

Recent works by pipe maker Ron Smith and artist Carl Gombert will be on display. An opening reception for the featured artists will begin at 5:30 p.m., January 6, during Downtown Knoxville’s monthly First Friday Art Walk, with complimentary refreshments, and music performed by Carl Gombert.

Ohio native Carl Gombert started taking painting lessons at the age of 14 with money he earned delivering newspapers. He completed a BFA in Drawing from the University of Akron and an MFA in Painting from Kent State University. “I love pattern. I love decoration, and I love sparkle. These hand stamped works rely on radial structure to explore complexity and pattern arising from the application of simple rules.” He has exhibited widely and his work is in numerous museum, collegiate, and corporate collections. Since 1993 has taught painting, drawing and art history at Maryville College in Tennessee.

Ron Smith's fascination with pipes began with the hours he spent at the Iwan Ries Pipe Shop in Chicago, a regular stop following his frequent visits to the Art Institute only a block away. Following retirement he received formal training under American Pipe Maker, Tim West in 2014 and at the 2014 International Pipe Makers' Seminar in Chicago under the guidance of such masters as Lee von Erck, Rex Poggenpohl, Mike Butera and Jeff Gracik. His freehand pipes are hand shaped, each one a unique creation. Although a fan of the Danish freeform style, he often adopts more classical shapes in his productions and in most pieces attempts to bring out the grain of the briar to bring out the material's natural and often hidden features. His pipes and pens are forms of functional art.

Art Market Gallery, 422 S. Gay St, Knoxville, TN 37902. Hours: Tu-Th & Sa 11-6, Fri 11-9, Su 1-6. Information: 865-525-5265, www.artmarketgallery.net or www.Facebook.com/Art.Market.Gallery

The Knoxville Museum of Art announces a new contemporary exhibition, Outside In, by Jered Sprecher. Sprecher lives in Knoxville and is a professor with the University of Tennessee’s School of Art. He enjoys a growing national reputation as one of the leading representative of a generation of contemporary painters dedicated to the exploration and revitalization of abstraction. He describes himself as a “hunter and gatherer,” pulling his imagery from such disparate sources as wallpaper, graffiti, architecture, cut gemstones, and x-rays.

Preview reception: January 26, 5:30-7:30 PM

Outside In reflects the dynamic range of Sprecher’s recent practice in terms of format, scale, imagery, and process. It also includes several new works configured in a provocatively informal manner designed to reference a space that is central to human domestic life since the dawn of time: the living room. The Study (2013), for instance, depicts an abstracted frontal view of a fireplace entrance defined in broad horizontal strokes in an icy palette that presents the original image in a strange new light. The painting reflects the artist’s examination of parallels between ancient domestic traditions in which the fireplace was a mesmerizing light environment that in contemporary life has been replaced by the ubiquitous digital screen.

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 Farragut Museum has unveiled its next special exhibit, "Fashionably Late." This exhibit features a variety of clothing and accessories that are in the Farragut Museum Collection and two items on loan from Farragut Museum committee members. All of these items are indicative of fashions that would have been worn in this area.

One of the highlights of the exhibit is an original John Pico John (Mr. John) hat on loan from Museum committee member Carolyn Sinclair. John's clients included female fashion icons like the Duchess of Windsor, Gloria Vanderbilt, Lauren Bacall and Joan Crawford. Vivien Leigh wore one of his creations in "Gone With the Wind," as did Marilyn Monroe in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."

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 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 about the museum or the exhibit, please visit www.townoffarragut.org/museum.

Laura Pierpont focuses on the storytelling of photography. The East Tennessee native creates a narrative while documenting the world both as it is seen and unseen. Her latest work, Interiors is inspired by the quietness Pierpont discovered while trotting throughout the stimulating streets of New York City.

We are thrilled to have photographs of Laura Pierpont enliven our walls at Market Square through February 5th and The Gallery from February 7th to March 6th.

We’ve always believed our local art community should be celebrated – that’s why we host a monthly rotating showcase of talented work of regional artists. Tomato Head, 12 Market Square (865-637-4067) and 7240 Kingston Pike, Suite 172 (865-584-1075), in Knoxville. http://thetomatohead.com

The 2017 Farragut Primary Schools Art Show, sponsored by the Town of Farragut, opens Monday, January 23, at Farragut Town Hall, 11408 Municipal Center Drive (across from the Farragut Branch Post Office). The show will feature the work of talented students from Farragut Primary School, St. John Neumann Catholic School and Concord Christian School. A reception honoring the young artists and their work is 5 to 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 26.

The art show and reception are free and open to the public. Town Hall is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information, contact Lauren Cox, special event and program coordinator, at lcox@townoffarragut.org or 865-966-7057.