Calendar of Events

The Town of Farragut and Farragut Arts Council will sponsor the 2017 Farragut Middle School Juried Art Show at the Farragut Town Hall. Don't miss this opportunity to marvel at the work of some of Farragut's most talented young artists. Awards will be given for best in show and first, second and third places during a reception on Tuesday, Feb. 28 from 5 - 6 PM.

Monday, Feb. 20 - Thursday, March 2 - During regular Town Hall hours: Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Reception: Tuesday, Feb. 28 - 5 - 6 p.m.

Farragut Town Hall, 11408 Municipal Center Drive (across from the Farragut Branch Post Office). The art show and reception are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Lauren Cox at lcox@townoffarragut.org or 966-7057.

A Celebration of Jennifer Higdon: Symphony Orchestra
Ensemble concert; featuring Higdon's "The Singing Rooms" and "Fanfare Ritmico" with performances by UT Choirs and Geoffrey Herd-violin
2/19/2017 at 4:00 PM in James R. Cox Auditorium, Alumni Memorial Bldg

A Celebration of Jennifer Higdon: Chamber Music
Faculty and guest artist recital; featuring Wesley Baldwin-cello, Shelley Binder-flute, UT Percussion Ensemble, and guest artists Sean Claire-violin and Melisa Barrick Baldwin-soprano
2/21/2017 at 8:00 PM in Sandra G. Powell Recital Hall, Natalie L. Haslam Music Center

A Celebration of Jennifer Higdon: Higdon Talks Life and Work
Guest artist lecture
2/23/2017 at 12:40 PM in Sandra G. Powell Recital Hall, Natalie L. Haslam Music Center

A Celebration of Jennifer Higdon: All Bands
Ensemble concert; featuring Higdon's "Percussion Concerto," “Mysterium," and "Kelly’s Field" with Symphonic Band, Concert Band, Wind Ensemble, and soloist Andrew Bliss
2/23/2017 at 8:00 PM in James R. Cox Auditorium, Alumni Memorial Bldg.

Unless otherwise noted, concerts are FREE and open to the public. The Natalie Haslam Music Center is located at 1741 Volunteer Blvd on the UT campus, and the Alumni Memorial Building is located at 1408 Middle Drive on the UT campus. *For individual or small group performances, please check the web site or call the day of the event for updates or cancellations: 865-974-5678, www.music.utk.edu/events

Opening reception Feb. 17 from 6 to 7:30 p.m.; artists’ talks at 6:30 p.m.

David Butler was trained as an art historian, but he managed to take a few studio classes along the way. His job entails looking at lots of work by other artists, which he says is a great way to learn but can be intimidating. Because his time to make art is extremely limited, he uses mostly pastel, charcoal, and watercolor because they allow him to work quickly. He is inspired by the landscape of East Tennessee and hopes these works convey how much he loves this part of the world. Butler joined the Knoxville Museum of Art as executive director in 2006 after serving as the director of the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University; the Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana; and the Emerson Gallery at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degree in art history from Florida State University, and his Ph.D. in art history with concentration on seventeenth-century Italian art and architecture from Washington University in St. Louis.

Diane Hamilton finds nature a great inspiration. She says that many times her kids would say "Mom! Get back in the car! We are going to be late for school and you already have a million pictures of the sunrise!" She believes that you can never have too many pictures of something beautiful. She was born in Melbourne, Florida and grew up playing outside as much as possible. A good day would consist of throwing oranges and grapefruits at her siblings, eating lunch under the moss-draped trees, and drawing in the sand. She still likes to draw and paint with pastels, but unfortunately she no longer gets to launch any citrus at relatives.

Alejandro Rodriguez: The Facets of My HeART
Rodriguez uses oils, water color, tissues, alcohol ink, and most recently, pen and ink. His mood dictates where he wants his art to go. The deep religious undertones in his paintings reflect universality within diversity. Sometimes the works are tight, graphic and literal, harkening back to his graphic and architectural training. Others are looser and semi-abstract, when he wants the message to be clear with an impressionistic view. Born on the shores of Fajardo, Puerto Rico, seemingly with a crayon in his hand, it was a winding road that took Alex from Puerto Rico to New York City and then to the banks of the Little River in idyllic Blount County. He graduated from The School of Art and Design in Manhattan, receiving many awards in his four years there. Those were years of intense study with multiple media and techniques. He worked as a graphic designer, carpenter and home renovator. When he relocated to the red clay of Blount County, with cows and horses as neighbors, the art fever returned and Rodriguez began photographing and painting beautiful East Tennessee. As a member of the Knoxville Museum of Art and its guild, Rodriguez participated in the Artist On Location event and contributes works to auctions for the Smoky Mountain Heritage Center, the Hope Center, and Knoxville Jewish Day School among others. He had a successful one-man show in the Paris Apartment in Sweetwater, Tenn.

Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, 2931 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919. Gallery hours: M-Th 10-5, Su 10-1. Information: 865-523-4176, www.tvuuc.org

By Bruce Norris, Directed by Ed White

Irreverently climbing through the looking-glass of Lorraine Hansberry's classic A RAISIN IN THE SUN, Act One takes us inside the house at 406 Clybourne street in 1959, as the anxious white neighborhood is roiled by the sale of the home to a black family. Act Two opens in the same house in 2009, as the now black neighborhood struggles to deal with the next wave of change: a white family seeking to raze the house and build a new one. This excruciatingly funny play digs deep to unearth shared demons, and the uncomfortable fault lines between race, community, and so much more.

Theatre Knoxville Downtown, 319 North Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37917. Information & tickets: 865-544-1999, www.theatreknoxville.com

Back to Work – a solo exhibition by sculpture artist Jackson Martin opens with a reception on Friday, February 17, 2017, 5:00 – 7:00 pm. The public is invited. Bring your friends and family and enjoy an evening of art and fellowship.

Back to Work showcases an array of mixed-media sculptures combining wood, steel, fiber and found materials. “My sculptures arise from a need to rescue these abandoned items from obscurity and reconstruct their components into new, engaging combinations,” says Martin. Martin manipulates utilitarian objects and tools to create new meaning, function or lack of function.

Jackson Martin is an artist and educator living in Asheville, North Carolina. Martin is currently an assistant professor of art at the University of North Carolina and recently received the 2017 Visual Artist Fellowship Grant from North Carolina Arts Council. Martin received his MFA at Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art and his BFA at Middle Tennessee State University. He has exhibited his work at Sculpture by the Sea in Aarhus, Denmark, Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Pratt Institute Sculpture Park in Brooklyn, New York. Martin has completed residencies at Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont, Godsbanen Cultural Center in Aarhus, Denmark and Baggat Art Organization in South Korea.

In the Geoffrey A. Wolpert Gallery. Admission is free and open to the public. 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

Paintings by a father and son hiding during the Holocaust

In 1944, after being in hiding for two years, Eva Schloss’s entire family was betrayed and put on a train to Auschwitz. It was on this train that Eva’s brother Heinz told her he had hidden paintings that he and their father created while in hiding. After Eva and her mother survived the horrors of Auschwitz, they found the paintings under the attic floor with a note that read: “Property of Eric and Hein Geiringer from Amsterdam, who are in hiding and will collect the items after the war.”

We are thrilled to present an exhibition of prints and original paintings by Heinz and Erich on loan from The Dutch Resistance Museum in Amsterdam.

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

Pellissippi State Community College alumni will be the featured artists in an upcoming exhibit in the Bagwell Center for Media and Art Gallery. "Through the Open Door: The Alumni Arts Exhibition" will feature Sharon Bachleda, Will Evers, Pete Hoffecker, Brandon McBath, Jamie Schneider and Patty Tinsley and their works of ceramic, metalwork, video, painting, printmaking, drawing and mixed media.

The exhibit's opening reception, from 3-5 p.m. Monday, Feb. 6, will offer an opportunity to meet some of the artists.

The featured Pellissippi State alumni have gone on to study at four-year institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago; Watkins College of Art, Design and Film; Indiana University; University of Memphis and University of Tennessee.

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

Each February, the From Africa to Appalachia Foundation for Education and the Arts (FATA) and Rose Center join together to celebrate Black History Month. For this 29th annual celebration, curator Bob Spirko has developed the exhibit “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” to be featured in the Edith Davis Gallery at Rose Center in Morristown. The exhibit is a tribute to the photography and life of Gregory Manuel Kyle, Jr. (1954-2015) and will feature over two dozen of his photographs and other works. An opening reception and celebration will be held on Sunday, February 5, beginning with the exhibit opening at 2:00 PM and continuing with a program beginning at 3:00 PM. The program will include inspirational music, remarks from FATA Co-President Beverly Lee, and guest speakers including Citizen Tribune publisher Mike Fishman; J.B. Pectol, vice president of communications and marketing at Walters State Community College; and Rev. H Roger Mills, pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church of Whitesburg The music will be provided by Yolanda Treece, Rock of Ages Baptist Church, and Tabernacle Baptist Church.

Serving as a photographer for the Citizen Tribune and Walters State Community College, Kyle was known throughout the area as he documented news stories, sporting events, celebrations, milestones, campus life, and much more. He was a familiar face to many residents of the Lakeway Region who knew him as a friendly, professional, and talented photographer.

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

Free admission. Each reading will include a discussion session afterwards with the cast, director and audience and, when possible, the playwright. Readings:

+ Dracula: Down for the Count by Mary Lynn Dobson - A comic retelling of the Dracula story. Think, “Young Frankenstein” meets Count Dracula.
+ Okra by Bill Raulerson - A comic caper set in backwoods Louisiana with a little magic, a few ghosts, and a very inept police force.
+ The Senator’s Wife by C. Robert Jones - When politics and family collide, they can both end up a little worse for wear.
+ When Blackbirds Sing by Gayle Greene - A lifetime prison sentence on a questionable conviction leaves a woman who was more a victim in her own to right to desperately seek a connection with a daughter she never knew.

Upcoming dates:
February 23: 6:00 pm Okra, Farragut

February 25: noon Okra, Lawson McGee
2:30 Dracula, Lawson McGee

February 26: 1:15 Senator’s Wife, Lawson McGee
3:00 Blackbirds Sing, Lawson McGee

Tennessee Stage Company: 865-546-4280, www.tennesseestage.com

The Knoxville Museum of Art announces an exciting new exhibition, Virtual Views: Digital Art from the Thoma Foundation. This electronic media exhibition is presented in conjunction with the 2017 Big Ears music festival. Drawn from the extensive Chicago-based collection of Carl and Marilynn Thoma, Virtual Views explores the growing importance of electronic new media in contemporary art as seen in the work of artists who are pioneers in the use of LEDs (light-emitting diodes), LCD (liquid crystal display), and computer-driven imagery. The exhibition features nine electronic works comprised of synthetic materials and powered by digital technology, yet the rhythms and patterns of its imagery are derived from nature. The featured artists include Jim Campbell, Craig Dorety, John Gerrard, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Alan Rath, Daniel Rozin, Björn Schülke, Jennifer Steinkamp, and Leo Villareal.

Virtual Views is organized by the KMA and presented in conjunction with the 2017 Big Ears Festival March 23-26.

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

From domesticated cats to mythic symbols of divinities, felines played an important role in ancient Egyptian imagery for thousands of years. Now, 80 items from the Egyptian holdings of the Brooklyn Museum will be on view in "Divine Felines". Likely first domesticated in ancient Egypt, cats were revered for their fertility and valued for their ability to protect homes and granaries from vermin. But felines were also associated with royalty and deities. Combining a lion's body and a king's head, sphinxes guarded temple entrances and provided protection as temple objects. The ferocious goddess Sakhmet, depicted as a lioness or lion-headed woman, and the goddess Bastet, represented as a cat or a cat-headed woman, together symbolized the duality of feline nature — caring yet dangerous. The male leonine gods Bes and Tutu were popularly worshiped as protectors of fertility, health and fortune.

Exhibition programming, all free and open to the public, also will include:
• A lecture on mummification in ancient Egypt by scholar Bob Brier, co-sponsored by the East Tennessee Society of the Archaeological Institute of America, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 21.
• Two free family fun days—"Purrs from the Past," 1–4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, and "To Kitties' Health," 1¬–4 p.m. Saturday, March 25.
• A stroller tour for caregivers and infants through four-year-olds, "Kitties and Toddlers," at 10 a.m. Monday, Feb. 27.
• A lecture on cat behavior by Julie Albright from UT's School of Veterinary Medicine at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 19.

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

Tori Mason Shoes is pleased to present original music and new art from local artist, Robert Thompson, for February and March First Fridays! This is the first time Tori Mason Shoes will feature an artist who is displaying new works while serenading first Friday attendees with original compositions, ragtime and Bach.

Tori Mason Shoes, located at 29 Market Square, will host an opening reception on Friday, February 3, 6-9 PM and again on Friday, March 3, 6-9 PM. Complimentary treats from Wild Love Bakehouse will be provided and Robert's art will be featured for the months of February-March. Half of all proceeds from sale of his art will be donated to the Love Kitchen.

Robert Thompson was born and grew up in Kansas City; however, he has called Knoxville home since 1981. Thompson worked as a lawyer for nearly 30 years but now has the time to try other things. Active in A1 LabArts, South Doyle Neighborhood Association, and Knox County Board of Zoning Appeals. Artist's Website: http://t3andp.wixsite.com/artist-painter

Tori Mason Shoes, 29 Market Square, Knoxville. https://www.torimasonshoes.com/