Calendar of Events

Join us for the opening reception of the Bagwell Center's first 2018 art exhibition: Magic in Folds of Tajtania. Light refreshments will be provided. Tuesday, January 16 at 3 PM - 5 PM

Tatiana Potts is an artist, instructor, printmaker, bookmaker and ceramist. She pulls influence from her travels and her Slovakian heritage. Forever inspired by drawing, she is very much interested in a “world of making.” She constructs, reinvents and combines environments—revealing shadows of the self—using composites of memories, imaginations and architectural structures.

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

"Ebony Imagery XVII" - a Mixed Media Exhibition by African American Artists from Tennessee;
"Travelogue: Colma, California's Religious Stained Glass" - photographs by Nicole Ferrara; and
"Selections from the Permanent Collection" - featuring International Artists including Henri Matisse, Karl Appel, Salvador Dali and many others.

Opening Reception: Sunday Afternoon, January 14, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM, Gallery Talk at 4:00 PM. The event is free and open to the public. Bring your friends and family!

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

Opening reception on Fri Jan 12, 6:30-8 PM with awards announced at 7 PM. Free and open to the public.

Exhibit viewing hours: Tu, Th 9-5; W, F 10-5; Sat 9-1. Fountain City Art Center, 213 Hotel Ave, Knoxville, TN 37918. Information: 865-357-2787, www.fountaincityartcenter.com

JOIN US FOR A RECEPTION ON Thursday, January 11, 6:30 - 8:30 PM in the Ewing Gallery featuring work by Dana DeGiulio, Ezra Tessler, Clare Grill, and Caitlin Cherry

The presence of acclaimed artists—who have lived and worked in major cultural centers across the country—enhances the educational opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the University of Tennessee School of Art. With daily contact over the course of a full semester, resident artists develop a unique relationship with the student body which complements the creative stimulation offered by guest lecturers and the School of Art’s faculty. Representing diverse ethnic, cultural, educational, and professional backgrounds, these resident artists introduce another layer of candor and a fresh artistic standard for the students who, though early in their formal art studies, are beginning to develop their own perceptions, skills, and theories in connection with the making of art.

Although the resident artists present slide lectures during their stays, it is access to their works of art that is highly anticipated and valued by both the students and the faculty. Therefore, the Ewing Gallery has sponsored group exhibitions of these artists since the inception of the Artist-in-Residence Program in 1982. Currently held every two years, this exhibition provides a continuing dialogue between artist-teacher and student. The A.I.R. Biennial also offers our general university and regional community an opportunity to experience a provocative and often challenging exhibition of contemporary art.

NEW WORK BY ELEANNA ANAGNOS
Eleanna Anagnos (born Evanston, IL 1980) is a New York-based artist and curator. Her work explores the nature of human perception and aims to elicit a physiological response where subjectivity, phenomenology, and the conscious act of seeing are addressed. She has received awards from Yaddo; BAU Institute; The Anderson Ranch, The Atlantic Center for the Arts and The Joan Mitchell Foundation. For the past four years Eleanna has been a Co-Director at Ortega y Gasset Projects, an artist-run gallery and curatorial collective located in Brooklyn, NY.

Ewing Gallery, 1715 Volunteer Blvd on the UT campus, Knoxville, TN 37996. Information: 865-974-3200, www.ewing-gallery.utk.edu

The January/February 2018 Featured Artist is nature photographer Mike Naney. His exhibit, titled "Fire and Ice," is composed of photos he took during recent trips to Hawaii and Greenland.

The Hawaii photos, taken in February 2017, capture lava flowing through a "fire hose," or lava tube, before falling 60 feet into the ocean below. Mike and his wife, Linda, traveled to the Big Island with the hope of witnessing this dramatic eruption of the Kilauea volcano. The photos were taken from a fishing boat that was a safe distance from the exploding lava bombs, but close enough to steam up his glasses, he says.

The couple traveled to Scoresby Sound in eastern Greenland in August 2017 and spent eight days on a photo tour aboard a 100-foot sailing ship. They spent two days near "Iceberg City," an informal name for a shallow, narrow channel separating a small island from a larger island. Five of the images in the exhibit illustrate the various iceberg shapes, texture and color they saw in Iceberg City.

Mike's geology training and passion for earth science influence his artistic interpretation of photographic subjects in wild places, from his backyard to places far from home. He enjoys the serendipity of wandering upon scenes of nature's beauty, and using science to plan and capture fleeting splendor. He is a member of the Art Market Gallery of Knoxville.

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 Farragut Town Hall. For more information about this exhibit or to access a Featured Artist of the Month application, contact Lauren Cox at ParksandRecInfo@townoffarragut.org or 218-3372 or visit townoffarragut.org/artsandculture.

Ken Anderson is a professor of taxation in the College of Business at UT. He enjoys painting diverse subjects in various mediums and gravitates to landscapes with a “strongly defined horizon.”

Lisa Kurtz received a Masters Degree from the University if Louisville and has been a functional potter for over 38 years. Her work is influenced by nature, early Japanese Jomon pots and Greek Minoan pottery.

6500 Northshore Drive, 865-584-3957 or www.wpcknox.org
Hours: Monday thru Friday, 9AM to 4PM

While ancient Roman coins usually display emperors, a surprising number depict female members of the imperial family, particularly empresses. Coins are powerful propaganda used to advance political ideals and reinforce social mores. Closer observation of these coins reveals a tension between Roman society’s expectations for women and the reality some created for themselves.

In ancient Rome, women had no formal political role and were not allowed to vote or hold public office. They were expected to devote themselves to their family and oversee the domestic sphere. Depictions of goddesses on coins highlight this feminine ideal. Women who stepped outside gender norms, especially empresses who gained informal power, were seen as a threat to social and political order. Julia Domna is one such woman. She exerted political influence over two consecutive reigning emperors—her husband, Septimius Severus, and son, Caracalla—and jump started a dynasty of influential imperial women from the East.

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

View the calendar of ongoing 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

Join us for the opening reception for Nature and Neon, a national juried exhibition organized by Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. This exhibition is open to the public. Awards will be announced during the reception on Friday, January 12th from 6 – 8pm. All are welcome.

This year’s theme invited submissions that explore juxtapositions between the natural and the artificial worlds. Arrowmont itself is geographically located where the natural and the constructed worlds converge, and is also an environment that fosters artistic creation and education. Chosen by juror, Garth Johnson, the works selected for the exhibition consider what is natural, what is unnatural, and how the intersection of both may attempt to realize its own disparate beauty. Parts whimsical and sobering, Nature and Neon offers introspection into what these artists observe about our contemporary relationship to the landscape.

Garth Johnson, curator of ceramics at the ASU Art Museum in Tempe, Arizona, selected 47 works created by 46 artists, from 189 submissions for consideration. The final selection of artists include works spanning all media, with a wide variety of approaches to the exhibition’s theme. Awards will be announced during the reception on Friday, January 12th from 6 – 8pm.

Participating artists:
John Allen, Jess Benjamin, Tracey Bullington, Caroline Byrne, Chloe Darke, Audry Deal-McEver, Virginia Derryberry, Carrie Dickason, Magdolene Dykstra, Alicia Eggert, Sean Erwin, Heather Freeman, Meaghan Gates, Jon Geiger, Dana Lynn Harper, Helen Hawley, Richard Hricko, Mary Johnson, Stephanie Jonsson, Elliott Kayser, Liz Langyher, Michele Lasker, William Lenard, Mimi Logothetis, Andy Lowrie, Kenneth MacBain, Gregory Martin, Matthew Mauk, Ashlee Mays, Marty McConnaughey, Jessye McDowell, Matt Mitros, Dana Moody, Natalie Petrosky, Tongji Qian, Ted Ross, Victoria Shaheen, Rebecca Siemering, Ralston Fox Smith, Shannon Sullivan, Logan Szymanowski, Byron Tenesaca, Ruby Troup, Tali Weinberg, and Charles Wisseman

Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, 556 Parkway, Gatlinburg, TN 37738. Gallery hours are Monday – Friday 9:00 am – 5:00 pm and Saturday 10:00 am – 4:00 pm. Information: 865-436-5860, www.arrowmont.org

Opening reception January 26 from 6 to 7:30 p.m.; artists’ talks at 6:30 p.m.

Coral Grace Turner: New Work
This series utilizes remnants of fabric that Turner designed and printed over ten years ago. She was introduced to a process of hand quilting called English paper piecing earlier this year and found it to be a great way to reimagine her fabric pieces. The fabrics were designed using a grid for registration, layered with random patterning and variations in color to create movement. Similarly, quilting starts with a standard shape that is repeated in a grid-like structure, while the pattern on each shape is random. She created movement within each piece by matching lines and colors at the seams where one piece of fabric is joined with another.

Turner grew up in a family that had a great appreciation for the arts. Her mother taught art classes, one grandmother was a textile designer by trade and the other was a knitter and sewer. At the Rhode Island School of Design, Turner made three- dimensional work using sewing and knitting, which led to installations and finally site-specific sound installations when she graduated with a BFA in Sculpture in 1996. She took a screen printing on fabric class at Arrowmont in 2001 with Clare Verstegen, and the following year continued working with Verstegen in the MFA program in Fibers at Arizona State University, when most of the fabrics used in this work were printed.

Marilyn Avery Turner: A Tale of Two Series
The images and the limited palette came first, and in the process of making the work the idea of blood types and bloodlines emerged. In all of humanity there are only four basic blood types; we are incredibly similar at our core. In our divisive world, where people and cultures choose to concentrate on our differences, which in turn are used to justify any number of prejudices and crimes against humanity, it would be helpful to take this fundamental fact into account.

The other series has a monochromatic palette. In the work that has figurative elements the subject led to that choice, whereas in the non-figurative work there was a conscious decision to use only variations of a particular color. In both series, the figurative elements are based on Pre-Columbian designs and images that she has worked with for the past fifteen years.

Originally from New York City, Turner received her BFA from The Rhode Island School of Design in 1966. She has been concentrating on printmaking, specifically monoprinting and screenprinting, for the last 25 years, combining painting and collage, her main former mediums. She has taken classes since 1994 in the University of Tennessee Printmaking Department. She has been a member of The Art Market Gallery since its inception in 1982, exhibits her work in solo and group shows, and participates in juried exhibitions throughout the United States. www.marilynaveryturner.com

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

“What does it mean?” I haven’t taken a poll, but it might be interesting to ask how often an artist working in the Abstract hears that particular question. It might be more enlightening to ask if that question becomes challenging to hear over time – not because it’s necessarily a bad question, but because most people ask the wrong person. It’s not a question for the artist: It’s a question for you.

Gretchen Adreon’s exhibit at our Market Square restaurant is an opportunity for you to pose that question to yourself over and over again. And that’s just how Adreon likes it. When a work is complete, she says, her hope is to “leave an open space and the viewer will be able to add their own feelings and connect with the piece to complete the process.” And of course, that means that there are many answers to the question of what’s all about. “From the very beginning I have had people telling me their feelings and impressions of my work. I LOVE that – that’s when the whole process comes full circle to me. When someone is engaged in the work, I feel I have succeeded. Sometimes one viewer sees what another cannot see at all but sees or, even better, feels something totally different. “

Adreon’s art begins as an emotional expression that, through any number of implements and materials -from trowels to sandpaper, and more- remains an open and emotional experience to share with the people who see it. Although this may leave the definition of her imagery in the eyes of others, Adreon is more than comfortable with that process: “My emotions went to abstractions rather than concrete imagery. I have never regretted taking that direction, however many, many people see images, figures and, yes, landscapes as well.”

Gretchen Adreon will be on view at the Market Square Tomato Head from December 4th through January 7th, 2018. She will then exhibit with the West Knoxville Gallery Tomato Head from January 9th through February 5th, 2018.

Tomato Head, 12 Market Square (865-637-4067) and 7240 Kingston Pike, Suite 172 (865-584-1075), in Knoxville. http://thetomatohead.com

The Art Gallery at Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church will present an exhibit of multi-media art by six local artists, opening on Sunday, December 3, at 12:30 p.m. with a reception and gallery talk led by the artists. It is free and open to the public. The exhibit will continue through February 2.

The six artists whose work will be featured are Pat Fain, Mary Ann Damos, Jan Hill, Pat Fitchpatrick, Ina Sue Marlin, and Betsy Spooner. These six artists have studied side-by-side for the past five years under Chico Osten at the Oak Ridge Art Center. They all work with different paint media and in different painting styles.

ORUUC is located at 809 Oak Ridge Turnpike. Free and open to the public, Gallery hours are Monday – Thursday, 9 am to 3 pm. and Sunday 9:30 am to 1 pm. For more information call (865) 483-6761.