Calendar of Events

Written and performed by Del Shores
May 27, 2018 @ 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm
Directed by Emerson Collins

Exclusive Knoxville engagement from the author of Sordid Lives! Del Shores himself portrays 6 people he has met, who have inspired him, but who have yet to find a place in his plays, films or TV shows. Mostly comedy, but some tears are shed as well. Tickets are $20 for general admission, OR $30 for VIP admission which includes a wine & cheese reception following the performance to meet and greet Del in person!

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

Activity: Wouldn't you like to know? CALLING ALL GOOD SPORTS!
Here's the deal. You purchase a ticket to a mystery event. Show up to The Central Collective at the specified date and time, and be ready for anything. Past events have included: a live studio game show, a walking tour of North Knoxville, live music with swing dance lessons, a yacht trip on the Tennessee River and a mini horse petting zoo. These are events for folks who are curious, adventurous, and like trying new things & meeting new people.

Worried that you won't be able to participate because of dietary restrictions, physical ability or other preferences? We'll do our best to give you the information you need to decide if this month's Good Sport Night is right for you. If you have any concerns, don't hesitate to give us a shout! If you show up and cannot participate for an unforeseen reason, we're happy to give you a credit for a future Good Sport Night. Unless otherwise noted, these events are not programmed for children.

Alcohol: BYOB
Food: Light Snacks
Dress Code: Something you don't mind getting a little messy
Physical Activity: Low (some standing)
Good Sport Level: 2/5

The Central Collective, 923 N. Central Street, Knoxville, TN 37917. Information: 865-236-1590, info@thecentralcollective.com, www.thecentralcollective.com

June 1, 2018 marks the 222nd anniversary of Tennessee’s admission as the 16th state in the union. East Tennessee’s most important cultural heritage sites are partnering to celebrate Statehood Day on Saturdays, May 26 and June 2, and Sunday, May 27. The sites include places of historical significance in the exciting journey from the creation of our country to the founding of our state. The Historic Homes of Knoxville celebrating Statehood Day include: Blount Mansion, Crescent Bend, James White’s Fort, Mabry-Hazen House, Marble Springs, and Ramsey House. Each site will have individual ways of celebrating the birth of Tennessee. These are free museum days to the public.

+ Blount Mansion (Saturday, May 26, 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM)
Construction on Blount Mansion began in 1792. The restored mansion was open for tours in 1930, making it the oldest museum in Knox County. Commemorate the creation of the state of Tennessee and celebrate the pioneers who settled and transformed the southwest territory into the vibrant state of Tennessee. Hosting free admission. Address: 200 W. Hill Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-525-2375, www.blountmansion.org

+ James White’s Fort (Saturday, May 26, 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM)
Built in 1786, James White’s Fort was home to the founder of Knoxville. More than 10,000 visitors tour the Fort each year and experience the frontier lifestyle through hands-on interpretations. Tennesseans for Living History volunteers will be demonstrating the lifestyle of 1796: weaving, spinning, and other pioneer-era tasks. Free admission; donations gratefully accepted. Address: 205 E. Hill Ave, Knoxville, TN 37915. Information: 865-525-6514, www.jameswhitefort.org

+ Marble Springs (Saturday, May 26, 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM and Sunday, May 27, 12:00 - 5:00 PM)
Marble Springs was the home of John Sevier (1745-1815), Tennessee’s first governor and Revolutionary War hero. Marble Springs State Historic Site will commemorate Statehood Day with a living history weekend. Visitors are invited to experience free tours with living historians. Free admission; donations gratefully accepted. Address: 1220 West Gov. John Sevier Highway, Knoxville, TN 37920. Information: 865-573-5508, www.marblesprings.net

+ Crescent Bend House & Gardens (Saturday, June 2, 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM)
Crescent Bend House & Gardens is one of the Southeast’s finest house museums and gardens. Built in 1834 by Drury Paine Armstrong, Crescent Bend was once a 900-acre working farm and so named for its prominent setting overlooking a majestic crescent bend in the Tennessee River just west of downtown Knoxville. Hosting free admission. Address: 2728 Kingston Pike Knoxville, TN 37919. Information: 865-637-3163, www.crescentbend.com

+ Ramsey House (Saturday, June 2, 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM)
Ramsey House was built in 1797 by Knoxville's first builder, Thomas Hope for Francis Alexander Ramsey, one of Knoxville’s first settlers. Celebrate Statehood Days with one of the founding Families of Knoxville. Ramsey House will host free tours and celebrate with cake and iced tea. Address: 2614 Thorngrove Pike, Knoxville, TN 37914. Information: 865-546-0745, www.ramseyhouse.org

+ Mabry-Hazen House (Saturday, June 2, 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM)
Built in 1858, three generations of the same family resided in the Italianate-style home which showcases one of the largest original family collections in America with over 2,000 original artifacts on display. Furnished and decorated in the style of several decades, Mabry-Hazen gives a rare view into 130 years of Knoxville history. Learn about the origins of Knoxville's iconic Market Square, the bitter divisions of the Civil War, the infamous 1882 Gunfight on Gay Street, a mountain city in the New South, a scandalous 1934 breach of promise and seduction trial, and much more through the rich, colorful lives of the Mabry and Hazen families. Free admission to tour the house, and living historians will be on site. Donations are appreciated. Address: 1711 Dandridge Avenue, Knoxville, TN, 37915. Information: 865-522-8661, www.mabryhazen.com

About the Historic Homes of Knoxville
The Historic House Museums of Knoxville is a partnership that shares resources from each historic site in presenting the history, culture, and heritage of Knoxville and East Tennessee: www.hhknoxville.org

Tennessee Statehood Day
Saturday, May 26, 10am-3pm

Historic locations in Knoxville and East Tennessee celebrate Statehood Day with free admission, tours, and events. The sites include places of historical significance in the exciting journey from the creation of our country to the founding of our state.

The Historic Homes of Knoxville include: Blount Mansion, Crescent Bend, James White's Fort, Mabry-Hazen House, Marble Springs, Ramsey House, and Historic Westwood. Each site will have individual ways of celebrating the birth of Tennessee. Please check with each home as to the date/time their event will take place.

This is a free museum day to the public, with self guided tours. Tennesseeans for Living History volunteers will be demonstrating the lifestyle of 1796: Open Hearth and Fire Pit Cooking, Blacksmithing, Weaving, Spinning and other pioneer era tasks. Donations gladly accepted.

Historic Homes of Knoxville: www.hhknoxville.org

This Memorial Day weekend, take 25% off any clothes that are red, white or blue in color at any of our 28 regional stores!

Goodwill Industries-Knoxville: 865-588-8567, www.gwiktn.org

The project, inspired by a similar exhibit at Rotary Botanical Garden in Janesville, Wisconsin, is designed to promote community participation and artist collaboration at the UT Gardens, Knoxville, as well as to raise awareness and support for the Gardens. 27 local professional and amateur artists have created unique interpretations of a wooden hummingbird silhouette. The pieces will be displayed throughout the summer of 2018 for Gardens visitors to enjoy. The Hummingbirds will then be sold at a live auction on September 8, 2018 with all proceeds benefiting the UT Gardens, Knoxville.

UT Gardens, Chapman Drive, Knoxville, TN 37996. Information: 865-974-7151, https://ag.tennessee.edu/utg/Pages/default.aspx

Darkhorse Entertainment, LLC, invites you to time-travel back to the Middle Ages at the fourth annual Tennessee Medieval Faire. The festival is located in Harriman near I-40 just 30 miles west of Turkey Creek. This rugged outdoor festival will spring to life on May 19 and run for three weekends, including Memorial Day. “Our theme this year is Robin Hood, and patrons are invited to Live the Age of Chivalry in the High Middle Ages (circa 1194). Patrons can interact with well-loved characters of Sherwood Forrest, meet Maid Marian, and even get knighted,” said Barrie Paulson, VP-Manager and Entertainment Director.

The festival will include continuous professional family-friendly entertainment. In the tournament arena will be Real Jousting and Warriors’ Chess, where the evil Sheriff of Nottingham and his henchmen square off against good Robin and his Merry Men. There will also be interactive comedy shows, puppet shows, Irish and Celtic music, English folk dances, patron costume contests, and costumed street characters. In addition, vendors will be selling medieval crafts, food and beverages, including beer.

The Tennessee Medieval Faire is a family-friendly outdoor festival. Dates are May 19-20, 26-27-28, June 2-3. Hours are 10am-5pm ET. Ticket prices are $17 for ages 13+, $9 for ages 5 to 12, and free for ages 4 and under. Field parking is free. The festival is located at 550 Fiske Road, Harriman, TN. For more information, please visit www.TMFaire.com, find the Tennessee Medieval Faire on Facebook, or call 865-376-0319.

Fabulous discounts available on assorted pottery, art glass, jewelry, and art prints while supplies last. This is a wonderful opportunity to get a great price on Phyllis Shipley, Cynthia Markert and Jim Gray art prints. Our contact information will remain the same, so give us a call for all your art and framing needs!

Liz-Beth & Co.: 7240 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919. Information: 865-691-8129, www.liz-beth.com
https://www.facebook.com/LizBethArt/

Reception date TBA

In the Sandra J. Blain Gallery
Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, 556 Parkway, Gatlinburg, TN 37738. Information: 865-436-5860, www.arrowmont.org

Stop by Ijams' Hallway Gallery to see May's photography exhibit by Chuck Cooper! His beautiful shots of historic Knoxville and wildlife will inspire you to get outside to see these sights for yourself.

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

Jim Joyce takes a lot of pictures. He captures images of landscapes, flowers, big cats, all sorts of images from the great outdoors, but one subject that doesn’t catch his eye is people. At least not anymore.

Our featured artist in our Market Square location, Joyce spent a lot of his adult life trying to capture perfect moments of people interacting for PR shots and the like. But the challenges of blinking eyes, crooked smiles, funny faces, and even hair mussing gusts, finally got to him: “I got over the people pictures and so the only ones I take now are of my 7-year-old granddaughter.”

Although he didn’t include his family shots, Joyce did manage to bring a wide variety that includes dogwoods, tigers, flowers and more. For this exhibit Joyce selected some of his favorites from a large collection that now takes up considerable space in his home. He’s learned how to maximize every square inch of space from closest shelves to the space beneath beds in order to house his growing collection.

Joyce takes his camera along wherever he goes because, he says, “one morning I was walking my dog and there was a bald eagle right in the tree right above me. I didn’t have my camera on me so I took a picture with my cell phone. Of course, it was a minute detail on my camera screen, and it was a minute detail on my camera screen when I got back home to edit. I blew it up so I could show people. It was bigger than a speck, but you still couldn’t tell what it was. And I don’t think anybody believed me. Since then I take my camera with me everywhere.”

Joyce’s eye for the unexpected often gives his photography a fresh kind of realism, but the exhibit has more than a few shots that will make you stop for a second glance to check just what you saw. The striking color of a bird’s nest or the tendrils of a fern have an extra, alluring dimension, and the photo of a dance studio seems somehow slightly surreal. The dance studio shot is actually a photo of mural that he caught in some particularly serendipitous light, but even so, it captures the spirit of Joyce’s work – an eye for on the spot composition and a little bit of luck.

Jim Joyce’s photography will be on view at the downtown Knoxville Tomato Head on Market Square from May 7th thru June 3rd, 2018. Mr. Joyce will then display his work at the West Knoxville Gallery Tomato Head from June 4th thru July 2nd, 2018.

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

The opening reception on Thursday, May 3 from 5:30-7:30pm is free and open to the public.

The Knoxville Museum of Art presents Scenic Impressions: Southern Interpretations from the Johnson Collection, featuring more than 40 paintings from the extensive holdings of the Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Scenic Impressions examines the influence of the Impressionist movement on art created in and about the American South. Artists represented in the exhibition include Kate Freeman Clark, Elliott Daingerfield, Gilbert Gaul, Alfred Hutty, Rudolph Ingerle, Willie Betty Newman, Alice Huger Smith, William Posey Silva, and Catherine Wiley, many of whom exhibited their work in Knoxville in the early twentieth century. The exhibition enables KMA viewers to appreciate the accomplishments of East Tennessee Impressionists such as Catherine Wiley within the larger context of her peers from around the Southeast.

Scenic Impressions is organized by the Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina. The Johnson Collection is one of the premier collections of Southern painting in the country. Scenic Impressions underscores the Johnsons’ commitment to illuminating the rich cultural history of the American South and advancing scholarship in the field.

“The artists in Scenic Impressions were inspired by the beauty and variety of Southeastern landforms, especially along the extensive coastline and in the mountains of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina,” said KMA Executive Director David Butler. “The vision of these painters stimulated a new appreciation of the Appalachian landscape that eventually led to the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. They showed us how to value what’s in our own backyard. The Johnson Collection has done us all a tremendous service by gathering so many first-rate examples of this rich and creative period.”

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