Calendar of Events

Imagine being surrounded by the handmade work of over 140 fine craft artisans! Designated as a TOP 20 EVENT by the Southeast Tourism Society for the second year in a row, the 52nd annual Fine Craft Show is presented by the Foothills Craft Guild, the oldest nonprofit artisan guild in Tennessee.

Hours are Friday and Saturday, November 16-17, 10 AM - 6 PM and Sunday, November 18, 10 AM - 4 PM at the historic Jacob Building in Knoxville’s Chilhowee Park, 3301 E. Magnolia Ave.

Participants have been juried into the Foothills Craft Guild according to the highest standards for quality workmanship… woodwork, pottery, jewelry, glass, fiber arts, metalwork, sculpture, basketry, and more! It's a great time to shop for unique gifts representing Tennessee at ALL PRICE RANGES and support your local fine craft artisans! Enjoy a free Make It & Take It Crafts booth for all ages, daily demonstrations of artisans making their crafts, and an Authors’ Corner where local favorites will be personally autographing books.

Admission is Adults $8, Children ages 6-12 $4, Children 5 and under Free. Saturday special - group of 4 adults $20. www.foothillscraftguild.org.

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

Gypsy Steampunk Night with Kukuly & The Gypsy Fuego

Alive After Five is a unique live music series that takes place in the smoke-free, casually elegant setting of the Ann and Steve Bailey Hall in the Knoxville Museum of Art. There is a live band on stage, seating at tables, two cash bars, food from area restaurants, free freshly popped popcorn, and free parking. Audience members can enjoy listening to music, dancing, and browsing the museum’s art galleries. Admission is $15 for general and $10 for museum members and college students with ID. Ages 17 and under are admitted free.

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

A World-wide Celebration of Storytelling - Hear a variety of stories from Susan Fulbright, Sheri Liles, Roland Mote, Fred Goddard, Kathleen Mavournin, and Millie Seiber with MC Jean Davidson.

A Sampling of Stories in the Highland Presbyterian Church sanctuary, 721 E Lamar Alexander Pkwy, Maryville, TN 37804 - http://www.highlandpresby.org

TELLABRATION! Stories are told on the same days in as many countries around the world as possible, in many languages, to as many people as possible. Smoky Mountain Storytellers Association members are looking forward to sharing this special observance with you. Co-Sponsored by National Storytelling Network, www.storynet.org

Smoky Mountain Storytellers Association: 865-429-1783, https://www.facebook.com/SmokyMountainStorytellersAssoc/, www.smokymountaintellers.org

Music, food, drinks, and a celebration of those who impact young professionals in Knoxville.

For the past five years, Young Professionals of Knoxville has honored local organizations and individuals who are making an impact on young professionals at work, with clients, customers, or in the community. Nominations for 2018 Impact Awards are open until October 19. Past winners and award categories are available at ypknox.com/impact-awards.

Impact Award tickets are $45 and include heavy hors-d'oeuvres and drinks. Buy your ticket by October 19th for the early bird pricing of $35. Online ticket sales will end November 16th at noon. Tickets will be available at the door for $50.

Dress: Winter Cocktail
The Foundry on the Fair Site, 747 World’s Fair Park Dr, Knoxville, Tennessee 37902
Website: https://www.ypknox.com/impact-awards/
Email: contact@ypknox.com
Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/291777491429699/

Save the date Friday, November 16th, 2018 for the WDVX Hillbilly Ball at The Standard, 416 W Jackson Ave, Knoxville, TN 37902 in downtown Knoxville, featuring Billy Strings. This is a WDVX Birthday Party and Benefit show with dinner, drinks, auction items and live music.
COME DRESSED IN YOUR HILLBILLY BEST!

A silent and live auction, seated dinner, and musical entertainment await you at this one of a kind Hillbilly Ball.
ENJOY A “HILLBILLY INSPIRED” MENU!
Hors-d’oeuvres catered by Holly’s Eventful Dining, dinner from Sweet P’s Barbeque, and dessert from Magpie’s Bakery. Wine and beer included in the ticket price.

WDVX, 301 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-544-1029, www.wdvx.com

November 16 through December 22, Wed through Sat at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 2 pm.
One pay-what-you-can preview on November 15 at 7:30 pm.

By Betsy Kelso and David Nehls

They’re baaack! It’s holiday time down in Armadillo Acres (North Florida’s premier mobile-living community), and everyone’s filled with warmth and beer. But when a freak bout of amnesia strikes the trailer park Scrooge, neighborly love is put to the test. Be on hand as Betty, Lin, and Pickles jingle all the way with some new neighbors in an all-new, all-trailer-park musical! You don’t have to have seen our 2017 summer production of The Great American Trailer Park Musical to enjoy this sequel, but if you did, you know it’s a cat-fightin’, sun-worshippin’, chair-throwin’ good time...but with tinsel and Keg Nog! Definitely for mature audiences. *The show has some mature language & may not be suitable for children. Parental discretion advised.

TICKET PRICES: Wed, Thu, & Sun $22 ($16 for students); Fri & Sat $24 ($16 for students)
Get your tickets now! https://www.ticketpeak.com/res/FlyingAnvil or you can call our box office at 865-357-1309.
Flying Anvil Theatre, 1300 Rocky Hill Road, Knoxville. Information: www.flyinganviltheatre.com

The Ewing Gallery is pleased to present two exhibitions for the months of November and December. We will be having an opening reception on Thursday November 15 from 5-7:30 PM in the Ewing Gallery. Some of the artists whose work is featured in Blurring Boundaries will be in attendance.

Blurring Boundaries: The Women of AAA from 1936 – Present
Curated by Rebecca DiGiovanna - More than 80 years after its founding, AAA continues to nurture and support a vibrant community of artists with diverse identities and approaches to abstraction. In celebration of this tradition, Blurring Boundaries: The Women of American Abstract Artists traces the work of the female artists within AAA from the founders to contemporary, practicing members. Included are works by historic members Perle Fine, Esphyr Slobodkina, Charmion von Wiegand, Irene Rice Pereira, Alice Trumbull Mason, and Gertrude Greene, as well as works by current members, such as Ce Roser, Irene Rousseau, Judith Murray, Alice Adams, Merrill Wagner and Katinka Mann. Through fifty-four works, the exhibition explores the stylistic variations and individual approaches to guiding principles of abstraction: color, space, light, material and process.

Mutual Muses: James Seawright and Mimi Garrard
Curated by: T. Michael Martin - Mutual Muses is a two-person exhibition showcasing works by James Seawright and Mimi Garrard, who have been working together as well as individually since the 1960s. Their lives and practice have inspired each other throughout their careers. This exhibition is an interwoven love story featuring individual works by Seawright and Garrard as well as ones inspired by the other and those created collaboratively. Their life of interconnectivity as mutual muses is beautifully explored and presented in this survey exhibition.

The Ewing Gallery will be closed from November 22- 25 in Observance of the Thanksgiving holiday and from December 13, 2018 - January 10, 2019.

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

Part of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra's 2018-2019 Moxley Carmichael Masterworks Series.

This KSO Masterworks program takes the audience to the friendship of German composers Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn, and Fanny Mendelssohn. The Mendelssohn family artistry is represented by Felix Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Overture” and his sister Fanny’s work “Songs Without Words.” The night also champions Clara Schumann’s “Piano Concerto” performed by pianist Gabriela Martinez. Eric Jacobsen, conductor and co-founder of the highly successful orchestra The Knights, and winner of the prestigious United States Arts Fellowship in 2012 is the conductor for the night’s pieces. This engaging experience will leave the audience deeply infatuated with the German romantic composers that shaped the romantic era of symphonic music.

Thursday and Friday evenings at 7:30 PM at the Tennessee Theatre, 604 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Tickets and information: 865-291-3310, www.knoxvillesymphony.com

After a three-year hiatus, the cult holiday classic, “The Santaland Diaries,” adapted by Joe Mantello from the essay by humorist and best- selling author David Sedaris, and starring David Brian Alley as Crumpet, returns to the Clarence Brown Theatre’s Carousel Theatre November 14 – December 9, 2018.

A Pay What You Can Preview performance will be held Wednesday, Nov. 14. At the Friday, Nov. 23rd performance patrons wearing an Ugly Sweater will have the opportunity to be selected for a picture with Crumpet on Santa’s chair. A talk back will take place Sunday, Nov. 25 following the matinee, and the Open Captioned performance is Sunday, December 2. The production, which is for mature elves only, will have start times of 2:30 pm for the matinees and 8:00 pm for the evening performances. It will be performed without an intermission and will include smoke.

Based loosely on Sedaris’ real life experience, “The Santaland Diaries” tells the tale of a struggling actor in New York City who out of necessity takes seasonal work as Crumpet the Elf in Macy’s Department Store’s Santaland Village. The comic holiday adventure chronicles Sedaris’ humiliation, frustrations and ultimately his hopefulness all told though his masterful sardonic wit.

David Sedaris made his National Public Radio debut on December 23, 1992 when he read his essay titled “Santaland Diaries” on the show “Morning Edition.” Since his successful debut, Sedaris has gone on to publish multiple bestselling books including “Barrel Fever,” “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and “Let’s Talk Diabetes with Owls.” He also has been a frequent contributor on NPR’s popular radio show “This American Life,” all of which has contributed to his reputation as one of America’s preeminent humorists. Sedaris’ story was adapted for the stage by Joe Mantello and premiered on November 7, 1996 at the Atlantic Theatre Company in New York City.

The 2015 production was directed by Jeff Stanley. Calvin MacLean will direct this year’s remount.
Clarence Brown 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

East Tennessee artist Julie Belcher brings her artwork to Athens, Tennessee through an exhibit in the Muriel S. Mayfield Gallery. Belcher’s collection, “The Waltz,” features multiple pieces that dance together, creating a beautiful story of rural roots.

Belcher’s story places her as an artist from Appalachia and a “dedicated handmade advocate.” A self-confessed “appreciator of that which can be made new and useful once more,” Belcher co-founded Yee-Haw Industrial Letterpress in 1997, scavenging for years to purchase and restore presses long forgotten throughout the Southeast before the company’s launch from her mother’s shed in Corbin, Kentucky.

The artist now focuses her energies on her latest press, studio and shop, Pioneer House in Knoxville. There, she creates mixed media pieces displayed in galleries across the nation. She has been commissioned to create art for Whole Foods café as well as illustration of American novelist Cormac McCarthy on featured on the cover of the New York Times Review of Books.

Along her ever-expanding artistic journey, Belcher continues to draw inspiration from her Appalachian heritage and love of the area’s handiwork, natural beauty and music tradition. Her latest work is a heartfelt visual combination of antique floral wood engravings from the 19th century and her own hand-carved linocuts of stylized landscapes.

The approach is entirely her own. “Each ink color is a separate block overprinting onto the previous layer,” the artist explained. “A slight ink color change or a transparency effect can make a magical transformation and sometimes even I can’t visualize what it will look like until I pull the print.”

Some of the prints go on to become part of the patchwork, “make do and repurpose” artwork Belcher creates in homage to hardworking Appalachian gardeners and homemakers. “I also deconstruct and sew the prints and use them in mixed media encaustic paintings embedded in beeswax,” she adds.

Belcher’s collection is currently on display at Tennessee Wesleyan University’s Mayfield Gallery, located in Reece Hall. The gallery is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., or Saturdays by appointment. To make an appointment please call, 423.745.4600. Julie Belcher will be available at the gallery for a closing reception on Thursday, November 15 at 6 p.m.

Tennessee Wesleyan University, Muriel S. Mayfield Gallery, Reece Hall
216 North Jackson St., Athens, TN 37303
423.745. 4600

A New Holiday Tradition!
Running on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

A multi themed model railroad experience at the GSM Heritage Center featuring a Townsend/Walland landscape, a garden scale train, and a winter wonderland!

Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center, 3/4 mile east of traffic light at the Highway 321 and 73 intersection towards the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Townsend, TN. Hours: M-Sa 10-5, Su 12-5. Information: 865-448-0044, www.gsmheritagecenter.org