Calendar of Events

A reception with the artists will be held 3-5 p.m on Friday, Feb. 1.

"The objects and environments that I create are fueled by encounters with natural forces," Jamey Grimes says in his artist statement. "My intent is to remind us of our relationship and scale to the forces of nature."

Mind-bending sculptural work and lush drawings combine this month in a new visual art exhibit at Pellissippi State Community College. Grimes and Wegrzynowski are instructors at the University of Alabama.

Grimes' sculptural work references forms in nature, biological structures and exploring spaces. His relatively simple techniques and forms are recombined in endless variations to create meditations on interconnectivity and structures in space.

Charlotte Wegrzynowski won second place in the SECAC 2016 Juried Exhibition and received the Best of Show award in the 31st West Alabama Juried Art Show. Wegrzynowski also delves into forms in space and in light and dark. Her drawings explore the illusion of space as well as communicating strong metaphorical narratives. "Though they could not be more different artists, both in form and content, the similarities in the ways that their artwork 'dances' make this a disparate, but very informative pairing," said Herb Rieth, associate professor of Liberal Arts for Pellissippi State.

Hardin Valley Campus of Pellissippi State: 10915 Hardin Valley Road, Knoxville, TN 37932. Bagwell Center Gallery hours: M-F 9 AM - 9 PM. Information: 865-694-6405, www.pstcc.edu/arts

The 2019 Farragut Primary Schools Art Show, sponsored by the Town of Farragut, opens Monday, Jan. 14, and will be on display through Friday, Jan. 25, during regular Town Hall hours (8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday).

Don't miss the opportunity to view the work of the community's most talented young artists from Concord Christian School, Farragut Primary School, and St. John Neumann Catholic School.

There will be a reception to honor participating private school artists from 5-6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 16, and a reception to honor participating public school artists from 5-6 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 18.

Address: 11408 Municipal Center Drive, Farragut, TN 37934

The Knoxville Opera Guild offers a series of special themed dinners throughout the year. These present excellent opportunities for opera lovers to gather in an intimate setting to enjoy live entertainment “up close and personal!” The 2018-2019 Season will feature three exciting Monday Night Opera Dinners:

January 14, 2019 - Lucia di Lammermoor (staged performance of Knoxville Opera’s outreach production in English).
April 1, 2019 - The Metropolitan Opera Texaco Opera Quiz (a recreation of the legendary radio intermission feature…Maestro Brian Salesky will try to stump distinguished guest panelists Andrew Wentzel, Daniel T. Berry, and Vladimir Protopopescu).

Please check after November 1, 2018 for restaurant locations and reservation details. Knoxville Opera: 865-524-0795, www.knoxvilleopera.com

On January 14, 2019 James Tente, Building and Plans Review Chief, will be the Technical Society meeting speaker. The title of his presentation will be "Significant Changes to the Knoxville Building and Energy Code."

The Technical Society has been involved in building codes since the earliest days when codes were needed to prevent houses from falling down in a storm. Now building codes are influenced by safety, economics, environment and health. This is an area where informed citizens need to be influential in the future.

The meeting will take place at the Crowne Plaza on Summit Hill Drive in downtown Knoxville. Complimentary self parking is available in the hotel garage. Meeting attendees receive a token for exiting the garage without charge. Members and guests begin arriving around 11:30 and go through the buffet line. Cost is $13 per person payable in cash or by check in the meeting room ( $7 if the attendee does not eat). Meetings are called to order at 11:55.

Visitors are welcome.. For more information go to www.Technicalsociety.net.

Knoxville, TN: On Monday, January 14, writer Jamel Brinkley will read as part of the University of Tennessee Creative Writing Series.

Jamel Brinkley is the author of A Lucky Man: Stories (Graywolf Press/A Public Space Books). His fiction has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Best American Short Stories 2018, A Public Space, Ploughshares, Gulf Coast, The Threepenny Review, Glimmer Train, American Short Fiction, Epiphany, and LitMag. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he was also the 2016-17 Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. His work has received support from Kimbilio Fiction, the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, the Tin House Summer Workshop, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Beginning this fall, he will be a 2018-2020 Wallace Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford University.

The reading begins at 7 p.m. in Strong Hall, Room 101 on the University of Tennessee Campus. The event is free and open to the public; all are encouraged to attend.

The mission of the UT Creative Writing Series is to feature “writers of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction from around the country and around the world.” The series is sponsored by the University of Tennessee Department of English. https://english.utk.edu/creative-writing-program/

Join us for a morning out as our museum educator leads engaging gallery tours for parents and caregivers and their infants through four year olds. Crying and wiggly babies welcome!

What did people eat long ago? What plant foods have been around for a long time? Let’s venture to the Native Peoples of Tennessee gallery to find out!

The event is free, but limited. Make a free reservation.

McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, 1327 Circle Park Dr on the UT campus, Knoxville, TN 37996. Hours: M-Sa 9-5, Su 1-5. Information: 865-974-2144, http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu

Monday, January 14, 2019 at 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM
At Church Street United Methodist Church, 900 Henley St, Knoxville, Tennessee 37902

Want to join the Knoxville Gay Men's Chorus for the Spring 2019 season? Auditions are right around the corner on January 14th.

No appointment is necessary, and you can arrive any time. Please prepare a short excerpt (no more than one minute long) of any song that shows off your vocal ability. Do NOT be intimidated by the audition! All voices are welcome, we just need to know what you can do!

Please register here as well to receive updates from our AD.
http://www.knoxgmc.org/join-kgmc/
https://www.facebook.com/events/2002574666524284/

Kate Gilmore will give a public lecture on Thursday, January 17th at 7:30 PM in room 109 of the Art + Architecture Building. A brief reception for the exhibition will follow immediately in the Ewing Gallery.

Kate Gilmore: In Your Way features ten works—nine performance-based videos and one live performance/sculptural installation—by this New York-based artist known for synthesizing multiple artistic mediums including performance, video, sculpture, and painting. In her videos, Gilmore critiques and also inserts herself into male dominated movements such as Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, exploring feminist themes and modern and contemporary art tropes, all the while exhibiting relentless determination. The spilling and splattering from her work are an ode to Abstract Expressionism or 1950s stripe paintings. Her works are mischievous and political, as well as humorous and critical of the heroic language and absence of women in these artistic movements. The physical situations and actions Gilmore creates for herself and her performers are metaphors for challenges women face culturally and socially.

Gallery hours:
M, T, W, F: 10am - 5pm
Thurs: 10am - 7:30pm
Sundays: 1-4

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

BAD WATER presents Eleanor Aldrich: SERPENT'S QUARTERS. On view January 4 through January 28, the opening reception will take place on Friday, January 4 from 6 to 9 p.m.

SERPENT’S QUARTER’S plays with the garage space of BAD WATER as the kind of out-building where do-it-yourself work happens, as well as the serpent as a spiritual trickster. The stage and floating clothing embody the feeling of an alternative chapel. Jackets and upholstery play host to found-image transfers, sculptural surfaces, drawn and real shadows. The grid is a motif throughout. Used as the support of the work, the grid is at times strained, pressed against, squeezed through, and decorated by the material. Belief shifts between the actual and illusion.

Aldrich’s work is textural and alchemical. She matches materials – often industrial sealants – and techniques to the subject matter they resemble in order to achieve a convincing approximation while short-cutting rendering. Utilizing unruly materials, the substances Aldrich manipulates retain partial control over their final form — interrupting illustration and retaining the truth of their physical nature. She works with a kind of mimetic literalism that embodies the physicality of the subject while serving pictorial conventions, posing questions about physicality as the standard of reality.

Eleanor Aldrich (b. 1984 | Springerville, AZ) lives and works in Knoxville, Tennessee. She received her MFA from The University of Tennessee and attended Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in 2012. She participated in the Drawing Center's Open Sessions (2014 - 2016), and her work has been included in New American Paintings and on ArtForum.com.

BAD WATER is an artist-run gallery set in a once vacant backyard structure located in Knoxville, Tennessee | behind 320 E. Churchwell Ave. | www.badwater.gallery

For a First Friday Reception, Friday, January 4th, 5-9pm at the UT Downtown Gallery

The Violins of Hope are a collection of restored violins that were played by Jewish musicians during The Holocaust. These instruments have survived concentration camps, pogroms and many long journeys to tell remarkable stories of injustice, suffering, resilience, and survival. The collection was assembled and restored by Israeli master violin maker and restorer, Amnon Weinstein.

In some cases, the ability to play the violin spared Jewish musicians from more grueling labors or even death. Nearly 50 years ago, Amnon heard such a story from a customer who brought in an instrument for restoration. The customer survived the Holocaust because his job was to play the violin while Nazi soldiers marched others to their deaths. When Amnon opened the violin’s case, he saw ashes. He thought of his own relatives who had perished and was overwhelmed. He could not bring himself to begin the project.

By 1996, Amnon was ready. He put out a call for violins from the Holocaust that he would restore in hopes that the instruments would sound again.

Amnon started locating violins that were played by Jews in the camps and ghettos, painstakingly piecing them back together so they could be brought to life again on the concert stage. Although most of the musicians who originally played the instruments were silenced by the Holocaust, their voices and spirits live on through the violins that Amnon has lovingly restored. He calls these 50 instruments the Violins of Hope.

There will be extended hours for this special exhibition. The UT Downtown Gallery will be open M-F from 11am – 6pm, Saturdays from 10am – 3pm, and Sundays from 1-4pm.

UT Downtown Gallery, 106 S. Gay St, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-673-0802, http://web.utk.edu/~downtown

On display throughout January at Post Modern Spirits, 205 W. Jackson Ave, downtown Knoxville. https://postmodernspirits.com/

Monday-Friday 3pm-11pm
Saturday 12pm-11pm
Sunday 12pm-7pm

https://atol-solutions.com/ArtMarket/artists/terri-swaggerty/marshland
Info: 865-382-5708

The opening reception is First Friday 1/4 from 5-9pm

Tina Brunetti’s intense love of animals and nature literally shines through her work! Tina works on upcycled pieces of aluminum, steel, and copper, adding texture to the sheets with grinding tools, using a torch on the copper to produce vibrantly intricate colors, or chemically treating it to create an "aged" blue-green patina. Her processes create stunning patterns that vividly refract light through the alcohol inks on the surface of the work. Tina also works in acrylic and mixed media on canvas.

Broadway Studios and Gallery, 1127 Broadway St, Knoxville, TN 37917. Hours: Fri-Sat, 10-6, by appointment, or when the "open" sign is illuminated. Information: 865-556-8676, www.BroadwayStudiosAndGallery.com