Calendar of Events

Kat Wilcox-Chelimsky, Rachael Allion, Peyton Southworth and Grace Elyn Berry star in "These Shining Lives," the next production in The Arts at Pellissippi State series. The strength and determination of women workers considered expendable in their day are at the center of "These Shining Lives," the next production in The Arts at Pellissippi State series.

There are six chances to see "These Shining Lives" at Pellissippi State Community College:
April 5, 6, 12, 13
Friday & Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.
April 7 & 14
Sundays at 2 p.m.

Based on a true story, "These Shining Lives" chronicles Catherine Donahue and her friends who are dying of radium poisoning after spending the 1920s and 1930s painting glow-in-the-dark markings on watch dials. Despite their dire situation, the women refuse to allow the company that stole their health to kill their spirits - or to endanger the lives of those who come after them. The real Donohue died in 1938, shortly after testifying before the Illinois Industrial Commission. The women won damages against the real Radium Dial Company in 1938, although Radium Dial appealed over and over, taking the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1939 the Supreme Court decided not to hear the appeal, and the lower ruling was upheld.

With the exception of a guest lighting designer from the University of Tennessee's award-winning lighting design program and Associate Professor Claude Hardy, who is handling set design and technical direction for the play, everyone backstage and on stage during "These Shining Lives" is a Pellissippi State student, Miller noted. There are six actors in the cast and about a dozen other students involved in the production.

Tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and $8 for Pellissippi State faculty, staff and students. Tickets are available online at www.pstcc.edu/tickets.

In the Clayton Performing Arts Center. Hardin Valley Campus of Pellissippi State: 10915 Hardin Valley Road, Knoxville, TN 37932. Information: 865-694-6405, www.pstcc.edu/arts

Reception Fri Apr 5, 6-9 PM

UTK Staff Artist Show

Gallery 1010, 1150 McCalla Ave. Knoxville, TN 37915. Hours: Friday – Sunday 12-4pm, Friday 6-9pm. Additional hours by appointment. Info: https://gallery1010.utk.edu/ or utgallery1010@gmail.com

KNOXVILLE WALKING TOURS – KNOXVILLE’S MUSICAL HISTORY
APRIL 5, 2019 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM
Tribal to Techno
Knoxville’s story has always been set to music, from the time when the poetic rhythms of the native Cherokee tribes still echoed in the hills and the ballads of the Scots-Irish settlers were sung around campfires on the riverbanks. Immigrants from all over the world brought new instruments and tunes to enliven the song and East Tennessee became known as a home to musicians of every genre, whether classical, jazz, R&B, rock-n-roll, Americana, or the avant-garde sounds of ska, techno, and whatever’s unveiled at this year’s Big Ears Festival.
Details:
Meet in the Knoxville Visitor Center, 301 S. Gay Street. Tours last approximately 90 minutes.
Adults: $20. Children 6-12: $14(Group rate available). For more information or to book your tour, please visit the Knoxville Walking Tours Website
*Proceeds from this tour help to support the Knoxville History Project


KNOXVILLE WALKING TOURS – THE CIVIL WAR IN KNOXVILLE
APRIL 6, 2019 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM
A City Divided
It’s been over 150 years since the battle of Knoxville, one of the most sharply divided cities during the civil war. Occupied by both sides with recruiting offices set up on Gay Street on the same day, Knoxville was home to spies, street fights, and family feuds that outlasted the war.
Visit the downtown sites and then get an overview of the battles and fortifications from the observation deck of the Sunsphere.
Details:
Meet on the porch of the East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay Street. Tours last approximately 90 minutes.
Adults: $25. Children 6-12: $17 (Group rate available). For more information or to book your tour, please visit the Knoxville Walking Tours Website
*Proceeds from this tour help to support the Knoxville History Project


KNOXVILLE WALKING TOURS – THE EARLY YEARS
APRIL 6, 2019 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
EARLY YEARS
Step back over two centuries and visit Knoxville’s founders as you listen to the stories of the settlement of White’s Fort and establishment of the capital of the Southwest Territory at the headwaters of the Tennessee.
DETAILS:
Meet on the porch of the East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay Street. Tours last approximately 90 minutes.
Adults: $20. Children 6-12: $14 (Group rate available). For more information or to book your tour, please visit the Knoxville Walking Tours Website
*Proceeds from this tour help to support the Knoxville History Project


KNOXVILLE WALKING TOURS – GUNSLINGERS
APRIL 7, 2019 2:30 PM – 4:00 PM
When Knoxville was the Wild West
Knoxville’s history is colorful and the predominant hue is blood red. Take a walk on the wild side, from the Old City to Gay Street, down to the river and beyond. The now peaceful streets were once the scene of violence and mayhem of all descriptions—family feuds, duels, lynchings, and riots. Telling all the stories might take years, so this tour varies its route and our guide is always finding fresh tales to share.
Details:
Meet in the Knoxville Visitor Center, 301 S. Gay Street. Tours last approximately 90 minutes.
Adults: $20. Children 6-12: $14 (Group rate available). For more information or to book your tour, please visit the Knoxville Walking Tours Website
*Proceeds from this tour help to support the Knoxville History Project
http://knoxvillewalkingtours.com/

Join us in Knoxville!
A vintage dance workshop in the heart of the TN valley, where the southeast meets the midwest, featuring great music, tons of social dancing, competitions, leveled Lindy Hop classes, and electives in Balboa, solo jazz & more.

Hard Knox is returning for its 6th year to provide a place to learn, dance, throw down, and have fun with dancers from across the Midwest and Southeast. In the heart of the Tennessee Valley, we bring the regions together for a weekend of vintage jazz dances - including Lindy Hop, solo jazz, Balboa, and more!
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This year will feature:
Leveled track Lindy Hop classes
A separate, one day, beginner focused track
Elective classes in various swing dances, including Balboa, solo dancing, and more
2 nights of live music, 2 late nights of DJed dancing, and a farewell party on early Sunday evening
Competitions where dancers from the Southeast and Midwest can throw down together to live and DJed music
And more!
https://hardknoxlindyrox.com/

Hosted by The Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
2019 Symposium: Death and Dying in Medieval Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
International House, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

In recent years, approaches to death and dying have become a subject of increasing concern both to scholars and the public. As medical advances in the western world have prolonged lifespans, fundamental questions of ethics and ontology emerge. Which bodies, which lives, will receive expensive interventions and who has the authority to make such decisions? When extending life via automated machinery, where does humanity end and robotics begin? And at the most basic level: what does it mean to die well, to make peace with one’s transition from life to death, from community to invisibility? There is now a cottage industry of books, TEDtalks, and even “death cafes,” dedicated to fostering conversation about this subject that so many of us simply seek to avoid, fear to confront.

The 2019 annual Marco Symposium will convene a group of scholars of international stature to explore these questions from the perspective of deep religious history. Our premodern predecessors confronted processes of death and dying by elaborating striking rituals, poetry, funerary art, and institutions of communal caregiving. This symposium represents one of the nation’s first gatherings of specialists in medieval studies to examine collectively the theme of death and dying from the inter-religious perspective of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. They will present research on such topics as hospital foundations, bedside care, prayers for the dead, memorials, dissection, and reliquaries. Their approaches to the dead and the dying have much to inform our own culture about what it means to confront this ultimate reality that unites all humans, past and present, near and far.

Further details are available on our website: https://marco.utk.edu/symposium/

The Marco Symposium is free and open to the public. There is no official registration required, but it would help us to know that you are planning to come so that we can get a better head count and can print you a name tag. Email marco@utk.edu.

Knoxville’s iconic dogwood trails date back to 1955 and today cover more than 85 miles in 12 neighborhoods throughout the city. Take a drive, a walk, or a bike ride and enjoy the scenic natural beauty of our region!

Covenant Health is the official health and fitness sponsor of Dogwood Arts and they are pleased to present a limited edition patch to folks who want to take steps toward better health and fitness on Dogwood Walking Trails.

2019 Featured Trail | Farragut
While you may begin your journey by following a path of pink, you will discover so much more when you experience the Farragut Dogwood Trail, featuring 7.9 miles and nearly 500 homes with impeccably maintained yards. The path begins near Willow Creek Golf Course and the entrance to Fox Den subdivision, deep in the heart of Farragut. Continuing to Country Manor subdivision, you’ll see newer construction highlighted by these darling dogwoods, in addition to other flowering trees that provide shade and character to the scenery. In Village Green subdivision, the trail is transformed into a historic experience. Modeled after Colonial Williamsburg, the neighborhood features carefully maintained landscapes surrounding homes with classic American features. Enjoy your passage through Farragut’s bounteous blooms!

https://www.dogwoodarts.com/trails-and-gardens/
Dogwood Arts information: 865-637-4561, https://www.dogwoodarts.com

This free sculpture exhibition celebrating April’s National Recycling Month features original artworks by University of Tennessee Sculpture Program students inspired by and incorporating scrap metal.

Following an unveiling April 3, the exhibition is open to the public on the Clinch Concourse through April 21 during regular Knoxville Convention Center hours.

Location: Knoxville Convention Center, 701 Henley St (865) 522-5669 More Details

When the Museum of East Tennessee History opened in 1993, it fulfilled a shared vision to preserve and interpret the region’s rich history for the benefit of all, a vision first articulated a century and a half earlier. On May 5, 1834, Dr. J.G.M. Ramsey addressed a group of a historically-minded citizens gathered for the first annual meeting of the East Tennessee Historical and Antiquarian Society. Concerned that many of the participants in Tennessee’s early history were passing away and with them their memories, Ramsey issued a call to action: “Let us hasten to redeem the time that is lost.”

Today, 185 years later, Dr. J.G.M. Ramsey’s plea to save Tennessee’s past continues to reverberate in the galleries of the East Tennessee Historical Society’s museum, a permanent home for our region’s cherished stories, traditions, and artifacts. The East Tennessee Historical Society actively began collecting artifacts and producing award-winning interpretive exhibits in 1993, which has now grown to more than 15,000 artifacts housed within the East Tennessee History Center. In this special exhibition, ETHS is excited to highlight East Tennessee’s unique history through a variety of artifacts, with at least one exhibited item from each year of ETHS’s active 25 years of collections, most of which are on display for the first time.

The exhibition, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Museum of East Tennessee History and the tenth of the signature exhibition “Voices of the Land: The People of East Tennessee,” includes more than thirty-five artifacts and numerous photographs and illustrations representative of East Tennessee’s unique history. Some of the items include an 1883 Springfield penny-farthing, the first apparatus to be called a “bicycle”; an 1822 artificial hand that belonged to a teacher from Union County; a silver coffee and tea service from the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad presented to Superintendent James Baker Hoxsie upon his retirement in 1866; a coverlet woven by one of the famed Walker sisters of Greenbrier; a shirt stating “Healing in the name of Jesus. Take up serpents, Acts 2:38” worn during religious services practicing snake handling in Cocke County; an 1817 bead necklace belonging to Eliza Sevier, the wife of Templin Ross and the granddaughter of both John Sevier and Cherokee Chief Oconostota; a 1907 baseball uniform from a coal town’s team in Marrion County; and the distinctive backdrop and wall clock from WBIR-TV variety program "The Cas Walker Farm & Home Show." The exhibit also features a brilliant display of East Tennessee furniture, textiles, folk art, instruments, and vintage toys.

New artifacts have been added to the exhibition for its extension, including a flag of the 39th Tennessee Regiment from the Battle of Horseshoe Bend; Civil War field drum, drumsticks, and daguerreotype that belonged to Martin E. Parmelle, Knoxville's last Civil War veteran; a Tennessee muzzle-loading percussion rifle; a “Pots of Flowers” quilt attributed to Mary Jane Spangler Green that is said to have been hidden under her dress in Civil War raids to prevent being taken by Union soldiers; a wood-fired face jug by local potter Peter Rose; an 1825-1850 pie safe from the border of Greene and Hawkins Counties; a 1902 oak basket from the Riverdale Community of East Knoxville; a 1930s roadside sign for Indian Cave, the Grainger County tourist attraction; and paintings by Charles Krutch, Jim Gray, and Lucile Smith.

East Tennessee Historical Society, 601 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Museum hours: M-F 9-4, Sa 10-4, Su 1-5. Information: 865-215-8824, www.easttnhistory.org

Brandon Woods presents Eureka (1.0), an exhibition of hard-edge, geometric abstract paintings on linen which investigate the impact of language on perception and the development of meaning through bold fields of saturated colors. The result of Woods’ interdisciplinary approach to painting, these works were created through the use of his innovative Eureka algorithm—a chance-based, linear process which produces data determining the works’ colors and compositions. Approaching this data as a definition for the finished work, Woods’ intuitive responses throughout his painting process serve as a metaphor for the viewer’s cognitive and psychological processes in analyzing and interpreting abstract visual information. https://www.brandonwoodsart.com

On exhibition throughout the month of April in Rothrock, the bookstore to the immediate right as you enter the library. At Lawson McGhee Knox County Public Library, 500 W Church Ave, Knoxville, TN 37902. Gallery Hours: Monday-Saturday: 10:30am-4:30pm, Sunday: 1:00pm-4:00pm (closed April 19-21)

Dogwood Arts Art In Public Places - Temporary Sculpture Exhibition

An exhibition of large-scale outdoor sculptures in downtown Knoxville, the McGhee Tyson Airport, Zoo Knoxville, and Oak Ridge. The annual rotating installation is one of many Dogwood Arts programs focused on providing access to the arts for everyone, promoting awareness of the strong visual arts community thriving in our region, and creating a vibrant and inspiring environment for residents and visitors to experience.

Sculpture installation will take place March 22-23, 2019.

Dogwood Arts, 123 W. Jackson Ave, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-637-4561, www.dogwoodarts.com

It is time again for our annual KARMA month! In April, nearly ALL of our weekly classes will be donation-based. This is our effort to make a positive impact in the community, and showcase what we do year round at The Glowing Body.

Join us for a Karma Kick-Off party on Sunday, March 31st, featuring TreeTop Coffee Shop, with 10% of their sales going to Harmony Family Center. There will be chair massage by GB therapists, light snacks, merchandise/class pass giveaways, and our usual Sunday Karma classes!

Please tell family, friends, co-workers, neighbors. and anyone else who will listen about Karma Month at Glowing Body!

Glowing Body, 711 Irwin Street, Knoxville, TN 37917. Information: 865-545-4088, https://www.glowingbody.net/karma-month/

Opening Reception on March 30, 7 to 9 pm, gallery talk at 6:30 pm

By Members of the Norris Ritzy Thimbles and the Oak Ridge Bits & Pieces Quilt Guilds

In the Arts community a discussion of art versus craft is a long running diatribe. Is it art? Is it craft? I cannot tell you the number of times I have heard, “If an object is functional it CANNOT be art, it is JUST craft!” What? Are you kidding? !! Is there a difference? Design is design, beauty is beauty? Meaningful is even better. I finally heard an adage I could get behind, “If it is functional, it is a higher form of art.” What could be better than having a piece of work that is not only beautiful or meaningful AND have it be functional? Quilts have long exemplified this approach to arts & crafts. Since the Gees Bend quilters won the respect of the arts world several years ago, many have looked at these familiar and often overlooked designs with fresh eyes and...Voila! Art where there once was home craft! March 23 through May 11, 2019 the Art Center will host a wonderful collection of quilts both created by and/or collected by the members of two of our regional quilt guilds—the Ritzy Thimbles of Norris and the Bits & Pieces of Oak Ridge. I would like to stress the “created by and/or collected by” aspect of this show, for not only will there be work by these talented artists, but work that so snared their attention that it made them want to possess the pieces. While I realize many will be family pieces (I would so love to have one of the quilts my Grandmother or Mother made) there will also be pieces that fascinated the artists. As we do in many of our themed exhibitions, we have asked the artists to share with us their rationale for choosing to produce or collect the pieces that they are showing. In this way we can all learn a little bit about what these artisans are seeing in the work and, perhaps, the hallmarks of what they find special in each work. Seeing the creations through the eyes of those who revere it will undoubtedly teach us all something very interesting about those special techniques, styles, and patterns that comprise each piece. In addition, I think we could learn much about the tradition the work was born of and, for the contemporary work, how it breaks with tradition and creates something new. For years as quilters bring their work into Open Show, we have been fascinated with their recounting of how they took a traditional pattern or idea and transformed it by changing sizes, shapes or color patterns into a design that was far from the original idea. As interesting, were the stories of how the artists developed the idea that lead to the patterning they utilized. Perhaps because the quilt artists were used to using patterns and often utilize a repeating idea, they were very aware of how the idea formed, how it evolved into the current composition, and were able to articulate it. We think “Then and Now” will prove to be very interesting as these creatives share their process with us.

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