Calendar of Events

Awaken Coffee will host an opening reception for landscape/nature photographer Cate Goen on Friday, Oct. 1 from 6-8 pm.

Cate is a senior graduating from the University of Tennesee this fall. "The beauty in nature always brings rest to my soul, and my goal with these photos was to provide some of that rest and peace in a tangible way."

Awaken Coffee, 125 W Jackson Ave, Knoxville, TN 37902. Info: 865-951-0427 or https://www.facebook.com/awakencoffeeoldcity/

On display in the tasting room during the month of October.

Address: 205 W Jackson Ave #205, Knoxville, TN 37902

reception: Friday, October 1, 5-8pm

Join us for a First Friday reception for Illumination, Sculptures by James O. Clark. James O. Clark is a New York-based sculptor who works with light and illumination.

"Light as a material has illuminated my creative search, I continue to be captivated by the mysterious dialogue between light and form. Light is ephemeral, as it dances and changes composing space, defines, reflects, refracts, bends, and teases the volume and mass of forms. Light has created a symbiotic relationship with me in my exploration capturing my childhood creative adventure and developing an exciting lifelong journey."

All events and exhibitions are free and open to the public.

Open Wednesday - Friday 11am - 6pm and Saturdays from 10am - 3pm. UT Downtown Gallery, 106 S. Gay St, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-673-0802, http://web.utk.edu/~downtown

Knox Draw has been running for several years now, and we’d like to celebrate! One of our favorite parts of having these sessions is seeing all your artwork. What better way to see it than showing it locally? Central Depot will be hosting our artworks, opening First Friday, October 1st! Drawings made together at our sessions will be exhibited for the month.

At Central Depot, 103 W Depot Ave, Knoxville, TN 37917
https://www.knoxdraw.com/

Susan Midelton is the Art Guild’s Featured Artist for October. She will be honored at the Fun and Wine Reception on Friday, October 1st from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m., at the Art Center located at 451 Lakeview Drive in Fairfield Glade. Attendees are encouraged to wear masks and practice social-distancing. Wine will be served. This event is free and open to the public.

Susan was born in a suburb of Philadelphia, PA, but grew up outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. Her family returned to the east coast where she attended high school and took two commercial art classes which comprised of the only formal art training she experienced. She met her husband while a senior in high school, she later graduated from West Chester Univ. of PA with a degree in secondary education. Her growing family, including children and an assortment of pets, moved from Pennsylvania to Denver, Colorado, and later to Dayton, Ohio where she completed another degree, and began her school library and high school teaching career. Although Susan did not take art courses, she developed a close relationship with the art teacher at the school where she taught, and Susan continues to seek her honest critiques of her work after all these years. Following their children graduating from college, Susan and her husband and their pets moved to a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, where Susan received a degree in school administration and technology. After 35 years in public education, Susan retired in 2012 and her husband retired in 2013 from engineering. In 2014 they decided to take a swing through the south and explore different retirement communities. After visiting Georgia, North and South Carolina, they arrived in Fairfield Glade and bought a home on Lake St. George. Upon moving here, with one cat, Susan quickly joined the Art Guild while her husband joined various bridge clubs.

Susan’s first art class at the Art Guild was a printing class. She loved it! Then she took an oil painting class followed by watercolors and acrylic painting. After almost a year of various art classes, she discovered the medium that was meant for her - pastels. Some regard pastel painting as drawing with chalk, but Susan points out it is so much more than that, “Pastel is an art medium in the form of a stick, consisting of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those used in other arts media, such as oil paints. The best thing about working in pastels is that the artist does not need to use a paint brush; application of all color takes place with the artist’s fingertips.”

Hours: Mon-Sat 9 AM - 4 PM. Art Guild at Fairfield Glade at the Plateau Creative Arts Center, 451 Lakeview Drive, Fairfield Glade, TN 38558. Information: 931-707-7249, www.artguildfairfieldglade.net

We have a special FREE show for First Friday in October. We have select artworks on display from local photographers LuAnne DeMeo and Houston Vandergriff. Be sure to stop by and check it out, the exhibit runs until the end of the month!

Selected Works: LuAnne DeMeo & Houston Vandergriff | Gallery Show

LuAnne DeMeo holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography from Savannah College of Art and Design. She has worked in the photography industry for over 20 years. In addition to her magazine and commercial work, LuAnne is committed to photographing everyday people from different cultures. Her favorite cameras to use for this type of work is her Yashica-D and 4x5 Crown Graphic.
http://www.luannedemeo.com/

Houston Vandergriff is a travel photographer based in Knoxville, Tennessee. He has traveled far and wide and hopes his photographs will inspire others to live life to the fullest and to live life with compassion. Houston has a simple vision with his photography: Make the world a better place. https://www.downsandtowns.com/

The Knoxville Community Darkroom, 127 Jennings Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37917. www.theknoxvillecommunitydarkroom.org
Viewing hours by appointment: theknoxvillecommunitydarkroom@gmail.com

Opening Reception: October 1, 2021 / 5-8PM

Join us for the #FirstFriday Opening Reception for "Old is New: Photographs of Knoxville's Historic Old City" by Beau Branton, Yousef Sindi, Jared Worsham, and Lindsey Worthington. The exhibition features four emerging fine art photographers living and working in Knoxville.

The Dogwood Arts Gallery is located at 123 W Jackson Avenue in the Historic Old City. Masks are required, regardless of vaccination status.

• Gallery Hours: M-F 10AM-5PM

https://www.dogwoodarts.com/dogwoodgallery

Opens Fri Oct 1, 6-9 PM

Kelly Hider is a regionally and nationally exhibiting studio artist living in Knoxville, Tennessee. She received her BFA from SUNY Brockport in 2007, and an MFA from the University of Tennessee in 2011. Recent solo shows include exhibits at Unrequited Leisure in Nashville, the Central Collective in Knoxville, the Clayton Arts Center in Maryville, TN, and Lincoln Memorial University. Hider’s work was featured on the cover of the independent art journal, Number: Inc. in 2016, and she has been twice awarded Ann & Steve Bailey Opportunity Grants through the Arts & Culture Alliance’s Heritage Fund in Knoxville. A proud Hambidge Fellow, Hider completed an artist residency at the Hambidge Center in Rabun Gap, Georgia in 2019. Kelly Hider works at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts as their Youth Education Programs Manager, facilitating Arrowmont’s local programming and outreach for area kids and young adults, as well as the new youth outreach program ArtReach on the Road, which brings craft education to K-12 students throughout central Appalachia. Hider recently joined the Tennessee Craft Board in 2021.

https://kellyhider.com/

127 Jennings Ave, Knoxville, TN 37917
865-595-1900, https://mightymud.com/
Operating Hours: Tues-Fri: 11:00am - 6:00pm, Sat: 9:00am - 5:00pm

The Porch Sale is a great time to purchase handmade, one-of-a-kind arts and craft pieces, at a discount!

The Porch Sale provides our local artisans the opportunity to replenish their artwork for the remainder of the upcoming new year.

Appalachian Arts Craft Center: 2716 Andersonville Highway, Clinton, TN. Hours: M-Sa 10-6, Su 1-5. Information: 865-494-9854, www.appalachianarts.net

The annual James Agee Conference for Arts and Literature at Pellissippi State Community College will be held as the James Agee Online Reading Series this fall, after having been canceled due to COVID-19 in 2020.

“By rethinking the conference as an online reading series that will be available on YouTube throughout the academic year, we can reach a wider audience,” said conference founder Charles Dodd White, an author and associate professor of English at Pellissippi State. “We are encouraging instructors to use it in their classrooms, but the entire series is free and open to the public as well.”

White, whose 2020 novel “How Fire Runs” won a 2021 Independent Publishers gold medal for Best Regional Fiction – South, created the James Agee Conference six years ago to give Pellissippi State students an opportunity to attend a scholarly conference while also celebrating the literature, culture and arts of Appalachia.

While the online reading series continues in the spirit of the James Agee Conference, White noted that an online reading series allows Pellissippi State to expand the featured writers beyond Appalachia to the general Southeast. Their readings will be recorded, not live, and will include the authors’ thoughts on writing and publishing in addition to sharing from their books.

The three authors on tap this fall include:

• Crystal Wilkinson, Kentucky’s Poet Laureate and the award-winning author of “Perfect Black,” “The Birds of Opulence,” “Water Street” and “Blackberries, Blackberries.” Her reading will premiere Sept. 30.
• Ravi Howard, author of two books of fiction, “Driving the King” and “Like Trees, Walking,” which won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. His reading will premiere Oct. 30.
• Jim Minick, author of five books, including “The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family,” winner of the SIBA Best Nonfiction Book of the Year Award. His reading will premiere Nov. 30.

For more about each featured author and the link to their readings, please visit www.pstcc.edu/events/ageeconference/.

I have lived overseas while in the Army and most recently 14 years in Las Vegas, Nevada. The last two years, my family has been getting acquainted with East Tennessee. Knoxville has been so welcoming, it is quickly becoming our home. Mostly, I paint in water based oils in a fairly realistic style. My subject matter is mostly landscapes, seascapes, animals & insects, and pets. I belong to Fountain City Art Guild, Tennessee Artist Association, and Tuesday Painters, a Plein Air Group. To see examples of my work, please see website: www.ArtisticEscape.studio

Smilin' Jack's is open Monday through Wednesday 11-4, and Thursday through Saturday 11-7.
4620 Mill Branch Lane, Knoxville, TN 37938 in Halls Crossroads

PASS OVER by Antoinette Nwandu

Pass Over made its Broadway premiere this August, and River & Rail is thrilled to bring this powerful, poignant story to Knoxville audiences. Pass Over takes as its inspiration the classic play, Waiting for Godot, and the biblical Exodus story. It follows two young Black men, Moses and Kitch, who talk shop, pass the time, and hope that maybe today will be different. As they dream of their promised land, a stranger wanders into their space and disrupts their plans. Evoking heartbreak, hope, and joy, Pass Over crafts everyday profanities into poetic and humorous riffs, illuminating the unquestionable human spirit of young men looking for a way out.

We are excited to announce our inaugural season of 'Pay-What-You-Wish'!: You pay what you wish for the ticket to the show you're about to see! Whether that's $3 or $40 - your ticket price is truly up to you - our philosophy is: a ticket price shouldn't be a barrier to seeing our shows!
(Suggested Ticket Price: $25 - any amount over $25 is a tax-deductible donation.)

PREVIEWS: SEP. 29-30 @ 8PM

PERFORMANCES:
OCT. 1 @ 8PM / OCT. 2 @ 8PM / OCT.3 @ 2PM
OCT 6. @8PM / OCT. 7 @ 8PM / OCT. 8 @ 8PM
OCT. 9 @ 8PM/ OCT. 10 @ 2PM

Content Warning: Please be advised that 'Pass Over' contains frequent and extreme profanity. 'Pass Over' is recommended for ages 15 and up. Children under 4 will not be admitted. If you have specific questions or concerns about the content of the production, please contact our staff, who will be happy to provide more information.

River & Rail Theatre, 111 State Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-407-0727, www.riverandrailtheatre.com