Calendar of Events

Two shows!

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

MFA Thesis Exhibitions
April 5 – 12, 2022
Reception: Friday, April 8, 5-8pm

Amalia Mermingas, Tasha Lewis, Muriel Condon, and Nichole Schappert

In partial fulfillment of their graduation requirements, students pursuing the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree are required to mount a solo exhibition of work, and to defend their work during an oral examination in front of a faculty committee. Due to the number of graduate students enrolled in the UT School of Art, these exhibitions generally take the form of small groups of students presenting concurrent solo exhibitions in the gallery space.

Ewing Gallery, 1715 Volunteer Blvd on the UT campus, Knoxville, TN 37996. Hours: M-T-F 10-5, W-R 10-7:30, Su 1-4. Information: 865-974-3200, www.ewing-gallery.utk.edu

During April, I will be doing a short reading every Monday at 7pm. I will also be issuing a writing challenge every day for NatPoWritMo.

https://www.rheacarmon.com/
https://www.facebook.com/RheaSunshinePoetry

Award-winning wordsmith Rhea Carmon is a force that weaves passion, purpose, and power into poetry. She is a teacher, mentor, motivational poet, and inspiration to all that come in contact with her. Rhea's life lessons and stories create space for conversation and understanding. She will motivate and inspire students and adults to be the best form of themselves on a daily basis. She is the City of Knoxville's Poet Laureate.

JOIN US FOR A VIRTUAL CELEBRATION! The Orchids Awards have been presented to Knoxville and Knox County's most beautiful properties, public spaces, and public art since 1979. Throughout the month of April, Keep Knoxville Beautiful will host its annual Orchid Awards online via our Facebook page. Awards will be presented to winners in six different categories: New Architecture, Redesign/Reuse, Outdoor Space, Community Space, Public Art, and Regreening.

Join us in celebrating the architects, artist, developers and community members that are beautifying our dynamic city.

Stay tuned for information to support Keep Knoxville Beautiful Mural Fund, which will support Knoxville's next murals. Four generous sponsors will match your individual donations. Help us reach our goal of $9,500!
https://www.keepknoxvillebeautiful.org/orchid-awards
https://www.facebook.com/KeepKnoxvilleBeautiful

Tennessee Division of Natural Areas will Celebrate Natural Areas Week 2022, beginning April 2nd and continuing through April 10th. The division’s experienced event leaders will be leading outings at designated State Natural Areas across Tennessee, from the escarpment of the Cumberland Plateau at Virgin Falls and across the cedar glades of the Nashville Basin, to the lowlands of the West at Big Cypress Tree, there is an event for everyone. Please join Tennessee Division of Natural Areas staff and partners as they explore, explain and celebrate the wonder of Tennessee State Natural Areas during the 2022 Natural Areas Week.

https://tnstateparks.com/about/special-events/natural-areas-week

The Printmaking Showcase Gallery on the second floor of the Art and Architecture Building features “The Great Experiment,” an exhibition of lithographs by Ericka Walker. The exhibition will be on view from April 1 – May 30, 2022. Born in Wisconsin, Walker received her MFA from UT Knoxville in 2010, and lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, where she is an Associate Professor at NSCAD University.

Art and Architecture Building, 2nd Floor Printmaking Aisle
1715 Volunteer Boulevard, Knoxville, TN 37996
https://art.utk.edu/ericka-walker-lithographs-the-great-experiment-printmaking-showcase-gallery/

Opens FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 2022 AT 6 PM – 8 PM

Rala presents The Fortune Teller's Sister & Other Portraits, a show by Cynthia Markert. All paintings are one of a kind originals.
Please join us for the show opening from 6 to 8pm. Visit our online gallery: https://shoprala.com/collections/art-originals

Cynthia Markert is a staple artist and local treasure within Knoxville's arts community and has long been creating timeless paintings of women on wooden panels. Due to the ongoing pandemic, we prefer that masks be worn inside the store. Thank you for helping us stay safe!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1611720295850859/

Rala: Regional and Local Artisans, 112 W. Jackson Ave, Knoxville, TN 37902. Hours: Tu-Sa 11-6, Su 11-5. Information: 865-525-7888, https://shoprala.com or www.instagram.com/ShopRala

First Friday Reception: April 1st, 5:30 – 9:00 pm

April Featured Artists: Anna Burton – Jewelry and Curt Imerman – Drawing

Anna Burton, Jewelry
Anna Burton is a self-trained bead embroidery and weaving artist. She has a love for color and nature and challenges herself to bring contemporary and fun style to the artform. Her background as a professionally trained musician influences how her pieces take shape and flow. Her affinity for bright color combinations, nature, and a desire to continually explore new avenues with her medium is evidenced in each finished piece. Her passion is bead embroidery and dreaming up new ways to make an already 3D art form even more 3-dimensional. Anna began working with beads right out of college when employed at a bead store. What began as a necessity (the bead store was in need of someone to teach their classes), quickly grew into a love and a passion. She has entered several international competitions, most notably, Battle of the Beadsmith (2013, 2014, 2015). She has also served as a member of CABO (Capital Area Bead Organization) in Raleigh, NC, as project coordinator. She is currently a member of the EGA (Embroiderers’ Guild of America).

Curt Imerman, Drawing
I began making pencil drawings at a young age. I have been drawing in pen and ink since the 1980s. I was juried into the Art Market Gallery in September 2020. I submitted several of my barn drawings to the jury. I have since expanded my artistic work by adding slight accent colors to enhance my barn drawings. I also broadened the subject matter I draw (birds, mushrooms, butterflies, etc.). However, barns are still very strong in my mind and heart.

Art Market Gallery, 422 S. Gay St, Knoxville, TN 37902. Hours: Tu-Sa 11-6, Su 1-6. Information: 865-525-5265, www.artmarketgallery.net, www.Facebook.com/ArtMarketGallery

April 1 - 30, 2022

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!

History: In 1947, New York newspaper reporter John Gunther came into town, checked out the area, then returned to New York and wrote “Knoxville is the ugliest city I ever saw in America, with the possible exception of some mill towns in New England. Its main street is called Gay Street; this seemed to me to be a misnomer.” Thus, in 1955, members of the Knoxville Garden Club, led by Betsey Creekmore, Martha Ashe and Betsy Goodson, along with a group of concerned citizens with a vision began a civic beautification project–the Dogwood Trails..

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

1st Friday 4/1/22 Reception 5pm-9pm

Judy Brater, Tina Curry, Brenda Fieser, LeAann Lewis, and Marion Schlauch

Mighty Mud, 126 and 127 Jennings Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37917. Hours: Tu-F 11-6, Sat 9-5. Open studio time on Thu 6-9. Information: 865-595-1900, www.mightymudclay.com

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present five new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville from April 1-30, 2022. A free reception with the artists will take place on Friday, April 1, from 5:00-9:00 PM and features jazz music inside the Emporium by Taber Gable and Friends and an outdoor concert by Knoxville Opera musicians. Most of the works will be for sale and may be purchased through the close of the exhibition by visiting in person or the online shop at www.knoxalliance.store.

Richardson Turner presents an autobiographical series of prints using images he has created over the last three years. They represent memories of the pursuit of a certain muse during a ten-year period from 1964 through 1974. The works are made starting with a black lithograph key drawing followed by screen printed color layers.

I look for visual images that express an initial intuitive understanding and recognition of an idea or thought. I wrote text to accompany this work, which was an integral part of creating the compositions and remembering dream-like details.

Originally from New York City, Marilyn Avery Turner received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1966. Her mediums were painting and collage, but in the past 30 years, she has concentrated on printmaking (monoprinting and screen printing). She taught art for over 20 years in a variety of settings and has been involved, since its inception in 1982, in the Art Market Gallery in Knoxville. She exhibits in solo and group shows and participates in juried exhibitions throughout the U.S. In the last ten years, she has exhibited work in over one-third of the states in the U.S. and has received awards in national exhibitions in Alabama, California, Colorado, Kansas, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Tennessee.

The long, horizontal shape, which I think of as a mini-mural, has been one of my preferred formats for over fifty years. It is only in recent years that I have been using it to explore monochromatic, non-representational images. In these works, I start at one end and continue until I get to the other end. It is the forward movement that interests me; the progression of one piece leading to another. It feels like walking in color and at the end looking back to see if there are any missteps, which I can then go back and alter. In a sense, these works are metaphors for time and its forward thrust. My other preferred shape is the square. These works use figurative imagery in an abstract format. The figurative elements draw mainly from childhood influences, which were shaped by my early years of living in Mexico and California. The designs and images from Pre-Colombian cultures have been an important source of inspiration for me, as have the Western motifs. My interest is in archetypal ideas, as described by C.G. Jung, and images from both these sources feel like fitting representations of these ideas. All of the pictorial elements are derived from monotypes, a form of printmaking wherein a painted image is run through a press to make a unique impression, which I then collage to create the monotype/chine colle works in this exhibit.
http://marilynaveryturner.com/

Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, in downtown Knoxville. Hours: M-F 9-5, Sat 10-1. CLOSED SAT APR 9 AND FRI APR 15 - BUT OPEN SUN APR 10, 10-1. Info: 865-523-7543, www.knoxalliance.com

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present five new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville from April 1-30, 2022. A free reception with the artists will take place on Friday, April 1, from 5:00-9:00 PM and features jazz music inside the Emporium by Taber Gable and Friends and an outdoor concert by Knoxville Opera musicians. Most of the works will be for sale and may be purchased through the close of the exhibition by visiting in person or the online shop at www.knoxalliance.store.

Time is fundamental to all of life. In every aspect, time is considered as the duration, cycles, periods, changes, and/or transitions that mark one’s existence. From the rising of the sun, the phases of the moon, climate seasons, birth, death, and everything in between, time is present and passing. Similarly, God’s love is tantamount with time. God’s love is present. Since time is fundamental to all life, and God’s love is interwoven with time, God's love is fundamental to life. Therefore, God has a Covenant of Time. In all moments of time, God’s love is inseparable.

For this exhibition, I used a combination of traditional and contemporary oil painting techniques to create each piece in response to a time, season, or event in my life. Specifically for this project, I painted each season in its correlating months. This process allowed me to be present with change, especially while it was happening. I explore multiple, correlating elements of time in this exhibition.

Nicholas Cockrell was born in Fort Sill, Oklahoma but raised in Tennessee, where he has fallen in love with the geography, people, and cities across the state. He loves hiking, reading, poetry, journaling, rock climbing, and coffee. Did he write this while drinking coffee? Yes. Yes, he did. He earned his BA in Religion and Philosophy with a Minor in Photography in 2018 from Carson-Newman University. He started painting at the onset of COVID-19’s debut in the US, and painting allowed him to express himself in newer ways that photography had yet to satiate. When one of his roommates passed away tragically in April 2020, Cockrell grieved through painting: it gave him the space to cry, scream, be undone, feel, and eventually heal. The grief journey is far from over, but painting is forever inseparable from that piece of his story. As he continues to paint, he finds himself exploring past wounds and trauma, philosophical thoughts, and faith through the emotional range of colors.

Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, in downtown Knoxville. Hours: M-F 9-5, Sat 10-1. CLOSED SAT APR 9 AND FRI APR 15 - BUT OPEN SUN APR 10, 10-1. Info: 865-523-7543, www.knoxalliance.com