Calendar of Events

Meet the artist Mon Mar 21, 7-9 PM

At Barrelhouse, it’s important to us to support local artists of all kinds, so every six weeks we have a new visual artist on our taproom wall! Meet the artist, Lauren Kelley, and see her bold, colorful paintings as well as have the chance to purchase. https://www.facebook.com/events/s/meet-the-artist-lauren-kelley/698915158144022/
https://www.instagram.com/laurentheabstractartist/

Barrelhouse – Gypsy Circus Cider, 621 Lamar St, Knoxville, TN 37917
https://gypsycircuscider.com/barrelhouse-by-gypsy-circus-knoxville/

In celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the 1982 World's Fair, the Museum of East Tennessee History announces the opening of a new, one-of-a-kind exhibition, "You Should've Been There!," in the Rogers-Claussen Feature Gallery from March 19 to October 9, 2022.

The exhibition’s theme is not only a nod to the international exposition’s marketing catchphrase, “You Have Got to Be There! The 1982 World’s Fair!,” but also an acknowledgement that four decades removed, there is a generation of East Tennesseans who were not alive to experience the historic event.

Organized by the East Tennessee Historical Society and the Knox County Public Library, “You Should've Been There!” traces the fair’s development from conception to the pivotal moment when The Wall Street Journal referred to Knoxville as a “scruffy little city” and questioned its ability to host an international event. More than 11,000,000 visitors from around the world were informed and entertained in the various pavilions, exhibitions, and attractions put on by 22 countries and some 50 private organizations. Popular souvenirs were shirts and buttons proclaiming, “The Scruffy Little City Did It!”

The fair’s theme, “Energy Turns the World,” played to the region’s reputation as a technology and science center. For example, it was at the 1982 World’s Fair that users were able to try out a touchscreen for the first time. Elo, a Knoxville-based company, debuted the touchscreen technology, then known as "talk back" computers, in the United States Pavilion. To honor this spirit of innovation, “You Should've Been There!” incorporates engaging touchscreens alongside displays of original fair materials from pickle pins to deely bobbers and everything in between.

To learn more about the exhibition, please visit: https://www.easttnhistory.org/1982worldsfair

"You Should've Been There!" is an official event of the 40th Anniversary of the 1982 World's Fair. To learn more about upcoming commemorative events, please visit: http://www.knoxvilleworldsfair.com.

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

In a year like no other, Arrowmont's 2021-2022 Artists-in-Residents lived and worked together in the intimate environment of shared housing and adjoining studios. Their 11-month residency culminates in a group exhibition, now on display in the Sandra J. Blain Galleries at Arrowmont.

Please join Elizabeth Belz, Horacio Casillas, Kyle Cottier, Naomi David Russo, and Lena Schmid at the closing reception for their exhibition, "Party of Five." The reception is free and open to the public. We hope to see you there!
May 13, 2022, 6:00 - 8:00 pm

Sandra J. Blain Galleries
Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, 556 Parkway, Gatlinburg, TN 37738. Information: 865-436-5860, https://www.arrowmont.org/visit/galleries/exhibition-schedule/

Charlotte Rollman Artist Statement
All of these paintings are plein-air (painted outside and on-site). You may notice all of the seasons are represented here, as I try to paint all year long. The two largest paintings are from my backyard and all of the work is from East Tennessee. I paint often, and particularly enjoy my weekly meet-up with the Tuesday Painters group. We are a lucky bunch. We mostly share our work, painting ideas, studio tips and discuss art events, and over lunch we share our lives outside of painting. We discuss abstract things like color, contrast, value, reflections and the weather. The wind joins us too and is not usually my friend, but it does chase away the bugs. I like to paint in the early morning light but I am not always the first person to our destination for the day. Sometimes I am distracted driving to our painting destination on Tuesday mornings and see other places I would like to stop and paint, but I don’t because I would miss the others if I did.

Debbie Whelan Artist Statement
I’m a dancer who makes pots. The human body and the clay body both have form and shape, both seek to fill the space with dynamic design, movement and meaning, and the color on the pot is like the music to the dance. The dancer informs the potter, and the potter informs the dancer, culminating in a lovely duet!

Westminister Presbyterian Church, 6500 S Northshore Dr, Knoxville, TN 37919. Hours: M-R 9-4 and Sundays. Info: (865) 584-3957 or www.wpcknox.org

Tri-Star Arts invites you to the First Friday reception for "From Wonder To Wonder" feat. Carl E. Moore and David Jon Walker (images 1-2 above) and "The Gallery of the Thieves: Recto / Verso" by Andrew Scott Ross (image 3 above) at the historic Candoro Marble Building, Friday, April 1 from 5:00- 8:00pm. (photos: Bruce Cole)

The Tri-Star Arts gallery and studios are located in the historic Candoro Marble Building, 5 minutes from downtown Knoxville at the corner of Maryville Pike and Candora Avenue. Parking spaces are limited and visitors may park along Candora Avenue as needed.

This exhibition is open to the public regularly from Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00 am until 5:00 pm, alongside iconic spaces within the Candoro Marble Building ~ located in the Vestal neighborhood of Knoxville. (photo: Bruce Cole)

Tri-Star Arts at Candoro Marble Building, 4450 Candora Drive, Knoxville, TN 37920. https://tristararts.org/the-gallery

At Next Level Brewing Company, 700 North Broadway, Knoxville, TN 37917

Knoxville songwriters, musicians, and singers--come play a song! Come try out your new songs and creative works-in-progress, connect with other Knoxville creatives, and enjoy a tasty brew from Next Level Brewing.

Signups start at 6pm. Open mic from 7-9pm. 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month.
Feb 1, Feb 15, Mar 1, Mar 15, Apr 5, Apr 19, May 3, May 17, Jun 7

Hosted by Travis Tench of Tinca Tinca: https://linktr.ee/TincaTinca

As a bonus, anyone who performs has a chance to win the "lottery tip jar," at the end of the night!
https://www.facebook.com/events/491771298963920/

Global Asias: Contemporary Asian and Asian American Art from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation

Drawn from the exceptional and diverse collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his family foundation, Global Asias examines the cosmopolitan, playful, and subtly subversive characteristics of contemporary Asian and Asian American art. The exhibition highlights the work of fifteen artists of Asian heritage who draw on a rich array of motifs, techniques, and cultural motivations to construct diverse “Asias” in a modern global context.

Organized by the Palmer Museum of Art in conjunction with the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, the exhibition is divided into three thematic sections. “Exuberant Forms” features work that has the potential to reshape conventional views of abstract art—its composition, palette, materiality as well as its cultural implications, expanding and complicating the canonical narrative of abstraction. “Moving Stories” brings together powerful prints and mixed-media works that reflect on the experiences of migration, both within Asia and beyond. The artists in this section map their own diasporic trajectories, literally and metaphorically, and the art compels the viewer to move and to respond to the shifting socio-political realities of time and place. “Asias Reinvented” highlights two- and three-dimensional works that transform styles and techniques of traditional Asian arts in alignment with the vibes of the contemporary and the cosmopolitan. Combined, the works in Global Asias suggest the plurality and fluidity of “Asia” as cultural construct and creative practice. The exhibition is guest curated by Chang Tan, Assistant Professor of Art History and Asian Studies at Penn State.

Knoxville Museum of Art, 1050 World's Fair Park Dr, Knoxville, TN 37916. Tuesday-Saturday 10 am-5pm, Sunday 1-5 pm, closed Mondays. Information: 865-525-6101, https://knoxart.org/

Shane Pickett: Djinong Djina Boodja (Look at the Land That I Have Travelled)
January 14 - May 7, 2022

During his lifetime, Shane Pickett (1957–2010) was acclaimed as one of Western Australia’s most significant contemporary Aboriginal artists.

Featuring 29 works from the most radical and significant phase of his career, Djinong Djina Boodja (Look at the Land that I Have Traveled) is the first major exhibition of Pickett’s work in the US. Pickett’s paintings capture the transformations of the country near Perth in the south-west of Australia in ever-changing and innovative ways. Over the course of his three-decade career, Pickett developed a new visual language to represent the cornerstones of the culture of his Nyoongar people: the pathways of ancestors, traditional healing practices and places, and especially the six seasons used by the Nyoongar to divide the year.

Djinong Djina Boodja (Look at the Land that I Have Traveled) shows the developments in the last decade of Pickett’s career, as his work transformed from figurative landscape painting into a ground breaking and expressive form of gestural abstraction. It was during this period that Pickett achieved his greatest acclaim, with his works being exhibited across Australia and acquired by major institutions such as the National Gallery of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria. The 29 works in the exhibition present a snapshot of these experiments, as Pickett explores the complex connections between the earth, creation, and spirituality that are united in the Aboriginal concept of “Dreaming.”

Pickett described his paintings as ‘windows into the Dreaming’, and the strength of his culture is delivered through his work with breathtaking lyrical intensity. His paintings show the persistence and adaptability of Aboriginal ways of seeing the country in the face of colonisation. Shane Pickett’s Nyoongar name, Meeyakba, or ‘soft light of the moon,’ captures the spirit of an artist who set a beacon for those who follow him. One of the great innovators of Australian landscape painting, he is remembered as one of the pre-eminent Aboriginal Australian artists of his time.

McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, 1327 Circle Park Dr on the UT campus, Knoxville, TN 37996. Information: 865-974-2144

Ahoy, readers! Mayor Glenn Jacobs is inviting you to set sail on our 2022 reading challenge, Oceans of Possibilities, with a goal to read ONE MILLION HOURS! This year, we've broken our million-hour goal into three nautical challenges. You can participate in any one of the challenges, or all three.

Anchors aweigh! Set sail with us. By reading and logging your hours, you'll be part of Read City's quest to be the best-read community in America. It's more than a feel-good slogan. In an effort to support our schools, we are encouraging our children and their families to make reading a top priority. Currently, only 40% of Knox County students are reading on grade level at the end of third grade. Our community can help.

Got a Beanstack tracker app account? It's simple to join the next challenge--just click on Anchors Aweigh.

Don't have a Beanstack account yet? Also simple. With your library card, you can register for a free account and get started logging.

You can also drop by any library and pick up a navigation map with activities or try out our sailor hat craft.

It's 2022 and time for another reading adventure. I'm excited to set sail on our Anchors Aweigh challenge, and I hope you'll join us. When we read together, we're sending a strong message to our community that we value reading. If you can read with a child, that's even better, but all reading counts. It's easy to be a part of Read City. Just download the Beanstack tracker app or drop by any Knox County Public Library location to pick up a tracker map. Earn great prizes. Read and log 45 hours (that's about 20 minutes a day) to earn sea-worthy prizes! https://www.knoxlib.org/calendar-programs/read-city-oceans-possibilities

No BPS will occur Jan 25-29 - please come back Feb 1 for more great music!

The WDVX Blue Plate Special® is a live performance radio show held at noon, with your host Red Hickey, Monday through Thursday at the Knoxville Visitor Center. On Fridays WDVX takes the Blue Plate Special to Barley’s Taproom & Pizzeria for “The Big Plate”, then back to the Visitor Center on Saturday with your host Evie Andrus.

It’s always free to join in, so please don’t be shy. Make yourself at home as part of the WDVX family. From blues to bluegrass, country to Celtic, folk to funk, rockabilly to hillbilly, local to international, it all part of the live music experience on the WDVX Blue Plate Special. You’re welcome to bring your lunch.

Just like at your favorite meat n’ three, the WDVX Blue Plate Special® is served up piping hot. This fresh and free daily helping of live music during the lunchtime hour that features performers from all over the world and right here in Knoxville has put WDVX on the map as East Tennessee’s Own community supported radio.

Previous performing artists include Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, The Avett Brothers, Old Crowe Medicine Show, Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, Jim Lauderdale, Marty Stuart, Nickel Creek, Red Stick Ramblers, Rodney Crowell, String Cheese Incident, The Del McCoury Band, Tim O’Brien, Yonder Mountain String Band, David Grisman, Claire Lynch Band, Brett Dennen, Tommy Emmanuel, Uncle Earl, The Infamous Stringdusters, the Jerry Douglas Band, Joan Osborne, John Oats, Mary Gauthier, Darrell Scott, and many many more! There’s plenty of great music to go around! http://wdvx.com/program/blue-plate-special/

Free 2-hour visitor parking located next door to the Knoxville Visitor Center. One Vision Plaza, 301 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Info: 865-544-1029, http://www.wdvx.com

For the past twelve years, the Arts & Culture Alliance of Greater Knoxville and the Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority (McGhee Tyson Airport) have partnered to present a biannual exhibition entitled “Arts in the Airport”. This juried exhibition was developed to allow regional artists to compete and display work in the most visited site in the area. The selected art features contemporary 2- and 3-dimensional artwork.

View and purchase artworks at https://www.knoxalliance.store/product-category/airport

www.knoxalliance.com/arts-in-the-airport

OLD TIME JAM, TUESDAYS AT 6.30PM, HOSTED BY SARAH PIRKLE
This strings only* session is the sound of the Appalachian legacy that richly indwells the soul and soil of Knoxville. The musicians sit together and pick and strum familiar tunes on fiddles, guitars, and bass. We play Old Time fiddle tunes mostly, everyone jams at once and there are no breaks. Open to all lovers and players of music. We welcome dancers but please no tap shoes, as it can interfere with the session. No need to build up the courage to join in, just grab an instrument off the wall and take a seat.
*No percussion instruments please.

IRISH SESSION, 1ST AND 3RD THURSDAYS AT 7.15PM
From the low central valleys to the high coastal mountains, music fills the pubs of Ireland. Guitar, harp, bodhran, flute, accordion, and dulcimer are the celtic sounds of old that combine to create a traditional and lively atmosphere every other Thursday night. Musicians play to enjoy and to preserve the cultural heritage that the Scots-Irish brought to America generations ago. Come and listen or join in! (Thanks Jason for the video!)

SCOTTISH SESSION, 2ND AND 4TH THURSDAYS AT 7.15PM
A proud tradition, Scots love nothing more than music and drink. The drink is strong and the music is steeped in the history of the green highlands and rocky cliffs. Whether lyrics or no lyrics, every song tells a story. The hills of East Tennessee are a home away from home for this style. Pull up a chair to listen or play along every other Thursday night.

BLUEGRASS JAM, FIRST AND FOURTH SUNDAY OF EVERY MONTH AT 3 P.M., HOSTED BY PERRY COOPER
It’s true that Bluegrass has roots in traditional English, Scottish, and Irish ballads and dance tunes. That’s why the Bluegrass Jam Session is a great fit for the Jig and Reel crowd. Come listen to acoustic string instruments as one or more instruments take their turn playing melody and improvising around it. As one instrument plays melody, the others will perform accompaniment. It’s an improvised jam session for all you pickers and grinners out there.

CELTIC JAM FOR BEGINNERS, SECOND SUNDAY OF EVERY MONTH AT 3 P.M., HOSTED BY TIM WORMAN
This session is your chance to enjoy traditional Celtic tunes at a slower pace. Learn as you play alongside host Tim Worman. He is there to guide the group of beginners as they take in the folk music traditions of the Celtic people of Western Europe. Let yourself get swept up in years of living tradition and hear songs that celebrate life by the sea. All are welcome to Celtic Jam for Beginners. Don’t be afraid to join in on the fun!

SCOTTISH COUNTRY DANCE, THIRD SUNDAYS AT 3PM, HOSTED BY CYNTHIA WEST
Dancing is just as important as the music in the Scottish tradition, and upbeat rhythms make for great foot-stomping. Those that are more experienced can even present a well-practiced jig or reel! Whether you are watching or dancing, 3rd Sundays at Boyd’s are overflowing with energy and fun.

*Jams/Sessions are currently limited to the number of players, so you must contact the session leader in advance if you are interested in playing. If you need assistance reaching them, you can email us at info@jigandreel.com, and we can connect you.*

101 S Central St, Knoxville, TN 37902, www.jigandreel.com, Phone: (865) 247-7066