Calendar of Events

Work by eight of the region's most prominent Black artists are on display through March 9th. Opening reception is this Saturday, February 3, 1:00 - 4:00. Many of the artists will be in attendance and light Hors D'oeuvres and refreshments will be served. Please join us for this wonderful show!

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

February 3, 2024 @ 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
$27.50 – $47.50

Do you understand now why books are hated and feared? Because they reveal the pores on the face of life. The comfortable people want only the faces of the full moon, wax, faces without pores, hairless, expressionless. — Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

To read Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 right now, at this fraught moment, is a chilling experience. It is almost hard to fathom that the author so eerily and accurately predicted a dystopian world of censorship, anti-intellectualism and mass media gone awry. 

Clayton Center for the Arts, 502 East Lamar Alexander Parkway, Maryville, TN 37804. Information/tickets: 865-981-8590, www.ClaytonArtsCenter.com

Please join us for a wonderful night of music as Knoxville Classical Guitar presents Gohar Vardanyan in Concert. Tickets available at https://knoxvilleclassicalguitar.com/events

Held at The Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan Knoxville at 7 PM

Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks At the East Tennessee History Center,
Saturday, February 3, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.

Award-winning author, poet, and professor Crystal Wilkinson will speak on her book, Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts. In this book, Wilkinson gifts us a key that unlocks not only her own treasured memories but methods for embracing our own personal histories. Join the East Tennessee Historical Society and co-sponsors Union Ave Books as Ms. Wilkinson shares stories behind recipes rooted deep in the past. Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts brings to life a culinary and artistic inheritance that honors the mothers who came before, the land that provided for generations of her family, and the untold heritage of Black Appalachia.

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

CANCELLED 1/29/24

Jubilee Community Arts presents The New Dismembered Tennesseans at the Laurel Theater, February 3 at 8 pm.

Building on a 70-year history as one of the most influential bluegrass bands in the region, the New Dismembered Tennesseans today bring a new lineup, new repertoire, and new energy to the band founded by Tennessee master fiddler and philanthropist Fletcher Bright and his high school friends back in 1945. Make that “mostly” new lineup, as original banjo player Ed “Doc” Cullis still performs with the band today. Today, along with Cullis, the band features long-time members Laura Walker (bass & vocals) and Don Cassell (mandolin & vocals) plus Bobby Burns (guitar & vocals), Tom Morley (fiddle & vocals) and Fletcher’s granddaughter, Eleanor Bright (clawhammer banjo & vocals).

Tickets available at TicketLeap (jubileearts.org), by mail or at the door 30 minutes prior to show. $20 at the door, $15 General Audience Advance, $14 JCA members, students & seniors 65+.

Jubilee Community Arts at the Laurel Theater, 1538 Laurel Ave, Knoxville, TN 37916. Tickets: https://jubilee-community-arts.ticketleap.com. Information: 865-522-5851, www.jubileearts.org

16th Annual Tune Junkie Concert
February 3, 2024, at the Historic Grove Theater in Oak Ridge, TN.
The concert will feature Josh Dukes, Tony DeMarco, Dylan Foley, Patrick D’Arcy, John Skelton, host band Four Leaf Peat and more. Doors open at 6:00 and the show starts at 7 PM. For tickets and information: www.tradknox.com

Crystal Wilkinson - February 3rd at 7pm -
Union Ave Books is thrilled to host author Crystal Wilkinson as part of her book tour for PRAISESONG FOR THE KITCHEN GHOSTS. This event will take place on February 3rd at 7pm at the East Tennessee History Center. The East Tennessee History Center is located at 601 S Gay St, Knoxville, TN 37902. If you plan to attend, please fill out the webform below with your name and the number of attendees in your group.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CRYSTAL WILKINSON, Kentucky’s Poet Laureate from 2021 to 2023, is the award-winning author of Perfect Black; The Birds of Opulence; Water Street; and Blackberries, Blackberries. She is the recipient of an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Poetry, an O. Henry Prize, a USA Artists Fellowship, and an Ernest J. Gaines Prize for Literary Excellence. She has received recognition from the Yaddo Foundation, Hedgebrook, The Hermitage Foundation, and others. Her short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She currently teaches at the University of Kentucky in the creative writing MFA program.

https://www.unionavebooks.com/event/author-event-crystal-wilkinson

Join Let Her Speak as we celebrate and spotlight the women leaders who graduated from our first cohort of the Let Her Lead Program. Let Her Lead is a leadership development program launched by Let Her Speak in 2023 which guided 6 aspiring leaders and 6 established leaders through 12 weeks of classroom training, workshops, and 1-on-1 support to help each woman achieve her leadership goals.

On February 3rd, 2024 we will be celebrating these women through story, conversation, and connection at a special event open to the public. Each program graduate will be delivering a personal legacy talk about who she is, how she sees herself as a leader, and the impact she wants to leave.

There is no cost to attend. We are asking those who can to donate when registering for the event. The suggested donation amount is $35, but any and all donations are greatly appreciated. All proceeds from this event will be invested into expanding Let Her Speak programming and impact.

NOTE: If you registered for the event on its original date of January 20th and can no longer attend, please email our team (hello@letherspeakusa.org) to cancel your registration.

At the Knoxville Museum of Art
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/letherspeak/1095929

February – March 2024

Sonia Jackson Summers received her Bachelors in College Scholars: Illustration and Writing from The University of Tennessee in 2008. During her time at the University of Tennessee, Sonia cartooned for “The Daily Beacon.”

In 2011, Sonia married and relocated to her husband’s hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, and during that time Sonia was commissioned to participate in Vulcan Park and Museum’s public art project called “Vulcans on Parade.” Sonia’s painted Vulcan statues stand on display in two downtown Birmingham businesses. Sonia has work in the permanent collection of The Joy Gallery in Homewood, Alabama and rotating art at the Blue Phrog Gallery in Montevallo, Alabama.

Since moving back to Knoxville with her husband and kids in 2019, Sonia has broadened her scope to include painting en plein air (live on-site landscape painting), as well as competitive sidewalk chalk art/“Madonnari” festivals and sidewalk chalk art commissions, in addition to her fine art, illustration, and murals. Sonia has a deep appreciation for Impressionism, focusing on bridging the relationship between observation and interpretation, impressionistic capabilities of skill and realistic reaction in rendering. Sonia enjoys public art such as murals and sidewalk chalk for their ability to make art accessible to everyone.

In 2023 Sonia accepted the Fine Arts Teaching position at Chesterton Academy, a new classical high school in Knoxville. She also teaches recreational art classes at Painting with a Twist in Farragut.

Sonia’s art can be seen in sidewalk chalk/madonnari festivals, such as the Dogwood Arts Chalk Walk, through exhibitions with both the Arts and Culture Alliance and Dogwood Arts, and she currently has a mural featured by Dogwood Arts in Strong Alley in downtown Knoxville.

https://knoxbijou.org/community-outreach-2/art-gallery/

MAIN GALLERY
Reception Feb. 2, 5-8 PM
https://andrewscottross.com/home.html
https://tristararts.org/the-gallery/f/a-drawing-of-a-lion-shaped-by-fear

Tri-Star Arts at Candoro Marble Building, 4450 Candora Drive, Knoxville, TN 37920. Hours: Tu-Sa 11-5. Information: https://tristararts.org/visit

First Friday February 2nd 6-9pm at Relay Ridge

-Jenn Kaplan "No Sudden Movements" opening gallery reception
-Open Artist Studios
-Printmaking demos/artist features in the printshop

Jennifer Kaplan invites participants to slow down and listen to the nuances of verbal and nonverbal communication. This show emphasizes the isolated gestures of touch through a progression blend of functional and figurative forms, giving shape to that which exists inside us and has been shapeless. Clay has the capacity to communicate what cannot be said, what is unspeakable, where words fail.

“Where I End and You Begin” are a series of entangled bodies which follow the gestural action of hands folding into one another, signing in motions of tenderness, reception, and formal fluidity. These tangled masses are finished in waxes and chalk, raw and bright, or crater glazes, molten and encrusted, with blurred edges, to amplify the soft strength of vulnerable participation within a community.

Everything is connected and survival is en masse. Hope lives not in isolation but through the potential of collaborative movement. Jennifer’s ceramic practice acts as a filter for understanding cycles of grief and regrowth, encouraging the potential within collaborative action and mutual aid.

We invite you to engage your senses in the relational works but please, be gentle.

Relay Ridge, 4124 McKinley St, Knoxville. https://relayridge.org/ and https://www.instagram.com/relay_ridge/

A First Friday opening reception for the exhibit is planned from 5:30 pm - 9 pm, January 5th, with complimentary refreshments and music.

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