Calendar of Events

Drawn from the remarkable collection of John Hechinger, a hardware store magnate, and art collector, the 68 featured works in the exhibition present images of the most familiar tools as extraordinary works of art. Encompassing photographs, paintings, works on paper, and sculptures, the exhibition celebrates the value of labor and honors the creativity of builders, artists, hobbyists, and self-reliant DIYers. Featured artists include Colleen Barry, Debbie Fleming Caffery, Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg, Maria Porges, James Surls, and Wayne Thiebaud.

The renowned art collection of the late hardware magnate John Hechinger exemplifies this practical and artistic universality. Over his long career, Hechinger devoted much of his energy, playfulness, and passion to this collection, seeking out works from numerous genres and artists of many backgrounds, all of them bound by a common theme: the democracy of the tool. In Work and Play, curator Sarah Tanguy explores interlocking principles: tools as icons of labor; labor as a component of creativity; creativity as a form of play; and the art of tools as the most incisive expression of their interrelatedness. This exhibition celebrates the virtues inherent in the art of the tool and highlights the astounding breadth of the Hechinger Collection by illuminating this unique, but ubiquitous, idiom.

Knoxville Museum of Art, 1050 World's Fair Park, Knoxville, TN 37916. Hours: Tu-Sa 10-5, Su 1-5. Information: 865-525-6101, www.knoxart.org. Admission and parking are free.

Join us for the opening of “Pottery From Somewhere Else Entirely” by Michael Arpino on May 3rd from 6-8 pm.

Arpino's unique pieces are each a statement of individuality!
https://www.instagram.com/arpinoceramics/

Rala: Regional and Local Artisans, 112 W. Jackson Ave, Knoxville, TN 37902. Hours: Mon-Thu & Sat 11-6, Fri 11-8, Sun 11-5. Information: 865-525-7888, https://shoprala.com or www.instagram.com/ShopRala

First Friday Reception: May 3rd, 5:30 - 9 pm

Vincent Drake was born in 1976 in Udon Thani, Thailand to a Thai mother and American father and spent his formative years in a working class neighborhood in southeast Los Angeles. He attended the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and the San Francisco Art Institute where he studied Fine Art Painting. Drake's art can be seen as an exploration of society's struggle with the individual and our human nature. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Canada. He currently finds himself home in Knoxville, Tennessee. Drake is inspired by the absurdity of modern American society; the irrational ideals we're convinced to accept, the relentless marketing and propaganda, the tribalism, disgust, perverted romanticism and violence that has become characteristic of us. In his art, Drake is unconcerned with beauty or idealization. He is interested in investigating our culture's influence on our identities and the confusion, panic, and suffering that results. His subjects are people; sometimes we as individuals, sometimes us as a group. They are part mechanical construction, part hallucination; both comical and uncomfortable; suffering, confused, and trapped by their emptiness and proselytized ambitions.

Artist Julie Fawn Boisseau-Craig works in glass and porcelain, but also utilizes metals and wood as necessary to create her sculptural pieces. Julie designs and creates many functional and wearable works at Wild Pony Studio, her personal studio in Rockford, Tennessee, and does hot shop glass works at the Jackson County Green Energy Park in Dillsboro, North Carolina. Boisseau-Craig has shown nationally and participated in many workshops and demonstrations. Her work directly responds to the contradictions of life. Julie received her Master of Fine Arts degree in December of 2012, after which, she taught at Western Carolina University and still teaches at Southwestern Community College in North Carolina. Julie is currently the Chapter Representative of the East Chapter of Tennessee Craft as well as a board member. Julie is also the President on the board of the Art Market Gallery in Knoxville, in addition to being an exhibiting artist at the gallery. Julie also concentrates on her studio work, art shows across the country, and teaching workshops.

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

Friday, May 3, from 6-8 Awaken Coffee will host an opening reception for artist Amber Purdy.

Amber Purdy makes mixed media collages that blend vintage imagery, nature themes, and up-cycled materials into arresting new compositions. She usually begins with old books, papers, or photographs that she has spent years collecting. She enjoys the challenge of combining images both old and new in an unexpected way. Her pieces often reference nature, dreams, memories, and the ever-present link between the past and the present.

Please join us for some amazing art, light refreshments, and of course great coffee!

Awaken Coffee, 125 W Jackson Ave, Knoxville, TN 37902. Open daily. Information: 865-951-0427, www.instagram.com/awaken_coffee or www.facebook.com/awakencoffeeoldcity/

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present five new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville from May 3-31, 2024. A free gathering with the artists will take place on Friday, May 3, from 5:00-9:00 PM and features music by Nicholas Horner, DJ Morrison and Maggie Tharp.

M. Kobe is from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They earned an MFA in Painting from Boston University, a BFA in Painting, and a BA in Art History from Louisiana State University. Kobe is a storyteller and multi-disciplinary artist working primarily with textiles, found natural materials, and lucky objects. Drawing upon her experiences growing up in the American South, her work contends with the religious mythologies of her upbringing, superstition, notions of home, and cultural inheritance. Kobe is currently an Artist in Residence at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts and was recently a resident at Azule.

As an artist from the American South, primarily Louisiana and North Carolina, I make work that is informed by my own natural history and questions what it means to live in these regions now. Building off the myths of my religious upbringing, folk tales taught in elementary school, and my love for country music, I navigate these superstitions and examine what it means to write my own. The art objects I make, tapestries and sculptures, are embedded with found natural or "lucky" materials and imbued with personal narrative. I am learning what it means to love a place that can be hard to love, to love a landscape that loves me back. I make my work with gratitude and admiration and as a critical yet redemptive response to the complicated places I call home.

www.madelainekobe.com | Instagram @madelainekobe

Dongyi Wu was born and raised in China. She is a contemporary jewelry artist and is currently an Artist in Residence at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. She received her master's degree in Metal and Jewelry Design from Rochester Institute of Technology; a bachelor's degree in Jewelry Art Design from Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology in China; and a dual degree in Fashion and Engineering from the same undergraduate school in China. Wu has shown nationally and internationally and recently presented her sixth solo exhibition at the Clamp Light Studios & Gallery in San Antonio, Texas. Her works have been featured in many publications, such as Chinese Contemporary Jewelry Design and New Brooches: 400+ Contemporary Jewellery Designs. Her work is permanently collected by Le Arti Orafe Jewellery School & Academy, in Florence.

My works span across contemporary jewelry, body jewelry, fashion art, sculpture, and conceptual installation, and contemporary jewelry is the primary medium of my current artistic research. I treat jewelry as a tool to explore the relationship between human bodies and their surrounding spaces as well as a visual language that is delivered to others without real words. I liken myself to a storyteller who narrates stories that seem to be trivial and common but express strong and genuine emotions. I categorize materials according to their colors/shapes/texture and spend time exploring the connections between the selected materials and my personal experiences/preferences. In this case, all the materials that appear in my work speak of my personality and feelings.

www.dongyiwu.com | Instagram @dongyi.w

The exhibitions will be on display at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. The Emporium is open to the public Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM; Saturday (May 4 & 11), 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM; and 5:00-7:00 PM on Fri May 10 for a Gallery 1010 opening. Most of the works on exhibition will be for sale and may be purchased by visiting in person or the online shop at www.knoxalliance.store. For more information, please see www.knoxalliance.com or call (865) 523-7543.

Dogwood Arts is proud to announce the 2024 Epiphone Guitar Design Contest. The contest is open to all high school and middle school students living in East Tennessee. Several guitar designs created by youth artists will be selected for implementation and exhibition. The art guitars will be displayed at the Dogwood Arts Gallery in Knoxville, TN. The guitars will be auctioned to benefit Dogwood Arts’ youth art programs.

Online auction will be live from May 3-31, 2024

Guitars will be displayed in the Dogwood Arts Gallery (Knoxville) May 3-31, 2024

An exhibition reception and awards ceremony will take place on Friday, May 3rd at the Dogwood Arts Gallery from 5-8 PM (Awards at 6 PM)

Select guitars will also be on display at the Southern Skies Music Festival (May 11, 2024)

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

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present five new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville from May 3-31, 2024. A free gathering with the artists will take place on Friday, May 3, from 5:00-9:00 PM and features music by Nicholas Horner, DJ Morrison and Maggie Tharp.

CT Kellar was born the son of a Southern Baptist minister and counts as his heritage the red dirt and green pines of the Sierra foothills. Wanderlust has led him to live on a boat in Monterey Bay, a repurposed orphanage in Northern California, a restored Victorian in Juneau, Alaska, and now in his current art-filled bungalow in Knoxville. Kellar has reinvented himself multiple times, on both the professional front as sportswriter, house painter, high-tech sales guy, and social worker as well as creatively as frontman for an indie rock band, poet, playwright, and currently: collage artist.

Servitude to the muse is nothing new for me, but working as a visual artist was not something I had done until 2022. Two things happened that lit my creative fuse: I watched a documentary about collage artist Lance Letscher, and I moved to Juneau, Alaska. The lack of sunshine there due to the weather and the shortness of days became a bit debilitating. The idea of assembling elements of color without being constrained by form or direction was an immediate mood lifter. Snow, rain and darkness become much more bearable when caught up in the work of creating pieces leaning heavily on primary colors. While I now live in Knoxville, my immersion in this medium has continued. The satisfaction I gain from making art owes much to randomness, spontaneity and surprise.

Instagram @juneau.blade.runner

The exhibitions will be on display at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. The Emporium is open to the public Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM; Saturday (May 4 & 11), 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM; and 5:00-7:00 PM on Fri May 10 for a Gallery 1010 opening. Most of the works on exhibition will be for sale and may be purchased by visiting in person or the online shop at www.knoxalliance.store. For more information, please see www.knoxalliance.com or call (865) 523-7543.

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present five new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville from May 3-31, 2024. A free gathering with the artists will take place on Friday, May 3, from 5:00-9:00 PM and features music by Nicholas Horner, DJ Morrison and Maggie Tharp.

Rulla Habiby is a multi-media artist, painting in abstract and figurative styles, working with concrete and various clays, and using experience with Graphic Design in her works. Her paintings are characterized by bold and dramatic colors, combined into a fluid harmony. She was born and raised in the city of Haifa, Israel, and moved with her family to Knoxville over twenty years ago.

Early in life, Habiby showed a passion and talent for painting and strives to paint her life onto the canvas. Her unique background brings together the East and the West into a dazzling blend of her colors, feelings, and soul.

www.rullahabiby.com | Instagram @art_by_rulla | Facebook: Art by Rulla

The exhibitions will be on display at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. The Emporium is open to the public Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM; Saturday (May 4 & 11), 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM; and 5:00-7:00 PM on Fri May 10 for a Gallery 1010 opening. Most of the works on exhibition will be for sale and may be purchased by visiting in person or the online shop at www.knoxalliance.store. For more information, please see www.knoxalliance.com or call (865) 523-7543.

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present five new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville from May 3-31, 2024. A free gathering with the artists will take place on Friday, May 3, from 5:00-9:00 PM and features music by Nicholas Horner, DJ Morrison and Maggie Tharp.

Virginia Derryberry: Private Domain
The large scale figure narrative paintings in this most recent series of paintings blend elements from mythology and alchemy, the forerunner of modern science. Among the Greek and Roman myths that inspire me are The Seven Virtues, Naiads, and Mercury As Messenger. In all my “re-enactments”, I place the characters in contemporary clothing and scenarios. The intent is to suggest multiple interpretations rather than create straightforward illustration of a specific narrative, a fitting choice in that alchemy and mythology by nature are about the process of transformation. Passages of volumetric rendering set next to more abstract, painterly areas, result in the creation of a virtual, shifting world where nothing is quite what it seems. Over the past few years, these paintings have become more complex and have begun to incorporate multiple canvases as well as fabric, embroidery and found objects as a way to expand the idea of traditional narrative. Suggesting Renaissance altarpiece panels or graphic novels, these images imply a conversation between fact and illusion and pull the viewer in to ask questions about what is being revealed and what is being concealed.

Virginia Derryberry’s work is shown regularly in solo and group exhibitions throughout the U.S. and has been written about in an extensive list of publications including exhibition catalogs, New American Paintings magazine, and Oxford American magazine. Solo exhibitions have traveled during the past five years to venues in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. Three of these solo exhibitions have been held in museums: Museum of Contemporary Art in Jacksonville, FL; Piedmont Museum in Martinsville, VA; and Marietta Cobb Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA. Among her awards: North Carolina Artist Support Grant; Outstanding Artistic Achievement Award from the Southeastern College Art Association; Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome (2010 and 2016); Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award from UNC-Asheville; Annual Artist Fellowship from the Southeastern College Art Association. In 2023, she was named a finalist for the annual grand prize at Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, OH. Her drawings and paintings are in numerous private and public collections, including the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, Asheville Art Museum, Tennessee State Museum, State of West Virginia permanent collection, and Morris Museum of Art. Two public art installations include sixteen paintings at the Hartsfield-Atlanta International Airport and a ten-piece multi-panel painting at the Knoxville Convention Center.

www.virginiaderryberry.com

Lisa Kurtz: Earth and Fire
As a clay artist and a maker of pottery, I strive for the human connection between my work and the user of my pieces: if I make a handle that beckons you to pick it up and fits so comfortably in your hands you want to use it every morning – or a bowl that you want to serve food in at every family celebration – then I feel successful. I often use scraps of old fabric salvaged from my mother and grandmother’s houses to impress textures into my clay work, connecting to the many generations of my family. Textures and colors in water, sand, shells, rocks, sea birds and marine creatures also inform my work in clay and my glazes. I mix all my own glazes and enjoy tweaking them to emphasize the textures and designs that I put on my pieces. I throw and hand build and often combine the two methods to create my pottery. I welcome happy accidents that occur while working in the medium and in the firing processes, which has led me to explore different types of firing such as soda firing, wood firing, pit firing and electric firing. The pieces in this exhibition were chosen for the atmospheric effects obtained in the kiln that show through on the clay and/or glazes.

Lisa Kurtz has lived in Knoxville for nearly 30 years. She received a master’s degree in Ceramics from the University of Louisville and there began her pottery business, Highland Pottery, in the eclectic Highlands neighborhood. She has taught at community colleges in Tennessee and at art centers in both Kentucky and Tennessee. Currently she teaches functional ceramics classes at the Oak Ridge Art Center and recently taught a community clay class at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. She has been an active member of several professional juried guilds, artist associations and boards, including the Kentucky Crafts Guild, Foothills Craft Guild, Kentucky Department of the Arts Marketing Program, Arts & Culture Alliance, New Prospect Craft Center, Tennessee Craft, Knoxville Museum of Art, Art Market Gallery and Terra Madre: Women in Clay. Her clay work has exhibited and sold in galleries and shops across the U.S. and in national and regional juried fine art shows and craft fairs.

https://lisakurtzhighlandpottery.weebly.com | Instagram @lisakurtzhighlandpottery

The exhibitions will be on display at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. The Emporium is open to the public Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM; Saturday (May 4 & 11), 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM; and 5:00-7:00 PM on Fri May 10 for a Gallery 1010 opening. Most of the works on exhibition will be for sale and may be purchased by visiting in person or the online shop at www.knoxalliance.store. For more information, please see www.knoxalliance.com or call (865) 523-7543.

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present five new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville from May 3-31, 2024. A free gathering with the artists will take place on Friday, May 3, from 5:00-9:00 PM and features music by Nicholas Horner, DJ Morrison and Maggie Tharp.

Tennessee Watercolor Society (TnWS), a statewide artists’ organization, will showcase 50 original watercolor paintings selected by distinguished juror, Don Andrews. While the paintings include a wide variety of styles and subject matter, all are completed using a watermedia on paper, which is the founding requirement of all entries into the prestigious Biennial Exhibition.

TnWS has more than 250 members throughout Tennessee encompassing five regions centered around the principal cities of Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, Knoxville, and the Tri-Cities. The biennial exhibition locations are rotated around the state. At the close of the 2024 exhibition in Knoxville, 30 paintings will be selected by the juror to travel to other art venues around the state for the remainder of the year. The traveling exhibit has been funded by a grant from the Lyndhurst Foundation since 2014.

Juror Don Andrews of Austin, Texas is an accomplished watercolor artist and book author who has garnered numerous national and international awards and published several books on watercolor methods. Highly coveted prizes will be awarded during the annual TnWS Membership Meeting on May 18, including a $2,000 cash award for Best of Show.

www.tnws.org

The exhibitions will be on display at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. The Emporium is open to the public Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM; Saturday (May 4 & 11), 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM; and 5:00-7:00 PM on Fri May 10 for a Gallery 1010 opening. Most of the works on exhibition will be for sale and may be purchased by visiting in person or the online shop at www.knoxalliance.store. For more information, please see www.knoxalliance.com or call (865) 523-7543.

Reception on MAY 3, 5-9 PM

It is an attempt to compile abstract experiences and concepts in an encyclopedic approach to symbology. These prints emerge from a desire to pay attention and to emphasize observation of the world around us with the hope of establishing a connection with the spiritual form of the self.

https://holahoralatina.org/current-exhibit/
Info: 865.335.3358 or enrique.cruz@holafestival.org
HoLa Hora Latina’s Casa HoLa Art Gallery and Artisan Gift Shop
Bottom floor of the Emporium for the Arts (corner of Gay and Jackson streets in downtown Knoxville)
100 South Gay Street, Suite 112, Knoxville, TN 37902

WHISK(EY), BROOM, FEATHERS, a duo exhibition of Lisa Mullikin and Deb Shmerler’s paintings and collages
Opening First Friday, May 3, 5-9pm

While their interests are individualistic—Lisa, in how memory and anticipation influence present perception, and Deb, in how to balance the multiple forces of identity—there is common ground in their aesthetic sensitivity to space and color. Sizes of their finished pieces may vary greatly, but an attention to detail remains regardless of scale. The exhibition's name also hints at other common threads in an artistic process as well as sharing the love of a certain favorite malt-colored libation. Stop by during the opening and celebrate a toast to Spring!
lisa@mullikinstevens.com / dshmerle@utk.edu

RED Gallery, at 130 E Jackson Ave, Knoxville, TN, features primarily local and regional artists. The gallery is located in the historic Jackson Atelier building in Knoxville’s Old City. Gallery owner Robin Easter is proud to provide a unique space for Knoxville to experience and enjoy a broad range of visual arts. To learn more about RED Gallery, email robin@robineaster.com.