Calendar of Events

BrickUniverse 2025 Imagine Tour: A LEGO® Lover’s Dream
January 18–19, 2025, World’s Fair Exhibition Hall, 935 World's Fair Park Drive, Knoxville. Starts 10:00 AM, Saturday, January 18, 2025.

Get ready to unleash your inner LEGO® enthusiast as the BrickUniverse 2025 Imagine Tour arrives in Knoxville, Tennessee! This highly anticipated event brings together LEGO® fans of all ages to celebrate the creativity, artistry, and endless possibilities of LEGO® bricks.

Marvel at LEGO® Masterpieces:
Explore jaw-dropping exhibits featuring stunning works of art built entirely from LEGO® bricks by celebrated artists from across the country.

Tickets and more information at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/knoxville-tn-brickuniverse-lego-fan-expo-2025-tickets

Wed Jan 15, 12 PM: Interfaith Prayer Service
Thu Jan 16, 8:30 AM: Leadership Educational Symposium & Leadership Awards Luncheon
Fri Jan 17: Community Forum
Sat Jan 18: MLK Youth Symposium
Sun Jan 19: Night with the Arts Tribute
Mon Jan 20: MLK Jr. Memorial Tribute Service
https://mlkknox.org/

By Brian Friel
Directed by Barry Wallace

This extraordinary play is the story of five unmarried sisters eking out their lives in a small village in Ireland in 1936. We meet them at the time of the festival of Lughnasa, which celebrates the pagan god of the harvest with drunken revelry and dancing. Their spare existence is interrupted by brief, colorful bursts of music from the radio, their only link to the romance and hope of the world at large. The action of the play is told through the memory of the illegitimate son of one of the sisters as he remembers the five women who raised him: his mother and four maiden aunts. He is only seven in 1936, the year his elderly uncle, a priest, returns after serving for twenty-five years as a missionary in a Ugandan leper colony. For the young boy, two other disturbances occur that summer. The sisters acquire their first radio, whose music transforms them from correct Catholic women to shrieking, stomping banshees in their own kitchen. And he meets his father for the first time, a charming Welsh drifter who strolls up the lane and sweeps his mother away in an elegant dance across the fields. From these small events spring the cracks that destroy the foundation of the family forever. Widely regarded as Brian Friel’s masterpiece, this haunting play is Friel’s tribute to the spirit and valor of the past.

Performances are Thu-Sat 7:30 PM and Sun 3 PM

Theatre Knoxville Downtown, 800 S. Central Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information & tickets: 865-544-1999, www.theatreknoxville.com

Details TBA
https://www.ferrellwhitecreative.com/

Bijou Theatre, 803 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-522-0832, https://knoxbijou.org/

MY MEMORY IS A MACHINE - AMBROSE RHAPSODY MURRAY
FIRST FRIDAYS | JANUARY 3, FEBRUARY 7, 5-9PM
Come meet the artist as part of the February 7th First Friday Art Walk.

Ambrose Rhapsody Murray (she/they) is a self-taught artist with roots in Florida and Asheville, NC. Through sewing, painting, material experimentation, film, and collaborative projects, they create stories to investigate our relationships to the colonial undercurrents of our lives, the charged symbology of black feminine bodies, and the ephemeral and layered qualities of memory and remembering. Ambrose received their Bachelor’s from Yale University, and was recently selected as Forbes 30 under 30 in the 2024 Art section. Their work lives in the permanent collection of The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Montclair Art Museum, and has exhibited across the US and abroad.

This exhibition and programming is co-sponsored by The Pride Center and generously supported by UT’s Office of Multicultural Student Life; Women, Gender, and Sexuality; The Department of Geography and Sustainability, and Africana Studies.

UT Downtown Gallery, 106 S. Gay St, Knoxville, TN 37902. Hours: W-F 11-6, Sa 10-3. Information: 865-673-0802, https://downtown.utk.edu

New members of 2024 will be featured during the month of January! A First Friday opening reception for the “New Members” exhibit is planned from 5:30-9pm, January 3rd, with complimentary refreshments and music.

New members:
Kimberly Collins - photography
Bonnie Colonna - fiber
Katharine Emlen - photography
Robin Ford - fiber
Paul Morris - wood
Katherine Schmoeller - fiber
Amber Purdy - drawing (2nd medium)
Claire Bodnaruk - glass
Christine Westbrook - painting
Deborah Etheredge - painting
Steven Varga - metal
Julie Boisseau-Craig - clay (3rd medium)
Alessandra Sutter Page - painting

The Art Market Gallery is a juried cooperative of over 50 East Tennessee artists dedicated to providing a vibrant marketplace for original art and fine crafts.

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

A Penny in Your Pocket: National Juried Exhibition, Part I
Opening reception: January 3, 5:00-9:00pm

Carrying a penny in your pocket into the new year is alleged to bring good fortune and prosperity. Kicking off the 2025 Arrowmont Gallery exhibition calendar, this exhibition explores interpretations of superstition. Held in two parts, Part I will be in January, opening to the public on First Friday, January 3rd, and Part II will be on view in February beginning First Friday, February 7th.

Juried by Rachel K. Garceau, Part I features work by the following artists: Celena Amburgey, Priscilla Bañuelos, Brittani Brown, Cindy Cheng, Jessika Edgar, Casey Engel, Noah Kiehne, M. Kobe, Lisa Kurtz, Ashlee Mays, Alena Mehic, Sung Eun Park, Kaleena Stasiak, Stacy Tabb, Scott Thorp, Sara Torgison, Hanna Washburn, Josh Winkler, Juanita Wyatt, Ashleigh York and Valerie Zimany.

For more information on this exhibition and others, please visit our site at: https://arrowmont.org/galleries/
110 S Gay St. Knoxville, Tennessee 37902
www.arrowmont.org

FLOWERS OF WAR: STORIES THAT BLOOM IN RUINS

This exhibit is meant to illuminate the reaction of the Ukrainian community and East Tennessee to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Each piece was created by those who have faced conflict: Ukrainian children, parents, refugees, international volunteers, soldiers, and local artists who felt the call to contribute. Everyone wanted to show the works that came out of tragedy and war. These works became flowers.

“You will find an authentic and unfiltered look at the harsh realities of today’s conflict. Join us to see through the eyes of those on the frontlines in Ukraine and those in the US who understand the footprint of this war.” Yaro Hnatusko
Executive Director, Restore Ukraine & Curator of “Flowers of war”

RECEPTION, December 22, 2-4 PM

The museum is located in downtown Knoxville at 1050 World’s Fair Park Drive and is open to the public Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Sunday, 1-5 p.m. Admission and parking are free. For more information, visit www.knoxart.org

Reception Dec 13, 6-7:30 PM with artist's talks at 6:30 PM
Art Exhibit at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church
Free and open to the public

Yvonne Dalschen
After living for over 20 years in the “Secret City” of the Manhattan Project, I never learned how to stop worrying and love the bomb. I am surrounded by fences and signs, atomic nostalgia, selective amnesia and heritage tourism, and I sometimes seem to be the only one bothered by this. “Ghosts of the Manhattan Project” started during the clean-up of K-25. This uranium enrichment plant in Oak Ridge was the largest building in the world when built in 1944. My work is an ongoing exploration of the landscapes and archives of the atomic age, layering histories with observations into photographic palimpsests. I picture the invisible and the unthinkable, collecting the choices and promises made, the stories told, the stories forgotten and the fears that haunt us at night.

Yvonne Dalschen is a German photographer living in Oak Ridge, TN. She is interested in history of place, cultural landscapes and digital experimentation. She earned an MA in Comparative Literature from the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and a Photography Certificate from the University of Tennessee. Her images haven been exhibited nationally and internationally from Oak Ridge to Sydney, Australia, recently at the Knoxville Museum of Art, The Bascom Center and UGA’s Circle Gallery.

Debby Hall
“The Joy of Color” features paintings reflecting the artistry in nature through color and the spontaneity of alcohol inks and watercolors. Whether painting abstracts or more realistic mountains, flowers, landscapes or birds, Hall hopes her paintings bring people joy and a greater connection to the beauty around us.

Debby Hall is a self-taught artist whose paintings were juried into the Oak Ridge Art Center’s Open Show (September 2023) and the “Arts in the Airport” Spring 2024 show, where she received the Award of Merit. She exhibits often through Knoxville’s Arts & Culture Alliance and the St. Lucie Culture Alliance. She donates net proceeds from art sales to a non-profit charity, Saving Grace in Uganda, that rescues young homeless street children and gives them medical care, food, education, housing and hope in a country with virtually no social services. For more information visit her website, https://artforsavinggrace.com

Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, 2931 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919. Gallery hours: M-Th 9:30-4:30, Su 9-1. Information: 865-523-4176, www.tvuuc.org

Fountain City Art Center Open Show with artists sharing their vision of “holiday dreams”, be it a vacation or an idea of a simple celebration. Show opens Nov 22, 6:3-8 PM and will be on display through Jan 24, 2025. www.fountaincityartcenter.com

Fountain City Art Center, 213 Hotel Ave, Knoxville, TN 37918. Information: 865-357-2787, www.fountaincityartcenter.com

A group show, Greetings From Vestal IV, featuring recent works by resident studio artists Rachel Sevier Dallery, Casey Field, Risa Hricovsky, and Ashley Pace opens Tuesday, October 29, 2024 and will run through Wednesday, January 29, 2025. Curator: Brian R. Jobe. An opening reception will be held on Friday, November 1, 2024 from 5:00 until 8:00 pm (artists in attendance). The address is 4450 Candora Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37920 and admission is always free of charge.
https://tristararts.org/the-gallery/f/greetings-from-vestal-iv

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

Tri-Star Arts is pleased to present the next exhibition in their Golden Chain Gallery project space located at the historic Candoro Marble Building. Stairfall by Adam Rowe (Knoxville, TN) opens Tuesday, October 29, 2024 and will run through Wednesday, January 29, 2025. This show is located within the unique architectural space of a narrow wooden stairwell. An opening reception will be held on Friday, November 1, 2024 from 5:00 until 8:00 pm (artist in attendance). The address is 4450 Candora Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37920 and admission is always free of charge.

https://tristararts.org/the-gallery/f/stairfall

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