The Big Art Show

We’ve enviously watched them for ages. Once every year or so they’ll pack up their equipment, make performance dates at venues along a trail leading from state to state, and take off on tour. They meet new people, sell their merchandise, sleep on floors and generally have a great adventure. Lousy rotten musicians have all the fun.

Until now. It’s payback time. The Big Art Show, a touring carnival of visual art and music, is coming to Knoxville.

The Big Art Show is the brainchild of New Jersey resident and artist Paul Yavarone. The show was created entirely due to indie-band tour-envy. “I think anybody can do this if they really want to, and they should be able to,” Yavarone says. “Why should bands have all the fun? I mean, there are bands involved, but at least us visual artists get to have some fun now.”  

The organization was formed five years ago when Yavarone and his friends Rachel Ade and Tom Phillips started having art and music shows in Asbury Park, an abandoned amusement park in coastal New Jersey. The shows were held monthly in an old beachfront Howard Johnson restaurant. Due to potential gentrification of the park area, they structured everything they developed to be portable. When the property finally did fall into developers’ hands, they took the show on the road to Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and Ohio. A show in Baltimore went so well that they decided to book multi-state tours. Their Knoxville show, at Ironwood Studios, will be the sixth stop on a tour with dates in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond,Va., Washington, D.C., Greenville and Raleigh, N.C., Murfreesboro, Houston, Austin and Denton, Tex., and back up to Brooklyn.

The show’s intended to be an alternative to the traditional gallery scene. Yavarone wanted to create a venue where art could be shown for its own sake and where people could just come out and have a good time. The organization exists with no commercial sponsors; it’s free for anybody who wants to exhibit his or her work. If work sells, there’s no commission. The only cost is a $5 cover.

The events are run by a core group of enthusiastic volunteers. With hard work and lots of networking through their main Web site and multiple MySpace locations, they make venue and artist contacts across the country and raise enthusiasm for their quest.

Despite their heavy cyberspace networking, the connection in Knoxville was made the old-fashioned way. Local musician Samuel Williams is friendly with members of the New York band Mossyrock, one of the groups touring with the Big Art Show. Williams’ girlfriend, Amanda Starnes, a freelancer for True Grip Lighting and Show Call Productions and the owner of Dirty Sangria productions, knew that Ironwood Studios’ large industrial space would be a perfect venue. Ironwood, owned by custom ironworker and sculptor Preston Farabow and master woodworker John McGilvray, already has regular events with art exhibits and music every First Friday. The pair were only too happy to schedule the traveling event.

Yavarone’s traveling troupe will include at least seven artists and their work, plus Mossy Rock and Texas band Toof. Local bands joining in will include Phil Pollard and the Band of Humans, The Skinwalkers, and What Have We Become. Somewhere between 75 and 100 Knoxville area artists are expected to bring in their work for the one-night exhibit. Large metal modular grids will be erected throughout the studio’s gallery and work space to accommodate the volume of work. There are plans for projecting local art videos, and Gypsy Hands will be putting on a 15-minute belly-dance production.

The Big Art Show with Mossyrock, Toof, Phil Pollard and the Band of Humans, The Skinwalkers and What Have We Become
Friday, Feb. 9
Ironwood Studios (119 Jennings Ave.) / 7 p.m. / $5 / All ages