Community Calendar

The week-long Symposium is comprised of workshops and lectures by leading Holocaust experts from around the world. The symposium was established 23 years ago to help teachers improve their skills for teaching the Holocaust in middle and high school grades. Now that Tennessee and North Carolina mandate the teaching of the Holocaust, learning best practices is critical. Workshops are closed to all but the attending teachers. All lectures are open to the public, free, and available on Zoom. See the press release for further information: https://holocaust.appstate.edu/news/app-states-center-judaic-holocaust-and-peace-studies-holds-23rd-annual-rosen-symposium-july-10. And this links you to a brief schedule for the week: https://holocaust.appstate.edu/symposiums/2025-symposium

The week-long Symposium is comprised of workshops and lectures by leading Holocaust experts from around the world. The symposium was established 23 years ago to help teachers improve their skills for teaching the Holocaust in middle and high school grades. Now that Tennessee and North Carolina mandate the teaching of the Holocaust, learning best practices is critical. Workshops are closed to all but the attending teachers. All lectures are open to the public, free, and available on Zoom. See the press release for further information: https://holocaust.appstate.edu/news/app-states-center-judaic-holocaust-and-peace-studies-holds-23rd-annual-rosen-symposium-july-10. And this links you to a brief schedule for the week: https://holocaust.appstate.edu/symposiums/2025-symposium

Bound & Threaded Stories is an exhibition produced by young artists that participated in the Reece Museum's annual Teen Renaissance Camp. This year nine campers, aged 12 to 16, worked with artist LaKesha Lee and Museum staff to create a fiber inspired exhibition. The camp was in session June 2 to 6, and the exhibition will be on display through September 12.

Campers created personal quilts and a group installation that blends personal narratives in one of the Museum's galleries. Collaborating with artist LaKesha Lee, a Knoxville based artist, campers worked together to creatively reuse fibers, found, and personal materials to produce an installation that showcases storytelling through wall quilts, softs sculpture and fiber installation.

The Reece Museum is a unit of the Center of Excellence for Appalachian Studies and Services, which is housed in the ETSU Department of Appalachian Studies. The Reece Museum is located on the campus of East Tennessee State University and is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Follow the Reece Museum on social media for more content and digital programming.

LaKesha Lee's work is an ongoing material dialogue between past, present, and future that honors self-representation, family legacy, and the resilience of Black identity. Through assemblage collages, sculptural forms, and ceramics, Lee uses found objects-old photographs, textiles, ceramics, and everyday artifacts-as a material language to explore memory, history, and cultural traditions.

Family is at the heart of Lee's practice. Drawing from matrilineal storytelling and African American craft traditions, she integrates photo repetition, material layering, and quilting techniques to recontextualize personal and collective histories. Repeating imagery creates new narratives, expanding the way the artist engages with every day, found resources.

"I work with materials that carry personal and communal significance, layering found objects, fabrics, and ceramics to build intimate and expansive material composition. These materials act as vessels of memory, balancing preservation and healing. Through cutting, stitching, firing, and assembling, my process becomes one of repair and reclamation-an homage to love, resilience, and continuity within the African American experience." says Lee.

LaKesha Lee is a multidisciplinary artist based in Knoxville, TN. Through her work, Lee provides self-empowerment by engaging with materials that foster storytelling and community connections. She uses techniques such as quilting, hand-building, and collage, combining found and self-made materials to craft visual narratives that bridge her family's past, present, and future.

The week-long Symposium is comprised of workshops and lectures by leading Holocaust experts from around the world. The symposium was established 23 years ago to help teachers improve their skills for teaching the Holocaust in middle and high school grades. Now that Tennessee and North Carolina mandate the teaching of the Holocaust, learning best practices is critical. Workshops are closed to all but the attending teachers. All lectures are open to the public, free, and available on Zoom. See the press release for further information: https://holocaust.appstate.edu/news/app-states-center-judaic-holocaust-and-peace-studies-holds-23rd-annual-rosen-symposium-july-10. And this links you to a brief schedule for the week: https://holocaust.appstate.edu/symposiums/2025-symposium

Bound & Threaded Stories is an exhibition produced by young artists that participated in the Reece Museum's annual Teen Renaissance Camp. This year nine campers, aged 12 to 16, worked with artist LaKesha Lee and Museum staff to create a fiber inspired exhibition. The camp was in session June 2 to 6, and the exhibition will be on display through September 12.

Campers created personal quilts and a group installation that blends personal narratives in one of the Museum's galleries. Collaborating with artist LaKesha Lee, a Knoxville based artist, campers worked together to creatively reuse fibers, found, and personal materials to produce an installation that showcases storytelling through wall quilts, softs sculpture and fiber installation.

The Reece Museum is a unit of the Center of Excellence for Appalachian Studies and Services, which is housed in the ETSU Department of Appalachian Studies. The Reece Museum is located on the campus of East Tennessee State University and is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Follow the Reece Museum on social media for more content and digital programming.

LaKesha Lee's work is an ongoing material dialogue between past, present, and future that honors self-representation, family legacy, and the resilience of Black identity. Through assemblage collages, sculptural forms, and ceramics, Lee uses found objects-old photographs, textiles, ceramics, and everyday artifacts-as a material language to explore memory, history, and cultural traditions.

Family is at the heart of Lee's practice. Drawing from matrilineal storytelling and African American craft traditions, she integrates photo repetition, material layering, and quilting techniques to recontextualize personal and collective histories. Repeating imagery creates new narratives, expanding the way the artist engages with every day, found resources.

"I work with materials that carry personal and communal significance, layering found objects, fabrics, and ceramics to build intimate and expansive material composition. These materials act as vessels of memory, balancing preservation and healing. Through cutting, stitching, firing, and assembling, my process becomes one of repair and reclamation-an homage to love, resilience, and continuity within the African American experience." says Lee.

LaKesha Lee is a multidisciplinary artist based in Knoxville, TN. Through her work, Lee provides self-empowerment by engaging with materials that foster storytelling and community connections. She uses techniques such as quilting, hand-building, and collage, combining found and self-made materials to craft visual narratives that bridge her family's past, present, and future.

UPCOMING Northeast Tennessee MASTER GARDENER CLASS
We all want to share our love of gardening.

The Northeast Master Gardener Association (NETMGA) membership includes volunteers from Hawkins, Sullivan, Washington, Carter, Johnson, and Unicoi Counties. Their many activities include information booths at various home and farm shows, answering Ask-a-Master Gardener questions, teaching classes in the community, and organizing new Master Gardener classes. Their presence can be seen in many local historic site gardens, demonstration gardens and community vegetable gardens.

A new Master Gardener class will begin January 28, 2025, and go through April 29, 2025. Classes will be held on Tuesdays from 10:00 am - 2:00 pm. Classes are available for the surrounding communities' participants and are held at the Sullivan County, Ron Ramsey Agricultural Center located at 140 Spurgeon Lane, Blountville, TN.

The cost for the class is $200 and applications are available online at the NETMGA website or UT website: https://www.netmga.net/ OR Call 423-574-1919 and press "0"

The week-long Symposium is comprised of workshops and lectures by leading Holocaust experts from around the world. The symposium was established 23 years ago to help teachers improve their skills for teaching the Holocaust in middle and high school grades. Now that Tennessee and North Carolina mandate the teaching of the Holocaust, learning best practices is critical. Workshops are closed to all but the attending teachers. All lectures are open to the public, free, and available on Zoom. See the press release for further information: https://holocaust.appstate.edu/news/app-states-center-judaic-holocaust-and-peace-studies-holds-23rd-annual-rosen-symposium-july-10. And this links you to a brief schedule for the week: https://holocaust.appstate.edu/symposiums/2025-symposium

Bound & Threaded Stories is an exhibition produced by young artists that participated in the Reece Museum's annual Teen Renaissance Camp. This year nine campers, aged 12 to 16, worked with artist LaKesha Lee and Museum staff to create a fiber inspired exhibition. The camp was in session June 2 to 6, and the exhibition will be on display through September 12.

Campers created personal quilts and a group installation that blends personal narratives in one of the Museum's galleries. Collaborating with artist LaKesha Lee, a Knoxville based artist, campers worked together to creatively reuse fibers, found, and personal materials to produce an installation that showcases storytelling through wall quilts, softs sculpture and fiber installation.

The Reece Museum is a unit of the Center of Excellence for Appalachian Studies and Services, which is housed in the ETSU Department of Appalachian Studies. The Reece Museum is located on the campus of East Tennessee State University and is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Follow the Reece Museum on social media for more content and digital programming.