On a recent humid evening, against a backdrop of towering kudzu monsters, a crowd gathered on Sam Houston Street. The occasion: the unveiling of The Revelator, the first commissioned sculpture through SoKno Sculpt, a new community initiative bringing original artwork to South Knoxville.
Held in partnership with Keep Knoxville Beautiful and Old Sevier Community Group, the June 5 event took place outside the home where the sculpture now lives. Neighbors came out to mark the moment, enjoy swing jazz from Consultants of Swing, and hear from the team behind the project.
What began less than a year ago as a “random thought at a bonfire,” as director Christian Lange put it, is now a full-fledged public art effort. SoKno Sculpt connects Knoxville-based sculptors with homeowners and businesses ready to invest in original artwork. Matching grants of up to $1,000 are available for eligible South Knoxville properties.
“We were talking about how South Knoxville is an interesting mixture of grit and creativity, natural beauty and artistic talent,” Christian said during the unveiling. “And we wondered, what if we could bring all this together in public art? What if we could take our streets and spaces and turn them into an open-air gallery?”
“The idea is no longer smoke and conversation,” he continued. “It’s here, it’s metal, wood and earth. And SoKno Sculpt is an active organization with a very clear mission.”
Christian commissioned the inaugural sculpture for his own yard. “I went first,” he said, “because I wanted to give this initiative a visible beginning. A first heartbeat if you will. A physical expression of what’s possible.”
The piece, titled The Revelator, was created by Knoxville-based metalworker Wilson Browning—though Wilson is quick to credit it as a community effort, noting that friends, fellow artists and even his mother pitched in to fabricate and assemble it. He said Christian gave him three simple parameters: it needed to be an armillary, it needed to be mounted to the stump of a recently felled tree in the front yard, and it needed to look modern and clean.
Wilson worked on the sculpture off and on for several months. “At first I had a basic concept that the piece would signify the beginning of a cultural movement in the neighborhood I have known, lived in, and called home at so many different stages of my life,” he wrote on social media. “I knew I wanted to showcase the industrial, gritty nature of the neighborhood itself. I also wanted there to be a theme throughout the piece that signified the merging of new and old ideas colliding to make something entirely unique.”
He originally planned for the rings to be simple, letting “the other classic elements of an armillary do the real talking.” But, he wrote, “I had an epiphany while I was making the first prototype orbits and completely changed direction. The piece was about the orbits representing all of the colliding forces of different individuals or groups of individuals descending upon and connecting their ideas through this abandoned footprint of a factory district.”
“Now it stands as a monument to the nucleus of where SoKno Sculpt was founded,” he continued, “hopefully radiating out into the rest of the community, as more commissions are completed and installed further and further away from this epicenter throughout the community.”
At the unveiling, Wilson also addressed a larger conversation happening in Knoxville about the role of local artists in public art projects. “Recently, there’s a lot of sentiment around town that we might not use local artists for commission pieces downtown as often as people think maybe we should,” he said. “So we just decided—well, why don’t we start a nonprofit where we put the power of commissioning in the hands of the homeowners of the neighborhood?”
The project has already assembled a roster of a dozen Knoxville sculptors whose work is featured on the SoKno Sculpt website. Residents can browse the artists’ work, apply for a matching grant, or connect directly to commission a sculpture. Artists keep 100% of their earnings, and all sculptures must be visible from the street.
The next round of matching grant applications is open through July 28. South Knoxville homeowners and business owners can submit a concept sketch, site photo and basic proposal through the SoKno Sculpt website at soknosculpt.com.
