As Americans will come together for Thanksgiving around an extended family table, a very grateful Executive Director Steven Matijcio welcomes his East Tennessee neighbors to gather at a sensory banquet hall at the Knoxville Museum of Art. It’s a standing invitation to sample and savor, converse and celebrate, as they get to know themselves, their community, and their world better through the powerful expression of visual arts.
Setting the table, creating the ambience, facilitating the conversation … whether organizing a successful Thanksgiving dinner or the next showstopper exhibition, there’s definitely a fine art to it. And Steven Matijcio is just the host to pull it off beautifully.
The Art of Love in the Time of Covid
Art and love brought Steven and his family to Knoxville. Steven met his wife Anita in Houston in 2020 as he helped her search a grocery aisle for her favorite dark chocolate sea-salt caramels. But in the Covid era of shelf shortages – no luck. “I like to say we couldn’t find chocolate, but we found each other that day,” Steven laughs. “We met at a time when everything about life was heightened but everything event-wise was shuttered, so we had more time to incubate this burgeoning new relationship.”
Among many shared interests, they discovered professional passions in urban revisioning. Anita was an urban planner for the Houston-Galveston Area Council, and had been instrumental in introducing bike paths to the city of Houston. Steven, as Director and Chief Curator of the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston, had organized an exhibition called Buildering: Misbehaving the City where artists re-imagined the urban experience.
“Instead of looking at cities as rote machines for moving people from one place to the next, we wanted to find artistry and inspiration traveling through these settings. I’m interested in the way we can rethink movement and navigation to improve the human experience. Anita is interested in the way art, architecture and design can be married to make the urban experience more livable and uplifting. I loved those shared places of appreciation that spanned both our experiences and aspirations of how a city can be lived.”
The Art of New Parenthood
But a lovelier, shared appreciation in their lives came in 2023, leading to a decision to leave Texas for Tennessee. “We enjoyed great careers in Houston, but it was an intense environment. The birth of our daughter Maija Rose shifted our focus to finding and carving out time and space for her.” They started envisioning a place with natural beauty, a warm community, and an artistic pulse, where they could devote time to Maija in her first years.
Knoxville checked all the boxes. “We love the texture of life here and the vitality that comes with a university circulating through the core of the city. We have a view of the mountains from our home on the Dogwood Trail, but are still close to our favorite parts of Downtown. We take our out-of-town guests to Market Square, and then 45 minutes outside of town, we’re in the Smokies.”
Steven and Anita are both thankful for the KMA patrons (especially Ann and Steve Bailey) that brought them to Knoxville, where they could build a fruitful foundation for Maija’s life. Steven adds, “I’m especially grateful for Anita taking this leap of faith with me.”
When Steven speaks about fatherhood, he uses the imagery of art. “When Anita was pregnant, we asked other parents how our lives would change. One artist told me the width of the way you feel love will expand vastly–where the things you thought you knew the ends of, you will feel in a broader landscape. Maija fills places in my heart I didn’t realize held more space. Even a walk in the backyard, discovering the world with her, has forever endeared me to fatherhood.”
The Art of Joyful Experiences
When Steven speaks about sharing art with the museum’s many audiences, he uses the imagery of a novelist. “I’ve been a curator most of my career and writing about art is one the most difficult, yet rewarding things I’ve done. As such, I want to feel and speak about the work with language that is lyrical, passionate, and reflects the work stylistically.”
Giving tours is one of Steven’s favorite parts of his practice. “I can spend months interpreting what a work could mean. It’s a joy to share what has enriched my experience with others, which in turn, starts another conversation. When those lightbulbs go off with their own responses and readings, that is art’s greatest success.”
Steven, who has a formidable track record of engagement with contemporary art and artists at the global level–Poland, South Korea, Germany and across Canada–has also found listening to his new community and learning about his new hometown’s heritage is a joy.
The Art of Celebrating Local
“I had the pleasure of taking a downtown tour with historian Jack Neely to help me understand Knoxville’s robust history, and its pride of place,” Steven explains. “What I knew of the KMA before coming here was that as curator, Stephen Wicks had such respect for the history and development of art in East Tennessee, as exemplified with the Higher Ground exhibition. To further articulate who we are on an expanded stage, Stephen placed local work into dialogue with art being made nationally and internationally. By way of contrast and comparison, it crystallizes what makes Knoxville and East Tennessee so unique, and evokes a far greater appreciation.”
[In 2023, Higher Ground, A Century of the Visual Arts in East Tennessee, the KMA’s flagship permanent exhibition was installed in newly renovated entrance level galleries. The exhibit, accompanied by a 300-page catalogue edited by Stephen Wicks and Jack Neely, traces the evolution of artistic activity in Knoxville and its Appalachian environs from roughly the 1860s to the 1980s.]
Approaching his first anniversary at the museum, Steven reports seventy thousand KMA visitors annually. He admits the next goal of 100,000 annual guests will stretch them, but new strategic plans will build more audiences through partnerships like KMA has with the Big Ears Festival and the University of Tennessee. “We excel at mixing fine art with music, dance, and theater to attract those audiences in the cultural arena. And, there are so many new people moving to Knoxville to bring into the fold.”
In praise of the museum’s solid financial footing that allows such ambitious goals, Steven is grateful to the diligent work of former executive director David Butler, the board, the staff, and the many volunteers, members and donors at every level who invest in KMA. “Their support builds the social capital that gives people reasons to come back again and again.”
The Art of Generativity
Steven bears all the signs of someone whole-heartedly committed to the well-being of the next generation of art appreciators. “I’m excited about hosting the annual East Tennessee Regional Student Art Exhibition that brings in a plethora of students, families and supporting communities to celebrate the creativity of young people. There’s a purity in nurturing their youthful artistic spirit while countering the tired bias that you can’t make a living in the arts. Creative industries can circulate in such broad, often unexpected fields. Investing in cultural amenities has tremendous benefit for a community’s health. With our full menu of educational programming, from Family Fun Days to the Summer Art Academy to student exhibitions, the KMA enthusiastically encourages young people to find a place in art.”
Steven readily acknowledges that newcomers can feel unequipped to appreciate art. “But all you need is a curious spirit. Love it or hate it, I want you to feel something when you’re in this space. Indifference is the ultimate enemy of art.” Admission is free, so it’s a risk-free proposition. “Stay five minutes or five hours. When something moves you, you’ll want to tell other people. There’s a fundamental generosity to word of mouth.”
Steven and his talented staff, supported by a dedicated volunteer organization, set a generous table at KMA, serving up a deliciously diverse fare of exhibitions and artful events. With an open invitation to everyone.
“We’re grateful we can make access free and open here,” Steven sums up, “so that art can do what it does best–serve as catalyst for gathering, imagining, and inspiring a more creative community.” Learn more at Knoxart.org
Pull Quote Page 4 - Maija fills places in my heart I didn’t realize held more space. Even a walk in the backyard, discovering the world with her, has forever endeared me to fatherhood.
Pull quote Page 6 - I’m excited about hosting the East Tennessee Regional Student Art Exhibition this November to celebrate the creativity of young people.