A Few Helpful Suggestions

With faith that the Dogwood Arts Festival might be livened up with some improvements, following are a few modest proposals for transfusing some new life into an old festival:

1. Green Day. We're the largest city in the part of the world that supports the greatest diversity of plant species. Let's see some of them, maybe just a thousand or so, potted on Market Square, perhaps grouped by families to illustrate their kinship. Include some history of when they were discovered and a sense of their place in folklore: what they're used for in folk medicine or food. It might be a chance to bring ginseng back to Market Square.

2. Knoxville's best-known artist is Beauford Delaney, subject of a new nationally published biography. His paintings sell in New York and Paris in the five and six figures. The studio where he served his apprenticeship in the early 1920s was in the Burwell Building, which is still standing, now the front of the Tennessee Theater. Perhaps the same building could host a Delaney exhibit, showcasing his own work and that of some of his Knoxville influences, paintings by Hugh Tyler and Lloyd Branson, whose studio was here. On sale would be David Leeming's 1998 biography of Delaney and perhaps prints.

3. An after-hours street festival, with all forms of live music—especially those with East Tennessee connections, and that's pretty much all of them—at various stages downtown. The most obvious answer, the one that works best in other cities, is the one that has eluded Knoxville.

4. A one-day exhibit of playfully useful things made from castaway objects. Small kids love the lunacy of that sort of thing, and besides being artistic, it might also teach thrift and ecology.

5. Literary tours. Two Knoxville authors in particular—James Agee and Cormac McCarthy—have international followings. Both wrote novels based around the downtown area which might work well in a Bloomsday-style walking tour, with actors taking turns reading or performing passages from the books.

6. A Knoxville movie festival at the Tennessee or the Bijou. Movies acted in by Patricia Neal, movies directed by Clarence Brown, movies based on novels by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and movies filmed in the area. Liberally defined, there have been over 100 major "Knoxville" movies since the silent era. Guest appearances by John Cullum or David Keith.

7. A fiddling contest. For decades beginning in the 1880s, Market Square had a reputation for regional fiddling competitions which drew Governor (and master fiddler) Bob Taylor and, some historians claim, were critical in the development of 20th-century country music. Why not revive it?

8. Knoxville music listening booth. Perhaps near the site of the old St. James Hotel where several important early country and jazz recordings were made, a listening post where Knoxville music—from George Reneau's early '20s fiddle recordings to the V-Roys latest—would be available to listen to; CDs featuring Knoxville music, past and present, would be available for sale.

9. Some acknowledgment of the river. It's why Knoxville's here, of course, and the DAF once included a "boat parade" as part of the festivities. We don't know why it was discontinued, but with some cleverness, originality, and art, reviving it could be great fun, with entries from any number of volunteer clubs and organizations (we suspect Sea Ray might take some interest in such an event). It might even change the way we think of "floats."

10. Andre Michaux Appreciation Day. The French botanist and adventurer who in the 1780s and '90s introduced the camellia, the crape myrtle, and the mimosa to the American South spent months of his life in East Tennessee, and was the first to describe many of the native plants; several are named for him. His 1795 monograph, "Plants of the Territory of Knoxville," published in France, does indeed describe the dogwood and several other trees. Perhaps at Blount Mansion, where Michaux stayed at least once, a one-man show, perhaps with live plants as props, might present Michaux—who doubled as a secret agent for Revolutionary France—and horticulture in a surprising light.

The Dogwood Arts Festival once led the city forward. Where is it taking us now?

by Jack Neely

Already, the warmer weather is drawing the lunch crowd back out to old Market Square. Several restaurants on the Square have cafe-style outdoor seating, and on any weekday in the spring between 11 and 2:30, hundreds come out to enjoy the warm sun, the flirting pigeons, the blooming flowers. In recent years, Market Square has drawn many from outside downtown—college students and professors, mothers with small children. The trees and ancient architecture make it one of the loveliest spots in Knoxville; a rare place without cars, it's also one of the most peaceful.

Then, in early April, it comes. The smell of dough fried in deep fat, the sound of amplified top-40 music, hucksters selling small painted objects to hang above your toilet, and thousands of people disgorged from buses with the name of a distant Baptist church or tour company stenciled on the sides. Every day for fully three weeks next month, old Market Square will become, mainly, command center of the Dogwood Arts Festival.

Each year, it dwarfs the rest of Knoxville's events calendar. Promoters have billed it as "the best 17 days of spring in the world," but this year's calendar lists 26 days of it, from the opening ceremonies and prayer breakfast on April 3 to the DAF Air Show on May 3. In between are literally hundreds of events, from the tennis tournaments at Fox Den to other tennis tournaments 25 miles away at Holston Hills, to the Talahi Plant Sale, to the DAF Grand Prix in South Knoxville—so many that no mortal can see them all.

Among the 25 who sit on the DAF's Board of Directors are well-known figures from business, the media, and politics, including Congressman Jimmy Duncan. Among the festival's sponsors are Dollywood, HGTV, three television stations, eight radio stations, our daily paper—and, for the record, Metro Pulse. The hundreds of "patrons" who've donated at least $200 comprise most of the city's economic and political elite; their names are published in the newspaper every April. In November, Elton John played a DAF benefit to 15,000 fans at Thompson-Boling Arena. The money they raise gives them an annual budget of $2.1 million.

You don't cross Dogwood Arts. The newspaper-clipping files at both Lawson-McGhee Library and the McClung Collection are thick with positive reports. They might convince a newcomer that the DAF has been an overwhelming success, popularly and esthetically, year after year. Many do say they like the DAF, or parts of it. There's lots of praise for individual events: the quilt exhibit, the air show, a favorite concert.

However, asked their honest opinion of the Festival itself, we've gotten more "off the record" remarks than for any story in this reporter's experience. A local artist whose work has won DAF prizes in years past says, "I couldn't say anything—I'd be run out of town!" "Please don't quote me," says one observer, even though he no longer lives in Knoxville. "I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings." "You know I have to be careful about what I say..." "Now don't print this, but..."

A letter published last year in the News-Sentinel compared it to the story of the emperor's new clothes. Others compare it to the elephant in the backyard, the crazy aunt in the basement. Many believe it has become a problem, and one so large and unwieldy that few offer any hope of solving it.

Arts? Crafts? Corndogs?

Many downtowners dread the Festival each year, embarrassed about the knitted Kleenex-box cozies, the cinnamon-scented pinecones, the clocks made from varnished cross-sections of logs, sawblades painted with nail polish, all manner of things deep-fried.

Explaining why she's not involved in the Festival, one nationally renowned local artist says, "It's more about crafts than arts." Another recalls being "confused" when he moved here in 1988 and witnessed his first DAF. "The message was that it was an 'arts festival.' Most of what I saw wasn't art or even crafts—but hobbies."

That was a first reaction from a newcomer. But the DAF has lost credibility even within the crafts community that used to support it.

Judi Gaston is a fabric artist of national reputation who does well in craft shows from Maryland to Florida. Recently, she was the Candy Factory's artist of the month; her handmade clothing was featured in a special exhibit. For years, she exhibited at the DAF, but does no more.

"Every time I've gone to see it, it seems as if it's gone downhill," she says. "It's one of those domino things." One thing falls down, several other things fall down, and replacing one element does nothing to rebuild the whole. "I don't know what they could do to help it."

Calls to crafts organizations make it clear that the DAF makes few waves outside the Knoxville area. "I do not hear people talk about it very much," says a staffer at the 700-member Southern Highlands Handicraft Guild in Asheville.

Jackie Wynn is director of the Foothills Craft Guild Museum in the Candy Factory, which she says exhibits "fine crafts"—as opposed to "country crafts." Though much smaller than the Asheville group, it represents over 200 artisans in Tennessee. Wynn, who specializes in cornshuck art, does participate in the Festival. She's no highbrow, but has on occasion been appalled at the quality of her fellow Dogwood artisans' work.

"You look at the person next to you," she says, "and you wonder where they came from." But Wynn doesn't stand for the bellyaching she's heard from fellow craftspeople about the aesthetic level of the festival. "I've told our members, if you have a complaint, come out and make it better. If they can't get the good ones, they've got to fill the space somehow."

Filling the space seems to be a Festival priority, at least on Market Square, and, regulars observe, in the Festival art gallery. Some noted a marked drop in quality when the Festival moved from the old Customs House to a larger space at TVA and the number of paintings exhibited seemed to multiply to fill the space. One UT art professor states flatly, "It's not considered a legitimate venue for exhibiting one's work."

Perhaps even worse than the arts and crafts in the estimation of some who've witnessed it is the music, which they say is often beyond merely amateurish. Motel-lounge bands covering top-40 favorites from the '70s and cutesy evangelical groups have been typical. Performed on Market Square's stage and amplified throughout much of downtown for several hours every day for weeks—it's audible in hundreds of downtown offices, even with the windows closed.

Many downtown entrepreneurs complain that the Festival is "tacky"; most say it's good for business, but some say it's not. They're careful about what they say for the record.

One former Market Square businessman speaks frankly about the Festival. By the time Brian Miller closed the Printer's Mark bookstore in 1995, he had survived three DAFs. For the two weeks of the festival each year, he says, "My business completely collapsed. Parking was a problem, of course—and then you put on one of the lamest excuses for an art festival. Who in their right minds would come downtown for that?

The "crafts," he says, "looked like they were purchased on a skid from Taiwan. And the entertainment stunk. The first time I saw it, I was flabbergasted. There were lounge acts singing to pre-recorded music. Elvis songs were changed into Christian hymns. It was like the Gong Show. It had a certain kitsch value, but I couldn't stand it anymore." He always kept his doors open in the springtime, but during the Festival he closed them.

"So many of our sister cities have festivals with a sense of quality. I don't see why Knoxville can't. If it were a quality event, I wouldn't have minded running my shop at a loss for a couple of weeks." Miller, whose store partly specialized in books of regional history and culture, believes festivals succeed when cities like Asheville "aren't embarrassed of their roots. They articulate their musical past." He recalls seeing more cheap lounge acts on Market Square's stage than genuinely regional music like bluegrass.

"I'd love to see a clogging exhibition, I really would," he says. "I just don't want to see one with pre-recorded rap music to dance to."

He says German and British tourists, some of them on literary pilgrimages to Cormac McCarthy's home town, would visit his store. "They'd ask, 'Where's the arts festival? Is this it?' Retirees who had driven from Florida or Virginia would come to this 'arts festival' and feel they'd been taken. I was always embarrassed. I felt I had to apologize."

"I made a recommendation to the ladies who ran it. My recommendation was very simple: that any musical entertainer needs to be accompanied by real musicians." He implies no value judgment in the word musicians. He merely means actual people playing actual instruments.

Miller's suggestions went unheeded. "Their attitude was, 'We're gonna inflict this on you, no matter what you do.'"

The Master of Ceremonies

The office from which the Festival is planned might surprise critics. In a trendy walkup with exposed brick walls and one of the Old City's trademark round windows, it could pass for one of the guerrilla computer-graphics companies in the neighborhood. There's no homespun bric-a-brac in evidence in this bi-level office, but some suburban-style Dogwood flags remind you of where you are.

Bob Neel has been in charge of the DAF for 10 years. Today he's concerned about the weather. "Last week we were concerned about the dogwoods blooming too early," he says. The recent frosts changed that. "We were glad to see a cool snap—but sad to see a cold snap." He's afraid it will affect the blooms when they do open—they hope—in April.

He's a nice guy, with a humble, self-deprecating sense of humor that can make you forget he's executive director of anything. He even makes the Festival itself sound modest, speaking of "limited funds," "a little organization like ours."

Neel's own office overlooks Jackson and Central. Propped on a shelf behind his desk is an antique copy of John Gunther's Inside U.S.A. That book has a special place in the lore of the Festival, which was launched partly as a righteous response to bad press. In his 1947 number-one bestseller, Gunther called Knoxville "the ugliest place I ever saw in America." (His description goes on to ridicule Knoxville's fastidious racial segregation and its lack of any alcoholic beverage besides weak beer, served in taprooms that close early.)

Neel became Dogwood Arts' second executive director in 1988. Originally from Montgomery, Ala. (a city that, for the record, John Gunther liked), Neel's proud of the Festival, which he says has improved since 1989. "We've saturated the market," he says, claiming the Festival now draws 350,000 (including that May 3 air show at McGhee Tyson). "A lot of people are participating, if they only take a ride down the trails or come to Market Square for their annual funnel cake."

"We attempt to have something for everybody, and try to keep as much of what we do free as possible."

He says studies indicate that over 100,000 visitors come from outside of the metropolitan area during the Festival days, but admits many of them actually stay in Pigeon Forge or Gatlinburg and may have only a glancing acquaintance with the Festival itself.

"We've not done an economic study. It's something I wish we could afford." He repeatedly mentions things the Festival can't afford. Twice during our conversation, he calls himself a "malcontent."

"I'm never satisfied," he says. "I always see things we could do better—and more of. I think we're doing a pretty good job with the resources we have."

He's aware there's a problem of perception with the quality of the central part of the festival, but draws our attention toward other events. "A lot of festivals have craft fairs," he says. "What makes us unique are the 60 miles of dogwood trails and the 100 public and private gardens" open to Festival-goers. He says that direct celebration of nature is the Festival's first priority.

Still, Market Square is the symbolic heart of the Festival, as it has been since 1962. Focus of more events than any other location, it's still the main information center, the starting point of bus tours, and the part of the DAF that looks like a festival in the commonly understood sense. Many we spoke with, among the hundreds of downtowners who frequent the eight restaurants on Market Square, have assumed that what they saw on the Square was pretty much it. Those who aren't patient enough to read through the daunting 26-day small-print schedule of events might be forgiven for assuming that this is indeed "the Festival."

The Festival's much bigger than they know, spreading across miles in every direction, literally and figuratively. Chances are there's something on that schedule they'd find worthwhile. But it's hard to ignore the fact that this most conspicuous face of the DAF remains, by most accounts, its ugliest.

Who picks those people? many want to know. The answer is, nobody does. The DAF doesn't hold auditions for entertainers, doesn't have a panel to consider the worthiness of craftspeople. The only standard for the craftspeople, Neel says, is that the stuff has to be handmade and sold by the people who make it. He recalls ejecting a man who was selling computer-graphic T-shirts. The Festival's only criterion for performers is that they need to be available when there's an opening.

In response to criticisms of very poor entertainment, he admits, "In all honesty, there has been some of that." But Neel, a master salesman, almost makes it sound like a strength, democratic and unbiased. "We've had everyone from Elton John down to the five-year-old girl whose mother thinks she can sing."

"Volunteers have always handled the music," says Neel. "I don't know when anybody's been kept from entertaining down there." He sounds apologetic as he says, "There are a lot more groups requesting to perform than we have space to fill." Most are school groups of widely varying quality and even a lawyer nursing a headache in a corner office overlooking Union Avenue wouldn't begrudge children their 15 minutes of fame. Others are more difficult to forgive.

"We're not there to advocate any political motives, any religious motives," Neel says. But the Festival doesn't pay most of the musicians, so they often bring their motives with their amps.

"There's a lot of gospel over the years," Neel says. (Gospel's a respected and influential form of American music, but he's using the word loosely.) One year, he says, "somebody came in, told us they were going to do 'contemporary pop music.' But they did Christian music and came in between songs and preached. We have to take them at their word."

He adds an apparent non sequitur. "We have to be careful." Right now there's apparently no mechanism for selecting the music. Care would seem difficult.

Still, some things have improved. In 1997, DAF came up with $10,000 and enlisted AC Entertainment to help book lunchtime shows, who brought in some surprisingly fresh talent. Atlanta-based Mariachi Guatemoc will return this year, as will steel-drum band Carib Sounds, Les Kerr and the (zydeco) Bayou Band, plus regional bluegrass from the County Boys (Dollywood's house band) and Phil Leadbetter. Many of these are bands that could draw a paying crowd anywhere, and Knoxville's lucky to have them free.

The only problem is that the show turns back into a pumpkin daily at 1 p.m.—still lunchtime for many, but the end of AC's daily window.

Before she moved to Minneapolis last year, Madge McFarlane had been a member of the Arts Council for a decade and felt obliged to visit the Festival's arts offerings. She recalls Knoxville and Dogwood Arts wistfully, and thinks the Festival's worth saving. But she was often disappointed with its offerings. "It was just the same-ol' same-ol'," she says. "It just seemed to be the same thing every year. It's kind of sad. It's a unique opportunity. There's not much in the country to compare with it. But every year, it's the same old not-very-interesting kind of stuff."

She thinks the arts component has been recovering some of its credibility in the last few years with a juried fine arts show. Of Dogwood Arts as a whole, she says, "I hope you can jazz it up a little."

There is indeed some new jazz in the old show this year. Also at the TVA towers will be a new entry to the festival: crafts from Gatlinburg's venerable Arrowmont School.

And even down on the Square, for the first time, the Festival will at least add some variety to its esthetic sensibilities, highlighting three different genres of craft in succession. Only the first week will feature the expected "arts & crafts." Following that will be "folk art." The final week will showcase "fine crafts." The music, they say, will reflect the artistic sensibility, with some classical in the final week. But they're still taking musicians on their word.

Many criticisms of the Festival would be moot if the organization only removed the word Arts from its name. Several suggest it do just that. Norris Dryer is music director for WUOT and longtime violinist with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. "My suggestion would be to drop the Arts from the name. It has almost nothing to do with the arts." His greatest peeve is the air show, one of the Festival's most popular events. "Those are fighters and bombers. That's the antithesis of the arts." Dryer says he's impressed with Knoxville's artistic vitality, especially in recent years, but says the DAF doesn't reflect it at all. "What do they have? Tacky 'crafts' on Market Square."

"Why even put the word Arts in there?" echoes Tim Massey, a lifelong Knoxvillian who prepares art shows at UT's Ewing Gallery. "Why not make it a festival about what it is? Why not just call it 'the Dogwood Festival'? The word 'Arts' connotes there's going to be some excitement—and there's not." He visited the fine-arts exhibit at TVA last year and allows there was some good work there. "It was okay, basically, the run-of-the-mill barns 'n' flowers to conceptual pieces. It was all right for what it was. But I've given up on thinking something in connection to the Dogwood Arts Festival could be exciting."

Greenwich Village of the South

Ironically, it all began in self-defense against outsiders' prejudices that Knoxville was backward, tacky, and ugly. Those who lived in Sequoyah Hills wished to point out to Gunther and his millions of readers that there were parts of Knoxville, at least, that weren't ugly. To encourage people to drive around and see them, in 1955 the Junior League and the Chamber of Commerce got together to organize a auto tour of Sequoyah Hills. It was a drive-in solution in a drive-in era—much easier and less expensive, certainly, than improving the public parts of town, landscaping the riverfront and establishing parks, projects that had been on some idealists' drawing boards for 30 years.

In 1961, organizers moved to make it a proper festival, with musical entertainment. For that, though, they'd have to bring it downtown.

Aspirations were high. The Knoxville Arts Center hosted what was touted to be "the First National Art Exhibition to be held in Tennessee," at the Miller's on Henley. A library-sponsored Dogwood Festival Book Fair displayed 2,000 newly published titles. Al Hirt appeared at the "Dogwood Jazz Festival" on UT's campus.

By 1962, the Festival had moved into the newly cleared Market Square, site of a colorful floral exhibition, cut flowers, and blooming potted plants. A block away on the Gay Street Promenade were educational displays dealing with art, conservation, and literature. At the Coliseum were performances of classical music and what was billed as "progressive jazz."

Up and down Gay Street, live dogwood trees bloomed in huge pots. On Market Square, craftsmen and fine artists demonstrated their skills: painting, woodcarving, modeling in clay on potter's wheels. On International Day, "the flags of all nations" went up around the Square as foreign students from UT offered exhibitions of native dances, culture, and cuisine.

Actor Tony Perkins came in 1963 to attend the World Premiere of his cinematically daring movie, The Fool Killer, held at the Tennessee in conjunction with Dogwood Arts.

Dogwood Arts caught the attention of the New York Times, which ran flattering profiles of the festival two years in a row. Better Homes and Gardens published Carson Brewer's rave about the festival. For a city smarting from Guntherisms, Dogwood Arts was a powerful tonic, proof to the world that in spite of everything—we were creative, we were progressive, we were beautiful.

Judging it by its promotional literature, it was a cosmopolitan event, international and progressive, but one that seemed determined to stay in touch with regional roots. Food vendors on the Square sold "country ham, hot biscuits, and barbecue."

In March 1964, the environmental magazine Tennessee Conservationist said Market Square became "for 10 days a Greenwich Village of the South." The description sounds almost plausible, illustrated, as it was, with a photograph of a UT art student working on a canvas there on the site: a bold, modernist depiction of Market Square in the style of Matisse.

Dogwooders

The Junior League, whose young, motivated volunteers did more than any other entity to launch the Festival, is no longer in charge. They got it started and in the '70s stepped back and let the professionals take the lead.

The University of Tennessee, which had been integrally and vigorously involved in the early Festivals, is no longer, especially not in the artistic aspects. It took several calls to UT arts professors to find one who'd even witnessed a Dogwood Arts Festival event. Several arts professors say every year it comes and goes, and they never hear it mentioned.

The Southern Highlands Handicraft Guild, touted in Better Homes and Gardens in 1961 as a large part of the early success of the Festival, is no longer. Reached at their Asheville headquarters, one member who'd heard of the Festival had actually manned a Candy Factory booth at one DAF, briefly, in 1994. She said she hadn't looked at enough of the rest of the Festival to form an opinion of it.

To be fair, some craftspeople say festivals of this sort aren't nearly as important to either consumers or artisans as they were in 1961. Craft fairs throughout the region have multiplied since then, as have crafts shops, all of them in more controlled environments, usually indoors and often with paid admission, that fine craftsmen prefer to the bazaar-like atmosphere of Market Square. And consumers have access to fine crafts year-round through the shops at the Candy Factory and elsewhere.

Still, some cities seem to pull it off somehow. In Minneapolis, her new home, former Arts Council boardmember McFarlane says she's discovered there are five major street shows: "really outstanding, really creative stuff. And they're crowded with people buying."

One reason the New York Times doesn't write much about Dogwood Arts anymore may be that it's been outpaced by newer, larger events in the region. Asheville's Bele Chere, which lasts only three days, draws 3-400,000. Chattanooga's Riverbend Festival, which lasts nine days, draws 400,000. Even Kingsport's nine-day Fun Fest now outdraws the Dogwood Arts Festival in visitors per day, with 250,000. Hundreds of Knoxvillians drive to each of those festivals every year, and others even farther away, in Birmingham, Nashville, and Memphis.

These festivals have a few things in common that Dogwood Arts doesn't. Nearly all the festivities in each are focused around one distinctive area, most of them on blocked-off urban streets. All of them are much more concentrated in duration, none of them more than nine days long. And they go on well into the night. They're all, in fact, mostly evening, after-work events. Chattanooga's Riverbend doesn't even start each day until 5:30 P.M.; the DAF's public events are mostly closed by then. Most of them involve open beer sales and a suspension of the usual municipal rules concerning outdoor consumption—though Kingsport's Fun Fest, a strictly dry family-oriented celebration, does not.

The biggest difference may be the birthdate of the customers. Who comes to the Dogwood Arts Festival? For Neel, that's an easy one. "It's an older crowd, an older demographic," Neel says. "In fact, the out-of-town folks are primarily an older crowd."

The DAF's orientation toward retirees is obvious in its scheduling. Whereas festivals elsewhere are held on weekends and after-hours evenings, most of the DAF goes on during weekday working hours, when the majority of people under 65 are at work or in school. Except for evening trail-driving and occasional ticketed concerts, Dogwood Arts is nearly over by 5:00.

Neel touts DAF's audience as "older folks with disposable income and time on their hands." It makes economic sense, perhaps. But the median Knoxvillian is 30 years old, younger than the median American, younger than some of those cities that host the big music festivals. We're also home of one of the South's largest universities. Why our biggest event of the year is a 26-day party mostly for retirees may seem mysterious.

"I'd like to reach out to UT," Neel says. "That's a student population of 26,000," all of them within walking distance. "We should find a way to reach out to them, somehow." In the past few years, the Festival has indeed added a few events to appeal to a younger crowd, like a gymnastics competition, one "Dancin' in the Streets" night in the Old City, and the beer-and-cigar festival. (It's not listed in the brochure; Neel says it's still on, but will be held in a grassy area behind the Coliseum weeks after the festival proper is over.)

The most promising plan to reach a younger crowd was to be the Rhythm & Blooms festival, planned for the World's Fair site near campus. It's on the current 1998 brochure available at the Festival office, highlighted with a color photograph and touting "three stages of nonstop music"—a miniature version of the youth-oriented festivals that have been so popular elsewhere.

But it won't happen. "We didn't have the financial backing for it," Neel says. Though the amount AC Entertainment thought should be necessary to assure its success represents less than 4% of DAF's budget, potential sponsors were unconvinced about the uncustomary idea.

A couple of years ago, a group of frustrated under-50s, mostly design professionals, attempted to get a parallel April festival off the ground, an evening street fair that better reached the arts community they knew to be worthy of celebration. Dorsey Cox, an industrial designer for Falcon Products, described the motive to "bring real artists to come and participate in a festival of music, theater, movies, design, sculpture, and other arts—and make it an experience." Though some spoke of it as an anti-Dogwood Arts Festival, Cox says he'd hoped it might be a complimentary celebration, "such a successful event that the city embraces it—promoting the differences, not the sameness." Dorsey says the group couldn't come up with a consensus about how to do it; then two of the leaders, former Whittlites, moved out of town.

If young people don't feel they're part of the DAF, Knoxville blacks don't, either. Bob Booker, director of the Beck Cultural Center, a museum, library, and gathering place for the black community, says he never even hears the Festival discussed. "You read about the Prayer Breakfast, you hear about the big-name stars coming to town, and Willard Scott does his thing," says Booker, "but it's just one of those things that we're not involved with. I don't know why."

One in six Knoxvillians is black, but the Festival's current 25-member Board of Directors is entirely white—though Neel recalls there have been some black members in the past. He mentions Morningside Trail, developed with the mutual involvement of that predominantly black neighborhood and Dogwood Arts volunteers, and says it's now one of the festival's more impressive routes.

It's not un-usual to hear people dissatisfied with Knox-ville's festivities assume those in charge haven't noticed what Asheville, Kingsport, and Chattanooga are doing with their remarkably successful, music-oriented evening festivals. Many mention Asheville's Bele Chere, in particular, as a festival that seems too hip for Knoxville. Although Asheville is only one-third the size of Knoxville, its premier festival attracts more people in its three days than Dogwood Arts does in three weeks.

Neel has not only witnessed Bele Chere, he even works there on occasion, as a volunteer manning some of the festival's wackier events, like sumo wrestling and the Velcro Wall. "It's a big street party!" he says, enthusiastically. "It's lots of fun, lots of people." Then he turns grim. "At the same time, they sell $80,000 worth of beer. There are dozens of incidents, dozens of fights." He's very leery about trying something similar in Knoxville. "That's okay for a city to sponsor. But liability-wise, it's tough for a little group like ours.

"We're just not that kind of festival," he adds. "We're not like the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. We don't have that kind of entertainment here." (Some would differ; several Knoxville bands have left them cheering in music festivals from Chicago to Nashville.)

Neel's hometown of Montgomery hosts a Memorial-Day weekend music festival called the Jubilee City Fest. "My parents are 73 years old. They come to the Dogwood Arts Festival. They don't go to the festival in Montgomery. They like the variety here."

The festivals Neel says he's inclined to compare Dogwood Arts with are an Apple Blossom Festival in Virginia and a Cherry Blossom Festival in Georgia.

The DAF is surely among the most geographically diffused festivals in America, with official events spread across a 300-square-mile region. It's also much longer than most festivals, partly by necessity, because it has to open a wide window for the blooming of the actual dogwoods. It's spread across the metropolitan area, across the month of April, across the spectrum of human endeavor. The DAF may spread itself and Knoxville's festive resources so far it's no longer a coherent celebration of dogwoods, arts, Knoxville, or anything at all.

This year the DAF is longer than ever. There's even more space to fill. Neel acknowledges DAF's diffusion, but prefers to call it a "challenge." Many festivals, he says, are based around a Mardi-Gras-style culmination. "Our culmination is the blooming of the dogwoods. God knows when that will take place."

No one doubts Neel's abilities as a fundraiser. When he talks about the Festival's progress, he talks about its budget—comparing its current $2.1 million to the borrowed $10,000 it started out with 37 years ago.

"The people who are paying for it get what they want," says one philosopher. "It is what it is." People close to the money acknowledge that it does drain likely resources for other festival proposals. Whether it has much to do with arts, or whether it's really a festival, or whether it's the most dynamic portrayal of Knoxville to the world, are issues many have found reason to question.

If Gunther were to rise from the grave for a return trip in 1998, he wouldn't call Knoxville the ugliest city in America. In every respect he criticized, Knoxville is worlds better than the Knoxville he described: cleaner, more tolerant, more beautiful.

Look at Market Square. Every week of the year, the Square hosts two interesting art galleries, several eclectic restaurants, a groundbreaking computer-design business, and a lively, diverse crowd. Gunther would be astonished. But would we really like Gunther to come back during Dogwood Arts? For three weeks in April, does Market Square become more like the Knoxville he observed?

If the DAF is still improving Knoxville's image, it's accomplishing its purpose. But complaints that the Festival is tacky, prudish, segregated, and behind the times are unsettlingly similar to the complaints Gunther made about Knoxville to begin with.