Metro Pulse/Artbeat/Yee-Haw

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What:
Yee-Haw Industries

Where:
413 South Gay Street

When:
During regular business hours (call 522-1812 or visit their site for more information), with Friday receptions until Christmas

Yee-Haw Industries presents art and entertainment throughout December

by Heather Joyner

While we discuss downtown revitalization, folks are actually vitalizing our city's center as we speak—frequenting bars, restaurants, and shops radiating outward from Market Square. And unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard of Yee-Haw Industries, headquartered on the west side of Gay Street's 400 block. Despite having opened the doors to its storefront location only three-and-a-half years ago, Yee-Haw has become a bona-fide Knoxville institution. With thousands of type fonts bulging from drawers and walls crowded with art posters, the letterpress design shop's air is thick with activity and the rich smell of ink—an interesting switch from 413 Gay's former incarnation as a bank.

Lately, Yee-Haw is also crowded with a variety of revelers. Two of five Friday open house celebrations remain before Christmas—tomorrow, Dec. 13, and again Dec. 20, providing an opportunity for people to mingle, enjoy a range of entertainment, and purchase unusual gifts (also for sale during regular business hours). Beginning at 6 p.m. tomorrow, the Actors Co-op will present readings from David Sedaris' Santaland Diaries and Season's Greetings. Beginning at 7 p.m. the following week, Appalshop of Whitesburg, Kentucky, will screen films. Called "Yee-Haw's Annual Art For The People Holiday Shows," these gatherings should not be missed.

According to Yee-Haw's website, "super fancy hillbilly wares" and other items are available, including baby blankets, handmade paper and books, folk art, paintings, sculpture, prints, jewelry, photography, home-made pocket books, gum wrapper art, lampshades, music and videos, ornaments, calendars, and "concrete lovelies and shrines to all your favorites." However fantastic, these creations are only part of the overall endeavor. Perhaps most striking is the sense of community Yee-Haw has inspired.

Says co-owner and artistic visionary Kevin Bradley, "It's great to get people to come out. I think Knoxville is just hungry to have something to do downtown...and the turn-out has been very good. Artists are selling some stuff, and the performances have been awesome." His designer partner Julie Belcher adds, "I think ours could be a space for all sorts of things, and that's what [we've] been trying to promote by having a different event every Friday. In a way, it's a different crowd for each thing we've had."

Along with Belcher, Bradley has turned Yee-Haw into a phenomenon. Writing for Independent, a Durham, N.C., alternative newsweekly, Angie Carlson has said, "Relying on centuries-old technology—Gutenberg used the 'rolling press' and handset type to [produce the first printed] Bible—Yee-Haw Industries' Bradley and Belcher are not only preserving a dying printing [procedure] but creating highly desirable, hip art in the process." Graduates of UT and now in their thirties, the pair has also been written about in mega newspapers—the Washington Post, for instance. A Yee-Haw profile has appeared in Southern Living as well as in graphic design publications such as the AIGA Journal and Print magazine. The shop's CD art and posters for a plethora of musicians continue to popularize Yee-Haw's unique talent. In fact, their cover and booklet for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's new CD (Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Vol. II) has already generated considerable buzz.

Says Belcher, the Friday evenings are "a way for our friends to show their work even if they don't sell it, because there's really no other alternative space in Knoxville to have something like this.... [But] pretty much everybody has sold at least one piece, and some people five to 10 pieces depending on the price range.... We have a price range from a dollar up." Art for the people, indeed. Yee-Haw feeds poster paper purchased in 2,000-pound "skids" into mid-20th Century cast iron Vandercook presses and turns out affordable gems. In addition to prints on chipboard selling for as little as $15, Yee-Haw has prints on handmade paper starting at $75.

As for art by Yee-Haw friends and associates (from other states as well as here), it's hung and clustered in the vast but comfortable second-floor area that Bradley says is at times "a sort of Salon des Refuses." Arriving upstairs, one finds works that certain participants must have had a helluvalotta fun creating. Josh Werner, who crafted Yee-Haw's neon sign, presents a Hasbro Lite Brite portrait of Osama Bin Laden that Bradley notes "is genius in a lot of ways...people have responded well to it...no one's tossed it in the floor or anything." It glows beside bold folk paintings by Jimmy Toade and a "Beatles suitcase" by Karen Brady. Clever assemblages and carved figures by Alan LaBudde balance Mark Elliott's graceful wall-mounted cut-outs reminiscent of Matisse. Melody Reeves displays a yellow infant sleepsuit morbidly studded with lead weights called "How Floats This Dream Of Swimming," whereas Amy Campbell offers more whimsical fare. There's even a vibrantly painted Indian figure made by Bradley's father Bill (of Greeneville).

In short, there's something for just about everyone. So come on down. And as Yee-Haw would say, don't forget to bring your momma.