Advisory Boards

Ashley Capps

Ashley Capps began his career hosting a jazz show on the University of Tennessee’s WUOT public radio station in 1979. In the late 1980s, Ashley opened a club in the Old City of Knoxville called Ella Guru’s, perhaps Knoxville’s first nightclub to schedule a variety of traveling acts and the beginning of relationships with artists, managers, and promoters that Ashley continued in 1991 by founding AC Entertainment, a world-class music programming and production company; he left the company in 2020. Starting in 2001, Ashley produced Bonnaroo, a now much-emulated fan-based, multi-day music festival, and in 2009, in partnership with Jason Boardman of Knoxville’s Pilot Light and Chris Molinski at the Knoxville Museum of Art, he launched the annual Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, a nonprofit cultural organization that features an array of world-class artists, 100+ performances along with a film festival, 12-hour drone, and an array of panels, workshops, and exhibitions in Knoxville’s concert halls, listening rooms, clubs, churches, and galleries. In 2009, Ashley helped launch the Bonnaroo Works Fund, the charitable arm of the Bonnaroo Festival, supporting nonprofit organizations with Tennessee based arts education and environmental sustainability initiatives.

Kay B. Housch

Kay B. Housch president of Kay B. Housch, P.C. in Nashville, Tennessee and a title agent for Stewart Title Guaranty Company and First American Title Insurance Company. She received her B.A. degree from the University of Tennessee and her J.D. degree from the Nashville School of Law. Ms. Housch is a member of the American, Tennessee and Nashville Bar Associations, and the Middle Tennessee Chapter of CCIM; and has served as the chair of the Executive Committee for the Real Estate Section of the Tennessee Bar Association and as the chair of the Real Estate Committee of the Nashville Bar Association. She has lectured on the subjects of title insurance and real property law for the Nashville and Tennessee Bar Associations, the Tennessee Land Title Association, and the Stewart Title Guaranty Company. Kay is a native Nashvillian and the wife of Paul Toby Housch, Esq. (B.A. University of Tennessee, 1978). She is a member of Alpha Chi Omega.

Julie Lohnes

Julie C. Lohnes has joined the faculty and staff of the University of Tennessee School of Art as Director, Curator of Galleries and Collections. 

Lohnes has over 20 years of experience directing, curating, and producing visual arts exhibitions and programs at non-profits, private galleries, and academic institutions.

Before coming to the University of Tennessee School of Art, she was the Director and Curator of Art Collections and Exhibitions at Union College, in Schenectady, NY, where she managed the daily operations of four exhibition venues and cared for a collection of over 3,000 items. There, she helped to develop and implement the department’s vision while conceptualizing, planning, and implementing as many as five exhibitions each year. 

Prior to her appointment at Union College, Lohnes was Executive Director of A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. There she produced over 30 exhibitions in an eleven-month season in collaboration with over 400 artists. A.I.R. Gallery seeks to champion women artists, increasing their visibility and the viability of their endeavors.

Julie Lohnes has an educational background that includes studio art in painting, video, sculpture, and installations, as well as studies in art history. Her work history has included executive leadership with for profit galleries, not-for-profit galleries, and educational institutions. 

Sylvia Peters

Sylvia Peters is a retired urban educator who served children, parents, other educators, school systems, and law enforcement agencies from coast to coast.  She started her career in Chicago, IL as a kindergarten teacher and became an award winning, nationally recognized principal, serving as the Dean of Student Teachers at the University of Southern California and at Rio Grande Valley, Texas for “Teach for America.” She was a founding partner of the Edison Project, and she was one of the founders of the Character Education Partnership in Washington, DC and served a term as its president.  She organized White House conferences and worked with legislators from both sides of the aisle to raise funds for teaching character development in 43 states and has spoken throughout the country on matters of education, community partnerships and safe schools. Peters has been honored with many awards and appeared in films, television programs and high profile speaking platforms. She retired from her professional career and returned to Knoxville to share her expertise with businesses, and non-profit organizations locally and around the country.  She founded Legacy Works Productions, serves on the Knoxville Museum of Art Board of Trustees and is a member of the McNabb Board and the Knoxville Museum of Art Guild Board.  She is serving as the chairman of the Delaney Project: Gathering Light. She is a member of the 100 Black Women and Links Inc., Chapters of Knoxville, TN.

Tommie Rush

Tommie Rush is a native of Mobile, Alabama and a graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Early in her studies in studio art, Rush began work in ceramics and eventually worked exclusively in glass, and she now maintains an atelier, Tomco Inc., in Knoxville. In 1980, Rush began to share a studio with renowned artist Richard Jolley, whom she married several years later. Through experimentation with custom-blended glass mixed in the studio, Rush has created a unique and identifiable style, and her work has been shown in more than seventy-five exhibitions as well as honored in a 2011 retrospective exhibition at the Mobile Museum of Art. Rush created a glass and welded-steel, site-specific commission for the headquarters of Scripps Networks in Knoxville, and her work can be found in numerous private and museum collections throughout the United States, including the Sheldon Art Museum and Sculpture Garden in Lincoln, Nebraska; the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC; and the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville, Tennessee. As a tireless supporter of the arts, Rush has served on several national boards, including the Glass Art Society in Seattle; the Penland School of Craft in Asheville, North Carolina; and the American Craft Council in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She remains very active with her local arts community.

Sarah Swinford

Sarah Swinford is the Director of Loghaven Artist Residency. Loghaven provides time and space to artists from around the country to make new work in Knoxville in the fields of visual art, performance, and writing. Directing Loghaven since its launch, Sarah leads the program with a focus on providing supportive and transformative residency experiences while building enduring relationships with artist Fellows. Prior to joining Loghaven, Sarah managed the performing arts program at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, where she worked closely with artists on residencies, performances, and workshops. She has implemented and planned many long and short-term residencies, facilitated world premieres of new work, and presented hundreds of unique performances. Sarah has also served on various grant panels, including most recently as a reader and panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts’ CARES Act Grant. She is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis.