Elvis Presley would approve of the festivities planned for the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art's sixth birthday party Sunday.
This year's event will feature exhibitions by legendary photographer Alfred Wertheimer and Georgia artist Joni Mabe, the Elvis Babe, as well as a performance by the Elvis tribute band, Young Elvis and the Blue Suedes.
"If you dig the '50s, everything about it is coming up in this," said Andrew Henley, education curator of the museum.
Cake will be served, and children will have the opportunity to participate in craft projects relating to Elvis, his music and his life story as seen through the artistic eyes of Wertheimer and Mabe.
The event will begin at 1 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
"We will be looking at Elvis in context to see why (he) stuck out so much in the 1950s," Henley said.
Wertheimer's exhibition "Elvis at 21, New York to Memphis," is a series of more than 40 gelatin-silver photographs which JCSM will feature prior to a planned national tour of the photographs reproduced as pigment prints and organized by the Smithsonian Institution.
"Since we developed this exhibition, ours will be the original gelatin-silver prints," said Dennis Harper, curator of collections and exhibitions.
Henley said Wertheimer captured in his photographs the pivotal phase of Elvis' life when the 21-year-old singer was merely a new voice on the music scene.
Distinctive vocals and pelvic gyrations deemed by many to be unsuitable for public appearances elevated Elvis to superstardom.
"He's not what is deemed appropriate," Henley said. "He was not a standard-bearer for 1950s society."
Wertheimer's exhibition depicts a handful of the decade's social changes Elvis demonstrated in his on- and off-stage persona.
Children will be able to interactively study these changes through craft projects such as constructing a radio modeled after a vintage crystal radio circa 1956 and fashioning a pelvic bone for "Elvis the Pelvis" with Popsicle sticks.
"We want to make it interesting for the kids by connecting social studies, art and science," Henley said.
Mabe's exhibition "Elvis & Friends: Glitter Mosaics," will feature a compilation of 10 of the artist's mixed-media works which she describes as "glitter mosaics."
Not all the works are of Elvis, Mabe said. They also include circus showman P.T. Barnum, Loretta Lynn and Hank Williams.
Mabe said she became obsessed with Elvis on Aug. 16, 1977, the day he died.
"I made my first Elvis art that night," Mabe said. "And now, 32 years later, I am still making Elvis art."
Mabe said she discovered the difference glitter made in her work when she was in art school getting a degree in print making.
"Some areas of my prints didn't come out as dark as I wanted," Mabe said, "so I started covering up those areas with glitter."
Mabe said she thought the glitter looked so good she began using it on more of her pieces.
"I use glitter, rhinestones and sequins that represent (Elvis') Las Vegas jumpsuits," Mabe said.
Children at the event will be able to mirror Mabe's glitter mosaics by making mosaics of their own using photocopied prints and glitter.
Glitter mosaics of Elvis are just the tip of the iceberg regarding Mabe's extensive collection of Elvis paraphernalia.
"I have over 30,000 Elvis items in my house," Mabe said. "I keep adding more and more."
Mabe said she traveled with her "Panoramic Encyclopedia of Everything Elvis" museum for 14 years, but permanently located it in the Loudermilk Boarding House Museum in Cornelia, Ga., in 1999.
"My museum has a combination of my artwork and others' artwork," Mabe said.
Traveling to various locations with her collection required 22 wooden crates, an 18-wheeler and a fork lift, Mabe said.
"It usually took a week or two for it to get there," Mabe said.
Mabe said two of her most unusual, but perhaps most interesting, items in her collection are the "Elvis Wart" and the "Maybe Elvis Toenail."
Mabe said she bought the wart from a doctor in Memphis in 1991 who removed it from Elvis's right wrist in 1958 before Elvis went into the army.
As for the toenail, Mabe said it is a clipping she found and pulled out of the shag carpet in the jungle room at Graceland in 1983.
"I'm definitely not the only hardcore Elvis fan out there," Mabe said.
Her museum is now home to the annual Big E Festival, which welcomes all Elvis fanatics and Elvis impersonators (who prefer the title "Elvis Tribute Artists," or E.T.A.'s), Mabe said.
"I like meeting people and the whole phenomenon of Elvis," Mabe said. "I'm one of them, but I can also step out and observe."
Mabe and her artwork featuring Elvis and other similar popular culture icons have been recognized globally, from Honolulu to London.
Mabe said she has made television appearances on "Late Night with Jay Leno," MTV, VH1 and MSNBC, as well as a radio segment on the Howard Stern Show.
"(Stern) called my mother at 6:30 in the morning and told her I needed psychological help," Mabe said, laughing. "At first, she didn't know who it was."
Mabe will be giving a lecture to the public at JCSM Oct. 13 at 4 p.m. titled "Elvis: A Lifetime Obsession." She will also be giving an artist talk Oct. 15 at 5 p.m.
"I will be bringing some of my 'Everything Elvis' books to sell and sign," Mabe said.
In addition to the museum's birthday celebration and the Elvis exhibition, which will last through January, Henley said the museum has many more events to look forward to this semester.
"Each gallery changes every three to four months," Henley said. "It is a really dynamic place."
Henley said he encourages students to register online for free membership to JCSM in order to receive benefits from the museum.
"We are constantly updating, reinventing and changing exhibits," Henley said. "Every time a student comes, something is bound to be different."
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