Nothing’s more full of promise than a prop room in a theater, and that’s what this corner of the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art feels like, filled with Mitsu Salmon’s paintings on raw muslin. All six of Salmon’s big paintings (approximately 4 x 5 feet) are happy explosions […]
Welcome, my cool cats and kittens, to the . . . Circus of Death After navigating the Ramp of Doom, you’ll be faced with the Beams of Peril! Survive that and be tested by the Balancing Ball of Fright! Lucky enough to live through that? Well, try making […]
Utah Arts & Museums has announced the 12 recipients of their 2012 Utah Artist Fellowships. The $5,000 unrestricted cash prizes were award to six Utah visual artists and six performing artists. Allison Glenn, a New York-based curator and writer, juried the visual arts fellowships. “Through the jurying process, […]
Think globally, act locally. That’s Carol Sogard. From Detroit, Sogard has been a professor of graphic design at the University of Utah for more than two decades. Her work as a designer, educator and community-engaged artist focuses on the type of contemporary issues that affect the entire globe: […]
“I’m not the artist my family members are, but I write.” What Ashley Marie Farmer almost certainly means is that she never felt the sense of vocation that led her grandmother, mom, and sister to paint, her brother to shape pottery, and her grandfather to build a house […]
Allen Smith’s set for Annie Baker’s play Body Awareness at Pygmalion Theater is a kitchen and a bedroom — as Ikea-perfect as a dollhouse. There is something so orderly about the kitchen it’s startling; it ‘s too precious to be real. It seems it’s still a drawing on […]
The drive to the new Mid-Valley Performing Arts Center involves a turn off Redwood Road to a straight shot down 5400 South’s Flex Lanes – the middle lanes in the road are marked solely with dotted yellow lanes and a light indicating which direction of traffic is allowed […]
For several years Paul Crow’s art was about the outside world. The Weber State University professor’s work was frequently lens-based, passing through and observing the world, whether it be urban, ex-urban or rural. “Before, during and for a several years after art graduate school [MFA, University of Southern […]
It was 2020 and the pandemic was raging. Kristina Lenzi was teaching an online drawing class through Weber State University. The students were confined to their rooms and had been assigned an art kit that lent itself to mixed-media drawing: black and white acrylic paint, brushes, charcoal pencils, […]
In a feature we are introducing this month called Variant of Concern, we ask a Utah artist about a body of work that falls outside their normal practice. For Laura Ekerson’s upcoming exhibit at Writ and Vision, you can expect to be wowed by an appropriately Spring […]
With an unknown number works of art accepted, the Spring Salon at the Springville Museum of Art — far and away the exemplary annual show, at the definitive repository of homegrown Utah art and artists — defies imagination. Because it occupies almost the entire main floor, flowing from […]
“The best poems change all the while,” says Brenda Sieczkowski in this recording for our Poetry in Pajamas series. And she provides an example in the work of Kathryn Cowles, who, Sieczkowski says, has influenced her as a poet and a person. Cowles, a Provo native who studied […]
A beautiful wooden boat sits on clear, deep, blue water against a background of rugged mountains. The vibrant, blue sky is only interrupted by fluffy rolling clouds and the boat’s colorful but simple design is reflected in the water. At the bottom of the boat is a turquoise […]
The youngest poet featured in this year’s installment of Poets in Pajamas, Chelsea Guevara discovered poetry in high school, but she had to wait until college before she heard the work of anyone not white or male. She discovered Rita Dove in her first semester at the University […]
“Nephi taught that by clinging to the word of God we would be able to avoid temptation and not lose our way in darkness” – Joseph B. Wirthlin “The truth you believe in and cling to makes you unable to hear anything new.” – Pema Chodron These two […]
UMFA’S KATIE SEASTRAND NAMED UTAH’ TOP MUSEUM EDUCATOR
Katie Seastrand, manager of school and teacher programs at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) at the University of Utah, has been named Utah Museum Educator of the Year. Seastrand received the award Saturday, March 26, at the Utah Art Education Association (UAEA)’s Spring Conference held online.
“Katie does excellent work to connect K-12 students and teachers to the diverse world of art and creativity,” said Annie Burbidge Ream, co-director of learning and engagement at UMFA. “We truly are so grateful to get to work and learn alongside her, and we look forward to seeing all of the wonderful ways she will continue to enrich people’s lives through engaging art experiences.”
Hired in September 2019 to travel and teach in K-12 classrooms throughout Utah, Seastrand completely re-envisioned school outreach after COVID made in-person Museum tours and classroom visits impossible. Looking for new ways to safely support teachers and students, Seastrand focused first on immediate needs. She worked with classroom teachers and her colleagues in UMFA Learning and Engagement to develop and distribute 1,500 “Art Kits” of supplies to Salt Lake area schools and to Whitehorse High School in San Juan County. She then reimagined and expanded UMFA’s relatively new distance learning efforts into five new programs that have brought UMFA artworks and art-inspired experiences into classrooms virtually.
In two and a half years—most of that time under COVID restrictions—Seastrand has worked with more than 6,000 students and 550 teachers statewide to connect classroom core subjects to UMFA’s global art collection. These programs help students and teachers make connections between objects and their own lived experience, and they give underserved populations some of their only opportunities to experience the visual arts.
“Using art in classrooms not only provides opportunities for students to learn on their own terms but can also help with stress and social-emotional learning,” Seastrand said. “Students need room to be free and creative, to bring what they want to the paper, canvas, clay, or other medium. Art education is an empowering space and outlet for whatever emotions, anxieties, or experiences that may not easily be expressed through words.”
Seastrand grew up in Salt Lake City and graduated from Olympus High School. She has a bachelor’s degree in art history and curatorial studies from Brigham Young University and a master’s degree in museum education from George Washington University. While in graduate school, she interned at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Abracadabra Preschool in Alexandria, Virginia, before returning to Salt Lake City and joining the UMFA.
Baldwin Radio Company and the Flynn Artipelago
And if you’re an artist and want a booth at the centennial celebration this August, visit our Opportunities section.
Paul Heath is a graduate of the University of Utah and lives and works in Salt Lake.
“I characterize my work as “Pop-Nostalgia”. As a lifetime Salt Lake City resident, I draw inspiration from the awesome neon signs we have around us. I see my work as playful documentation, looking at objects and neighborhood niches through a lighter lens. I also paint images of older antique toys… to elicit a smile or friendly smirk. My art heroes are Andy Warhol, Red Grooms and Wayne Thiebaud.”
To discover more artists, visit our Utah Artists Directory
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