“Convergence,” a 20-foot-tall work of cast aluminum forming a partial male head that peers skyward, adds a sense of intrigue and mystery to the nondescript government building it flanks, just off I-215 in Taylorsville. Installed in October of 2017, Douwe Blumberg’s sculpture is meant to give a visual representation of […]
A new mural standing tall on the façade of the Furst Construction Company headquarters at 700 West and North Temple celebrates the resilience of the Salt Lake west-side community in its fight against gentrification. Created by first-generation Colombian American artist Jessica Sabogal, the mural features an image of […]
An attentive group of writers and mentors gathers around two long tables at the City Library downtown on a Thursday evening. This workshop is a collaboration between the Artes de Mexico en Utah (Mexican Art of Utah) and Salt Lake Community College’s Community Writing Center. Participants receive valuable […]
I began driving to the Commonwealth Studios upset that my tidy and prescribed theater route was disrupted on a hot night. But upon parking (finally) I discovered that the Municipal Ballet Company had found yet another magical space for something to happen. The company’s newest concert,“Night” is, in a word, disarming. In […]
READ LOCAL First represents Utah’s most comprehensive collection of celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and memoir. This week we bring you four previously unpublished poems by Clifton H. Jolley. A widely published poet and essayist, Jolley joins Utah Poet Laureate Paisley Rekdal and former Utah Poet Laureate Katharine Coles, […]
When Jenni Reed moved to Salt Lake City from Houston with her fiancé Matthew Sketch, she didn’t know that they would decide to stay here permanently, or that she would decide to open an art gallery, or that he would be the first artist to show there. But […]
The second weekend of Ballet West’s National Choreographic Festival features three pieces created by women: Jennifer Archibald’s “Myoho,” performed by Cincinnati Ballet, Robyn Mineko Williams’s “To Clear,” performed by Charlotte Ballet, and África Guzmán’s “Sweet and Bitter,” performed by Ballet West. Like the first weekend of the festival, each choreographer presents a different approach […]
The epigraph to Lance Larsen’s new collection of prose poems is attributed to Paul of Tarsus: “Everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and suffer need.” Evoked, of course, is the ever-famous notion of negative capability […]
When Ballet West Artistic Director Adam Sklute welcomed the audience to the second annual National Choreographic Festival last night, there was tangible excitement in the auditorium: not only was every work on the program created by a female choreographer, but the artistic directors of the visiting companies, Richmond […]
When Madison Donnelly showed her sculpture, “User Centered Design,” at the 2017 Statewide Annual Exhibition, it was outstanding in a field of more conventional works. As a photo that ran in 15 Bytes at the time reveals, even the staff at Rio Gallery seemed to think so: in […]
“I figure if a girl wants to be a legend she should just go ahead and be one.” Attributed to the American frontierswoman known as Calamity Jane, the quote hangs prominently in Janell James’ studio. It says plenty about the talented and determined Utah artist featured in UVU’s […]
We share with you a new feature from our partners at loveDANCEmore. This article represents the beginning of a new format for the performance journal. Each month they’ll be posting a new interview, essay, poem or other piece of original creative content related to dance-making in Utah. loveDANCEmore […]
Figurative artist William "Bill Whitaker died on March 6, aged 74. We remember him with this interview, conducted in 2007 by the late Ehren Clark.
The Ascension of Classical Arts: An Interview With William Whitaker
Many are aware of classical art, but most are unaware of the fullness of the tradition, whose elements are so fundamental to the basic structure of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was a tradition that had its genesis with the Greeks, the Romans, subsequently the Renaissance revival, and a 400-year dominance of the French Academy, only to become obscured, lost amidst the paths of the modern. With limitless forms of contemporary art, are we to find classical art, in its pure and original state, a part of the forefront of mainstream art once more?
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