4/19 SLTRIB: A UVU student’s artwork was rejected from a school exhibition. Here’s how she made sure her work was seen.
In the art world, rejection can be the end all. It can hinder creativity, put an end to an artwork’s fledgeling life, or catalyze a creative block.
For Utah Valley University art student Jaya Betts, rejection proved to be just another prompt.
When her work was rejected from UVU’s 2025 Student Art Exhibition, she took it upon herself to make sure her art made it in front of exhibit goers — through a guerrilla art drop on the opening day of the exhibition.
4/16 KORVUS KREATE PODCAST: Meet James Rees | Art as a Tool for Expression and The Power of Community
In this episode, James emphasizes the power of art as a tool for self-expression and highlights the vital role that community plays in the creative journey.
James Rees is a renowned advocate for art education, known for integrating theory, research, and practice. He received the Governor’s Leadership in the Arts Award in 2016 and currently serves as Commissioner At-Large Representative for the National Art Education Research Commission, while also teaching graduate courses at Brigham Young University.
A lifelong artist, James found his voice through monotype printing, using it as a powerful tool for expression and connection. His influence spans globally, with lectures, workshops, and residencies in countries like Chile, Canada, South Korea, and Venezuela.
He is a Fulbright Memorial Scholar, Art21 Education Fellow, and Teachers Institute of Contemporary Art Fellow, and has reviewed for the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and the NEA. He also serves on the Utah Cultural Alliance Board, advocating for cultural industries and the arts in public policy.
4/15 WESTMINSTER REVIEW: Scout Invie and Wearing the West
When Scout Invie (’19) first traveled to Great Salt Lake as part of a first-year class at Westminster University, the experience was unlike anything she’d encountered before. Scout grew up in Idaho and Wyoming, so she was no stranger to the American West. However, standing on the shore of such an unusual, otherworldly environment and learning about the issues facing it had a profound impact on her life.
In addition to managing marketing for nonprofit independent bookseller Torrey House Press and serving as a freelance writer and editor for art organizations, Scout is an award-winning artist whose work is focused on issues facing the American West. She works mostly with fiber arts, creating wearable pieces like corsets and dresses. She also incorporates performance into her art by wearing her pieces and photographing them in outdoor spaces threatened by climate change and human impact.
4/15 SLTRIB: SLC’s newest experiment in choosing public art: A living room in a grocery store parking lot
Would you be more likely to stop and chat with Salt Lake City officials about new improvements coming to your neighborhood if they set up a temporary living room in the parking lot of your local grocery store?
Large-scale artist Matthew Mazzotta hopes so. He’s planning to plop a living room on the asphalt in front of the Rose Park Smith’s Food and Drug location on 600 North next week as a way of gatheringideas for a monumental new art installation set to anchor Glendale Regional Park.
“It’s a spectacle,” Mazzotta said of setting up the outdoor room for outreach. “… There could be vacuums, fake plants. There could be lamps. There could be side tables, couches, all the trimmings of what a living room might have.”
4/13 DESERET NEWS: Salt Lake City’s newest art walk unearths a hidden downtown gem
A group of a few dozen stopped and looked up at a blue water droplet literally staring back at them.
This droplet — with an eye bulging out on each side — is meant to symbolize that it’s a living entity, local artist Trevor Dahl, who designed the piece, explained to the crowd.
“The eye represents the consciousness of nature and something that we should all try to remember in this urban jungle, which is the whole point of this project,” he said, speaking through a megaphone as cars buzzed behind him and construction crews worked on Temple Square behind him.
4/10 SLTRIB: In Salt Lake City’s growing Granary District, brewery owners and locals help paint a new crosswalk — without city permission
Salt Lake City’s popular Granary District has ballooned, but locals feel its infrastructure — and the city — hasn’t kept up.
Groups of people hopping between the neighborhood’s breweries, restaurants and evening concerts often find themselves walking along the path of unfinished sidewalks, or crossing large, dark intersections without marked crosswalks.
“It’s just a kind of, ‘Take your own life into your hands,’ if you’re going to walk from Fisher to Slackwater,” Fisher Brewing co-owner Tim Dwyer said. “You have to kind of traverse the wilderness over there.”
3/25 SLTRIB: 16 artists get a chance to shine at Delta Center as part of sports, arts collaboration
On a typical game day — whether for the Utah Jazz or Utah Hockey Club — the concourse at the Delta Center is filled with frenetic energy. Fans rush by, on their way to grab food or a T-shirt before finding their seats.
But at last week’s Jazz game against the Washington Wizards and Utah Hockey Club’s game against the Buffalo Sabres — fans had a chance to stumble upon something different: artists cordoned off in V-shaped areas, stationed in front of canvases, mixing paints on palettes with a sharp focus on their work.
The 16 artists — eight at the basketball game and eight at the hockey game — are part of “En Plein Air,” a sports and arts collaboration between the Smith Entertainment Group Foundation and The Blocks, the name given by Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County to a stretch of downtown that serves as the cultural core of Utah’s capital.
UTAH’S ART MAGAZINE SINCE 2001, 15 Bytes is published by Artists of Utah, a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Categories: Mixed Media | Visual Arts
