Installation view of “Radical Romance,” Red Flower Studios’ February exhibition. Courtesy of Red Flowers Studios.

Originally opening its first glassblowing hotshop and showroom nine years ago in Park City’s Iron Horse District, Red Flower Studios now has a second location with a gallery space in the rapidly developing Granary District of Salt Lake City. The new location hosts glassblowing classes and workshops, facilitated by the owners Daniel Bell and Jeremy Wilstein, with the gallery curated by local painter Vita Rice.

Similar to Central 9th and the Maven District, this area has seen rapid development with condos and walk ups being built around the old warehouse Red Flower’s Salt Lake location is based out of on 300 West and 700 South.  “There is so much under construction. In a year and a half time, I am so excited to see what this area looks like,” Rice says.

Still from a video of Red Flower Studios using a glass bowl at 1700°F to sear salmon, hamachi, and aromatics to create an appetizer.

The studio hosts a Cooking on Hot Glass event at the Park City location once a month—five courses, $200 a seat, 20 seats, with a curated menu by visiting chefs Tom Thibedeau of Hidden Peak Cafe in Heber and Matt Nelson, both private chefs. “We ladle out molten glass and sear things on it,” Rice says. Using all different sorts of glassblowing techniques to cook food, they seared duck and quail breast on one recent menu. “The chefs are truly artists in their craft,” Rice says. The food is served on glass plates blown in house with their own unique drinking glass.

Rice was painting full-time before connecting with the owner to take over the curation and directorship of the Salt Lake City shop. “I want to activate this space with as much art as possible, platforming people who I think are doing great things in the arts,” Rice says. “I like a solo show, having all of your work in context with your other work. But I love a group show, because one piece might not hit the same way for the viewer on its own as it does paired and telling a story with many other pieces of work.” The Salt Lake City space staged their first exhibit, a group show, in January. Opening April 18, the April show features Trevor Dahl, followed by Anna Leigh Moore (May 16-June 14), Carson Young Besser (June 20-July 12) and Jonah Kinikini (July 18-August 9).

“I love a show opening. I love a celebration,” Rice says. “I think a lot of times the gallery world can be kind of dry. You walk in on opening night and it’s quiet. It’s like, where’s the DJ?” Rice is a part of a rising generation of artists and curators breathing new life into what has historically been pretentious and haughty—pivoting an old, stale format of galleries away from white walls and white haired people determining what is in and what is not. Why is it boring and drab? What art-making space is white and clean and quiet? The rising generation are reimagining the intersection of professionalism and the spontaneity of art. “What is special about this being a glass blowing studio is that we can have a DJ and there is already an undercurrent, a younger pulse built into the fabric of what this place is,” Rice says. “It feels nice to be able to give people I know the opportunity to show somewhere that really nicely bridges the gap with professionalism and the underground.”

Red Flower is dedicated to tapping into the inherent creativity in all of us, giving folks a platform to feel, to learn something new, to be a part of community. “For our longevity’s sake, being in supportive and inspiring and exciting and engaging community is paramount to our health,” Rice says. “This is seen across history—and most recently with COVID—people lose touch with community. That’s really bad for our physical and mental and spiritual health. Getting people to meet and greet and expand their vision of what’s around them in this city is huge. … Seeing a piece of art through a screen is a tiny fraction of what the experience is like in person,” Rice says.  When an artist can spend months on a piece that is consumed in two seconds on the internet, it is in spaces like Red Flower where we can actually sit with the art, take the pieces in, look at their textures and the nuances in hue, and talk about them together.

Installation view of “Radical Romance,” Red Flower Studios’ February exhibition. Courtesy of Red Flowers Studios.

Rice and Red Flower hope to give space for artists to connect, bringing often insular folks together, connecting and feeling inspired by each other. And she sees this as a revolutionary act. “Creativity and making art and community are all very subversive to the oppressive systems at play,” Rice says. “Subversiveness is a feature of creation rather than consumption. Being inspired to make art, to be an artist and be supported is your act of rebellion against capitalist systems and the systems at large that want us to be numb, work, consume Netflix and die… Or keep us from knowing that there is ecstasy available to you through tapping into your own intrinsic qualities of creativity and joy and fun and expression. In a society that is oppressed in their expression, that is very easy to manipulate and control—it’s a feedback loop that really serves the controlling of a populace—making art, even just for the fun of it, is such an act of rebellion and I want more people to do that because there is more than just consuming the programming that the people who are making the programming are making you consume. You can make your own things and feel connected to your body, and your mind, and your spirit through that and that is really special. Inspiring creativity through the platforming of creativity is definitely a feature of my outward passion I have for sharing art.”

Tapping into joy and connection with community is indelible to making a city bloom—something no luxury box apartment could do for this place. Especially in a field so underfunded and underappreciated, Red Flower Studios is making space for art, giving a platform for the local arts to continue to thrive in this rapidly changing city. The space fosters what Rice terms “radical allowance”—“letting ourselves fail and be creative and tapping into that.” Anyone can be creative, you just have to let yourself into yourself. Letting ourselves be bad at something by learning something new can be empowering and validating. You can come into spaces like this and learn something new and meet new people. If we proceed under the presumption that we aren’t artists or aren’t creative enough, that mentality can be prohibitive and stop us from seeing our full potential.

Check out Red Flower Studios website to sign up for classes and book private events or find details about the next Cooking on Hot Glass. 

Genevieve Vahl

Genevieve Vahl is a writer, farmer and artist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her writing focuses on how art and community intersect, how to bring access to food and covering climate solutions around the Salt Lake Valley. She also writes poetry, binds artist books, makes paper and runs cyanotype prints from film.