You wouldn’t think a town with a little over 700 people could sustain an art gallery. Towns that size don’t even have a grocery store sometimes, let alone an art gallery. And, sure, Torrey or Escalante might even be smaller than that and they have a gallery, but, poised at the entrance to National Parks, both are considered destination locations.

But Elsinore, the home of the new Staples Art Center and Gallery, isn’t really a destination for anything. A few miles down the road from Richfield, it’s the type of place you pass while making the long trek across I-70 to reach 1-15, or maybe traveling down highway 89 on your way to another destination location, Bryce Canyon. You hardly even notice the place, let alone think to stop there. But if you are interested in what is going on with Utah artists you might rethink that.

Central Utah may not have any National Parks, but it does have a lot of working artists, and last October, a group of them formed “ArtWorks of Sevier,” a small group of local artists painting en plein air. When one of the group inherited a small home in Elsinore, she offered it to the group as a place to display their artwork and conduct classes. The group has now grown to eighteen members and has over 160 items on display in their new gallery and art center including all media, wood carvings, wood turnings, and Native American Pottery.

The Art Center and Gallery is located at 120 South 100 East, Elsinore, Utah, 84724 and is open from 1-7 P. M. every Friday and Saturday or anytime by appointment. If you have any questions contact president LaMar Mills at lmills8600@msn.com.

If metropolitan areas are more your thing, a couple of local artists are starting a gallery in the heart of Salt Lake, at the downtown library. Joy Nunn and Janet Bondi, sisters, artists and now business partners, have applied and been accepted to have a permanent art gallery in the shops at Salt Lake City’s main public library. Art at the Main is a new non-profit corporation whose mission is to provide public access to and promote public interest in quality artwork created by emerging Utah artists who do not already have an established, ongoing venue.

Nunn and Bondi have plans to be up and running by the beginning of June so that they can take advantage of the Utah Arts Festival later that month. They are currently accepting applications for artists working in the following media: mixed media, watercolor, oil, acrylic, pastel, pen & ink, pencil, prints such as etchings, monoprints, silkscreen, lithography, hangable fiber art, small 3-D sculpture, and glasswork.

Applications and portfolios will be accepted Saturdays April 8, 15, 22 from 12 noon – 4 pm at the artists’ studios in Rockwood Studios. For more information, visit our call for entries at the message board.

Provo is neither a metropolitan area nor a rural town. It is a college town. Well, a University town to be precise, with a large college in nearby Orem. And many of the art venues in the area are linked to these institutions and function as part of them. Provo does have its own commercial galleries, such as Terra Nova Gallery, but what it lacks is a non-profit community art center such as one finds in Salt Lake, Bountiful or Ogden. Gallery OneTen, which recently opened in one of downtown Provo’s historic buildings, aims to fill that void.

Members of the Provo art community have been eager to have a community venue of this sort and gallery director Raquel Smith Callis, who has experience running the Provo Art’s Council Gallery, as well as downtown Provo’s storefront gallery, jumped at the opportunity when Gallery OneTen was finally organized as a non-profit. The gallery seeks to “create enthusiasm for, understanding of, and awareness of the importance and benefit of the arts for all persons.” They believe “the arts are truly a universal and essential language that challenges people to look beyond themselves” and “believe that participation in the arts promotes acceptance and inclusion in all aspects of life.”

Gallery One Ten is located at 110 South 300 W, Provo, UT and is open Monday – Friday 3 – 9 p.m. For more information contact Raquel Callis Smith at 801-623-0615 or at info@galleryoneten.com

15 Bytes

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.