Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner’s evocative, disturbing, dark novel, The Contortionists, has won this year’s 15 Bytes Book Award for fiction. The novel, which the author has described as a “literary crossover,” injects the tension of a suspense novel into the world of fully fleshed characters, deep context and […]
“Three vaccinations and four negative tests later, I still feel as if I am sneaking around like a thief to Home Depot, the studio, going to the river to walk the dogs and increasing my list of Life Birds,” says Bernard, referring to the birder’s count of specifies identified in the wild. “160 birds at this point.”
In Sweet Hearts, Melanie Rae Thon has written the most complex and challenging book … Complex because she has densely stitched together five generations of the lives of the families she created, but also woven them into more than a century of eventful and unsettling Western history. And challenging not only because this is a history of relentless exploitation, marked by misadventure, injustice, and cruelty, but also because she refuses to shield herself or her readers from the true horror of the continuing conflict between the Native Americans who were driven from their lands again and again, and the interlopers from the east who always found, and continue to find, reasons why they still want to take for themselves even the desolate places they forced those defeated communities to take on.
“It has been very quiet in the halls here at Poor Yorick Studios,” says Salt Lake City artist Lisa McAfee. Originally from the California coast, McAfee earned her BFA from California State, Long Beach, before coming to Utah. She works with painting, printmaking and mixed media to depict “expansive landscapes, objects, and animals integrated with personal symbolism.”
Mike Jensen says he has used positive affirmation statements to help guide him through 2021. “It has been a year of introspection and growth. With everything going on in the world, and all of the isolation, my fear was that I would struggle. Fortunately, I’ve learned to thrive … and I have created more artwork than any other year.”
Colorful. Full of life and energy. Radiant. Joyous. An explosion of color into form. All words and phrases that describe Untamed, the new body of work by Nicholas Wilton at Julie Nester Gallery in Park City. But walking into the gallery, surrounded by so many large and busy […]
“There is nothing more interesting to me than how light bounces across the surfaces of a front porch,” says Elise Zoller. “I love front porches. Reflected light might be the whole reason I do this,” she says of her practice of painting architectural landscapes en plein air. A graduate of Princeton (in architecture), Zoller has studied drawing and painting at the Academy of Realist Art in Boston and Masters Academy in Springville, Utah. In the warmer moths, Zoller works primarily in northern Utah and heads south, to St. George and points beyond, in the winter.
Twice a year — generally around the equinoxes — Poor Yorick Studios opens its doors to thousand of Utah art lovers for their open studio event. Located in South Salt Lake, the studio complex comprises four adjacent and connected buildings and is home to dozens of artists working […]
There were times in the 20th century when the most compelling works of art came from the crafts end of the art spectrum. Some works that emphasized fundamental materials, be it wood or glass or ceramics or textiles, seemed closer to the essence of artistic expression than what […]
It was recently calculated by the University of Cambridge that the amount of electricity required by Bitcoin in a year would power all the tea kettles of the United Kingdom for 27 years. This startling assertion brings to mind two facts, both of which are part of the […]
On Dec. 17, Park City’s Gallery MAR will open an exhibition by Sarah Winkler titled Mountain Glow. Winkler, a Manchester, England native who also grew up in Malawi and Brunei, studied Art and Earth Science at William Paterson University. Working from a studio at 9000 feet in the […]
At first glance, there’s something distressingly familiar about Nick Pedersen’s Slow Apocalypse, which — installed in the Exit gallery at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art — represents a traditional gallery, including an upholstered viewing bench surrounded by 14 framed-and-hung works. Initially it recalls, among other things, a […]
For the past couple of decades, I’ve enjoyed the works of Steve Creson across artistic formats and disciplines: screenings of his own and selected other short films in Belltown basement theaters, back when we met while living in Seattle (way back in years that started with a 1); […]
“If we could unpeel ourselves down to our lone intelligences, what might we find in our personalities?” – LAZERos “Can a Woman Forget?” – Kathryn Ivy Reese “Can any human being ever reach the highest light?” – Brinnley Ashton “Is there a third path?” – Daenen Rolapp These […]
Art Access, a Salt Lake City organization which aims to build an inclusive and diverse arts community in Utah through creative opportunities for people with disabilities and other marginalized communities, has announced two new staff members: Cara Jean Hall as Communications and Digital Marketing Manager and Max Barnewitz as […]
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.
Samantha daSilva (born 1978 Santos, São Paulo, Brazil) is a professional artist and educator living and working in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States.
As a third generation artist, daSilva was inspired at an early age by her copiously artistic family, namely; her grandmother, a portrait artist, her aunt, an accomplished jewelry designer, and her mother, a watercolorist, who influenced da Silva to experiment with a variety of mediums.
“Water is an intrinsic part of my process. Straight from the tube, acrylic paint is tight, rigid. With the addition of water, the paint relaxes, takes a long, deep breath, begins to move and dance across the canvas. I tilt and manipulate the canvas so that shapes begin to form. I respond to these shapes intuitively. For this reason, my work is never preconceived. I prefer to have the work direct me instead. Fearless Abstract Painting is a process of adding and subtracting to create balance and harmony on the canvas.
My work is a celebration. Once, I identified myself as a victim. Broken, deficient, lacking. Today I am empowered, grateful, anew. Through my work, I attempt to illustrate the redemptive power of choice.”
To discover more artists, visit our Utah Artists Directory
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