Local Art News | Mixed Media

The Glendinning is Dead, Long Live the …? And Other News: Jean Irwin, Nathan Pinnock and Illuminate

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Glendinning as the home of Utah Arts & Museums, in 1978 (courtesy Utah Arts & Museums)

For more than 40 years, the Glendinning mansion on South Temple has been home to the Utah Arts Council/Division of Art and Museums. No more. The division is getting the boot to make way for the expanding complex of their neighbor and boss: the governor. Which means the Alice Gallery, on the building’s main floor, will be no more.

A reception for Mary Toscano’s new exhibit (review upcoming) on Friday evening was the last Gallery Stroll event for the space. A little after 8 pm, UA&M director Vicki Bourns was folding tablecloths and learning how to collapse cocktail tables at the end of the reception. She says UA&M will be staying in the Glendinning through the end of the year (initial reports had indicated sooner), but she is unsure where they’ll end up. There’s talk of an office space on Highland Drive at about 3700 South. You know, the center of Utah’s cultural activity.

In 1975 the Glendinning building was slated to be sold and the property to be turned into condominiums. Then Utah Arts Council director Ruth Draper was responsible for saving the building and turning the property into a public good.

READ MORE ABOUT IT IN THE TRIBUNE:

9/15 SLTRIB: The closure of a flagship gallery in Salt Lake City has artists wondering where they will go

Jean Irwin


9/15 Jean Tokuda Irwin to Receive NASAA 2022 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Individual Award 

From the NASAA press release: The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) has named Jean Tokuda Irwin the recipient of the 2022 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Individual Award. This award recognizes individuals who demonstrate outstanding leadership and tireless efforts in addressing and raising awareness about issues of diversity, equity and inclusion in their state or region. The award will be presented on September 24 during NASAA Assembly 2022 in Kansas City, Missouri.

Jean Tokuda Irwin is a visual arts dabbler, is devoted to kintsugi and believes in the value of tsundoku, global travel, saving this planet and learning. Her work East Went West and Was Lost appeared in the 2002 Winter Olympics Cultural Olympiad Women Beyond Borders; her The Goddess of Hysterectomy was featured in Art Access Gallery and publications; and her The American Way (the story of children who died while detained along the U.S./Mexico border) appeared in Clay, Paper, Scissors Gallery in Laramie, Wyoming.

The arts education program manager for the Utah Division of Arts & Museums (UA&M), Irwin’s professional service includes serving as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and a reviewer for the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities Youth Program Awards. She served on NASAA’s Arts Education Leadership Advisory Group and is on NASAA’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion/Arts Education Subcommittee. She is one of six non-Indigenous individuals who served on the Utah American Indian/Alaska Native Education Committee; UA&M/Arts Education is currently in a partnership on the Native American Curriculum Initiative. Irwin was one of three Asian Americans on the Coalition for Minorities Advisory Council to the State Board of Education. While on the National PTA Diversity Committee and board of directors, she piloted dance and film/video for National PTA Reflections, later adopted by the organization. 

Irwin’s awards include the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Individual Arts Award, the Utah Counselor’s Association’s Human Rights Award, the Ruby Chacon Award for Arts & Social Justice, the Sorensen Legacy Award for Lifetime Achievement in Arts Education, a Special Recognition Award from Utah Cultural Alliance, and the 2020 Arts Education Award from Americans for the Arts. She holds a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Texas Permian Basin.

Nathan Pinnock

9/14 HOLLADAY ARTS is pleased to recognize Nathan Pinnock as the September Artist of the Month. Nathan’s artwork is on display in the foyer of City Hall through Friday, September 30, 2022. (4580 S 2300 E, Monday-Friday, 8-5.) Artist Nathan Pinnock is drawn to uplifting themes including Christmas and religious art. However, it is not the perfection of the human form and face that he seeks. He likes the “reality,” if you will, in us all. I love that every person’s face has so much character to it,” Pinnock said. “When I paint a portrait, I feel it’s a landscape. I get to see all the nooks and crannies that have made that person who they are—their smile lines and their character come shining through, so I like about people all the things that most people don’t like about themselves.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

 

9/12 ILLUMINATE Light Art + Creative Tech Fest  receives grant award from the National Endowment for the Arts to support festival growth

From the UAA Press Release: Salt Lake City’s Utah Arts Alliance has been awarded a $25,000 Grants for Arts Projects award from the National Endowment for the Arts to support ILLUMINATE: Light Art + Creative Technology Festival. This project will support artists wishing to present their works at the festival’s new location at Library Square.  Utah Arts Alliance’s project is among 1,125 projects across America totaling more than $26.6 million that were selected during this second round of Grants for Arts Projects fiscal year 2022 funding.

“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support arts and cultural organizations throughout the nation with these grants, including Utah Art Alliance, providing opportunities for all of us to live artful lives,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “The Arts contribute to our individual well-being, the well-being of our communities, and to our local economies. The arts are also crucial to helping us make sense of our circumstances from different perspectives as we emerge from the pandemic and plan for a shared new normal informed by our examined experience.”

ILLUMINATE  is a free celebration of innovation and imagination for the community, art lovers, and families. Artists working with technology and using light as their medium will use the city as their canvas and create projection-mapped artwork, light art displays and exhibits at the festival’s new location at Library Square and The Leonardo. Projection areas include some of Salt Lake City’s architectural gemstones, The City and County Building and the Downtown Public Library.

Applications are now being accepted for artist grants. This year’s theme is Mother Nature of Light, a look at environmentalism through the  ecofeminist lens. We will explore local issues, like the diminishing Great Salt Lake and global themes of healing and change. The theme is open to the interpretation of the artists submitting to present. We look forward to seeing the stories you want to tell.

ILLUMINATE ART GRANT APPLICATION 

 

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