(Left) Judith Dierkes at the Sun Tunnels. (Right) Rossiter family at the Sun Tunnels.
True story.
Last weekend I was with my family at the Sun Tunnels. Two weeks before the big Nancy Holt event, and on a Monday to boot, we thought we might have the place to ourselves (see below for tips getting there). Two other lovers of art and the desert had beat us there, however.
Actually, they were artists, and when they noticed the 15 Bytes t-shirts members of the family were wearing, they struck up a conversation. They were big fans it turned out (a fact I asked them to repeat loudly and with enthusiasm once the children were within earshot).
One had even decided to move here because of 15 Bytes (okay, there might have been additional reasons, but apparently our publication sealed the deal).
“I was trying to figure out if I should move to Salt Lake City and Utah when I came across 15 Bytes,” Judith Dierkes was kind enough to email us afterwards (so we’d have it for the record). An interdisciplinary artist originally from Tennessee, she says, “After viewing the latest edition of 15 Bytes I was sold on moving to Utah. I’m not disappointed. The art scene here is vibrant. Now I look forward to my subscription each month.”
Do you look forward to your subscription?
Judith has sent us a donation to hire 15 Bytes for another six months. Will you?
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GETTING TO THE SUN TUNNELS:
There’s a dirt road that goes from the Salt Flats to the Sun Tunnels, but it’s apparently pretty rough and may not save you time in the long run.
We drove on I-80 about 30 miles into Nevada, took the Oasis/Montello exit (378) which takes you back into Utah. (Montello, NV, which is close to the border, is the only place for gas/food). Ten miles across the border there’s a sign for Lucin, to the south.
We followed this guy’s directions, which were good – http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/SUNTUNNELS.HTML
You’re only on a dirt road (improved) for about 5 miles so you can do the trip in any type of car.
Go over the fence at Lucin. It’s worth taking a peek at the little oasis there.
You can go back the way you came. Alternately, when you get back on the highway, take route 30 east. It’s a lonely road (i.e. no services), but will bring you up to I-84, which will drop you into Tremonton. Probably the shortest route for those in Weber County.
The founder of Artists of Utah and editor of its online magazine, 15 Bytes, Shawn Rossiter has undergraduate degrees in English, French and Italian Literature and studied Comparative Literature in graduate school before pursuing a career in art.
Categories: Daily Bytes
Recent stories about the closing of the Central Utah Art Center that have appeared in the Tribune, Salt Lake Magazine, and further afield are marked by two common remarks: one hears repeatedly about the group of ‘young’ artists who took credit for the success of the CUAC, and one witnesses their sense of outrage at being denied . . . what? Not the right to make art or show art, surely. The right they extol is the right to public support. How dare the public withdraw their funding? Are we to understand that young artists today are so habituated to public dollars that they feel justified in demanding them?
If so, they should take a look at 15 Bytes. Sure, this magazine has sought and accepted funding: how else pay for something available to everyone for free? But we who write it, and photograph it, and promote it, do so as volunteers. The thousands of hours of skilled (and sometimes not-so-skilled) labor that go into a season of 15 Bytes are donated by persons of all ages who love art and believe art journalism serves both the artist and the public. We don’t feel entitled to have someone write a check before we show up to show off what moves us. We will go on searching out good art, whether there is a place to publish it or now. And I hope there will be enough insatiable and able readers who share our interests, who will continue to support us, so that we can continue to have this resource, and the community it both serves and helps create.