Photo Essay: Studio Spaces
At Home Or On The Move
Parowan's Spike Ress is always ready to paint
by Shawn Rossiter

With his wife, artist Sue Cotter, Spike Ress has built a life immersed in art. Their home in the small Utah town of Parowan is a bedroom, kitchen and living room flanked by a studio for each artist. But with art and artifacts adorning walls and nooks throughout the house, it's hard to tell where the living quarters end and the working quarters begin. Ress's studio (look for Cotter's in a future edition) features tall north windows, which flood the space with light, multiple working stations, for watercolors, oil painting, framing and storage, and is festooned with paraphernalia picked up on the couple's many travels.

The proximity of Ress's studio to the front door — walk in the house and you're essentially in his studio — is appropriate since the artist is frequently on the road painting en plein air. His "Art Spirit" van has been transformed into a mobile studio, the envy of many plein air painters throughout the state, who suffer under the rain or from the wind and cold while Ress is comfortably painting ensconced in his warm, dry environment.

You can view the artist's work at spikesart.com.

Krystal K. Baker, B.A., M.Ed., is a Language Arts teacher at Payson High School, and freelance writer. Her work has appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune, The Ogden Standard Examiner, The Daily Herald, City Weekly, BYU Magazine, Seeing the Everyday, and the Kolob Canyon Review.

Jared Christensen grew up in North Ogden, Utah and finally moved to Salt Lake at the age of 18 to go to school. He graduated from Westminster College with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in photography. He continues to explore his art and exhibit locally, and currently works for 15 Bytes and for Tanner Frames in Salt Lake City.

Ehren Clark studied art history at both the University of Utah and the University of Reading in the UK. He is now a professional writer.

Samuel Hanson's formative dance training was with Hilary Carrier and at Tanner Dance. His recent work has been seen at the New Media Wing, the Rose Wagner Center, the Mudson Performance series, in Montana, California, Tennessee, Florida, Mexico and New York. He’s recently performed in the work of Yvonne Meier.

Larry Menlove is a graduate of the University of Utah. His fiction has appeared in many venues including Weber Studies, Dialogue, Irreantum and Sunstone. He lives with his wife, children and an old cat in Spring Lake.

Lynn K. Kilpatrick first collection of short stories, In the House, was published by FC2. Her fiction has recently appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and Hotel Amerika. Her essays have been published in Creative Nonfiction, Ninth Letter, and Brevity. She earned her PhD in Fiction from the University of Utah and an MA in Poetry from Western Washington University. She teaches at Salt Lake Community College.

Ann Poore is a freelance writer and editor who spent most of her career at The Salt Lake Tribune. She also worked for Salt Lake City Weekly and has written for such publications as Utah Business Magazine and Salt Lake Magazine.

Shawn Rossiter, a native of Boston, was raised on the East Coast. He has degrees in English, French and Italian Literature. A professional artist and writer, he founded Artists of Utah in 2001 and is editor of its magazine, 15 Bytes.

Michael Sowder writes poetry and essays that explore themes of wilderness, fatherhood, Buddhism, and spirituality. His poetry books include House Under the Moon and The Empty Boat, both from Truman. His nonfiction appears frequently in the Buddhist magazine, Shambhala Sun. A professor of English at Utah State University, in Logan, he lives at the foot of the Bear River Mountains with his wife, the writer Jennifer Sinor, and their two sons.