A graduate of the University of Utah, Ann Poore is a freelance writer and editor who spent most of her career at The Salt Lake Tribune. She was the 2018 recipient of the Salt Lake City Mayor's Artist Award in the Literary Arts.
There’s nothing funny about depression — ‘tis the season for an onslaught of the crippling mental illness in Utah, a state whose residents statistically are particularly prone to it. (Perhaps it’s more prevalent here during Pride than Yuletide?) That said, Pygmalion Productions is presenting an adult contemporary comedy […]
[dropcap]Brian[/dropcap] Kershisnik could be called the Mormon Norman Rockwell – if Rockwell had painted like Chagall and Mormons were still called Mormons – they aren’t supposed to be, I know, but can’t for the life of me recall what replaces the term so recently declared out of favor […]
During lunch at Kyoto, painter Oonju Chun asks, “Why do we say, ‘If I were . . .’ instead of ‘If I was . . .?”’ — one of those nitpicky English questions a writer hates to answer with “Ummmm . . .“ * But does. So, it […]
[dropcap]U[/dropcap]tah painter and sculptor Franz M. Johansen, who died Aug. 23 in Provo, found his artistic mission on an LDS church mission in the British Isles. There, his wife Josie Morris confirms, he learned about William Blake, who as a boy said he had seen God through a […]
You can’t grab a good cup of Jose to sip while viewing art at Mestizo anymore. For lots of reasons, not many of them particularly interesting, the Salt Lake City gallery has moved from the popular North Temple coffeehouse where it has been housed for more than a […]
It occurred to Gary Vlasic to involve Deaf sign-language poet Walter Kadiki in a performance. And NOW-ID choreographer Charlotte Boye-Christensen took his idea (with his permission) and ran with it. (After all, he’s on her board.) As a result, we have “A Tonal Caress” running July12-14 at the […]
Jamie Wayman’s show at the Art Barn in 2003 drew approval from the 15 Bytes critic of the day, but Kasey Boone questioned whether an interesting idea might not become a gimmick, asking, “Can you paint underwater scenes your whole life?” The answer is, absolutely: Wayman’s career has […]
Jenni Reed, of Dimebox Gallery. When Jenni Reed moved to Salt Lake City from Houston with her fiancé Matthew Sketch, she didn’t know that they would decide to stay here permanently, or that she would decide to open an art gallery, or that he would be the first […]
Photo by Simon Blundell “I figure if a girl wants to be a legend she should just go ahead and be one.” Attributed to the American frontierswoman known as Calamity Jane, the quote hangs prominently in Janell James’ studio. It says plenty about the talented and determined Utah […]
It may not look like a skydive in the still photographs, but in the Rose Wagner it feels real enough that you easily buy into several jumps in their entirety — preceded as they are by the rich sounds of plane vibrations and actors seeming to shake right […]
Photo by Nathalie van Empel, 2012. Courtesy BYU Museum of Art. The term “Renaissance man” is heard a lot, but Paul Anderson, who died suddenly the night of March 23, certainly ranks among them. An artist, architect, educator, curator and composer, he restored historic LDS buildings; sang in […]
In a 2002 piece for 15 Bytes, art historian and U of U Dean Bob Olpin wrote that the Springville Museum’s Spring Salon contained “one of the finest Bill Whitaker pretty girl paintings I’ve ever seen.” That was saying a great deal, considering the skill of this artist, whom […]
Two feisty spirits with plenty in common makes for an interesting friendship, one that can be traced back to when Claudia Sisemore was Trent Alvey’s uber-cool creative writing teacher at Hillside Junior High. Their artwork, though, has less in common, which makes for an interesting show at The […]
When Phyllis Forsey left for New York City in 1957, she was not headed for The Art Students League like some of her Utah peers. She took a more circuitous route to a painting career. Forsey had just finished her freshman year at BYU, where she had taken […]
“The photograph that we experience is not always the photograph that we see,” writes Joe Marotta on paper tacked to a wall of his show at Gittins Gallery. “I can look at a photograph I’ve looked at a dozen times and come up with a different story.” And […]
“Farmington Winter” (1924) by LeConte Stewart sold for $126,000. By unanimous vote, the Logan City School District Board of Education finalized the sale of 10 paintings in the district’s collection purchased with the milk money of elementary students in the 1930s that became worth a good deal: in […]
It’s difficult to fathom a photographer naming an abstract artist as a major influence. O’Keeffe and her desert flowers, maybe, but Rauschenberg and his mixed-media “Combines”? Really? “My dad is an artist and printmaker,” explains Simon Blundell,” and we’ve always had Rauschenberg’s books around the house.” His father, […]
Cody Chamberlain, with Antelope Island in the background. Photo by Simon Blundell. On a recent trip East, Cody Chamberlain visited the usual museums: saw the blockbuster Michelangelo show at the Met, a terrific O’Keeffe in the Carnegie, hit the Warhol and MoMA, too. But he also stopped at […]
Controversy has erupted over the Logan City School District’s decision to sell 11 paintings by regional artists apparently purchased through a program of early arts champion and Utah state representative Alice Merrill Horne, whose 150th birthday was celebrated Jan. 2. She helped 37 school districts and libraries across Utah […]
