Abdal Aşık: Three Poems in English & Turkish
Love and beauty are prominent themes in Aşık’s work, which he describes as “ordered by the soul.” This installment of READ Local First includes three poems in Turkish with the poet’s English translations.
Please Touch the Art: The Open Room Invites You to an Evening of Postinternet Art
If you hit UMOCA on Saturday night, opportunity for fame awaits: the chance to digitally distort or enhance the work of a respected local or nationally or internationally famous artist and get your resulting image in a database and printed catalog. Not only that, but at 8:30 sharp […]
Connie Borup: Painting from the Inside Out
Never underestimate the influence of teachers, wherever you may find them. Connie Borup, now one of Utah’s best-known landscape painters, hadn’t the slightest inclination of becoming an artist until she met an art history teacher in Germany. Borup was raised in Kaysville, Utah, a town that was still a largely rural community dominated by fields in the 1950s. Growing up in that environment has its advantages, but Borup always knew she wanted “to get out.” Which explains why she jumped at the chance to become an exchange student. “That was such an eye-opener,” she recalls. “A 17-year-old Mormon girl leaving her town and going to Germany.” At the gymnasium in Cologne, she met Herr Beppo, who opened her eyes to art. “I made a decision right then — I’m going to be an artist.”
Beatrice and Nan: Excerpts from An Unremarkable Girl
An Unremarkable Girl is a mother/daughter memoir by Nan Seymour and Beatrice Washburn. The book tells the story of Beatrice, a transgender girl from Utah, who survives the perils of a misgendered adolescence… to become herself.
Jeri Parker Rebuilds a Life While Building a Cabin in “My Seasons of Wilderness”
Jeri Parker once said that she built her summer cabin on family land in Idaho, but it never registered that she meant this literally: hammer in hand, from floorboards to ceiling joists. She even dug in the waterline. And in her captivating new memoir, My Seasons of Wilderness, the Salt […]
Nancy Andruk Olson’s Teeming Mural at BDAC is Ignited by Nostalgia and Longing
Our relationship with the land is an ancient one, one as old as civilization. One device we have invented to navigate this connection is landscape painting, a genre dating back several millennia. As we approach a situation in which the delicate balance between ecologies becomes increasingly untenable, we […]
V. Kim Martinez: Investing in Art and the Community
Art majors may start out thinking they just want to learn how to make art. When they study with Kim Martinez, they learn a lot more: how to work collaboratively, how to build community, how to secure grant money, and how to invest their art with meaning. Within […]
Four poems by poet Meg Day
Welcome to this month’s edition of READ LOCAL First: Utah’s most comprehensive collection of accomplished poets and authors. This month we introduce you to deaf, genderqueer poet Meg Day. Day is the author of Last Psalm at Sea Level (Barrow Street, 2014), winner of the Publishing Triangle’s Audre Lorde Award, and a finalist […]
Clever Octopus Mural
Since it’s painted on the Clever Octopus building (2250 South West Temple) one might expect, well, a cephalopod, but Dan Toro’s massive cephalopod orgy going on across the street might have made Evan Jed Memmott & Isaac Hastings think twice about the idea. Instead, for South Salt Lake’s […]
35×35: Justin Watson
As part of Artists of Utah’s 35×35 exhibition, at Finch Lane Gallery through June 5, 2020, we spoke with the artists about their work. Justin Watson normally works with sound and moving images in his video and installation work, but for Artists of Utah’s 35×35 exhibition, Watson has produced still […]
35×35: Trishelle Jeffery
Trishelle Jeffery is a cartoonist and printmaker who lives in Salt Lake City. She was a student at Snow College and the University of Utah as an undergraduate, and received her MFA in Printmaking from Wichita State University in 2018. She is currently a member at SaltGrass Printmakers and an instructor at the University of Utah.
35×35: Natalie Kirk
The automobile: it’s the most public private space we inhabit. And Natalie Kirk is watching you there, through her rearview mirror.
35×35: Laura Hope Mason
As part of Artists of Utah’s 35×35 exhibition, at Finch Lane Gallery through June 5, 2020, we spoke with the artists about their work. Salt Lake City artist Laura Hope Mason works both abstractly and figuratively. Her works featured in Artists of Utah’s 35×35 exhibition come from a series of […]
35×35: Mary Sinner
Salt Lake City artist Mary Sinner has an MFA from the University of Utah. Using old and sometimes degraded photographs, she explores iconic cultural symbols that migrate through the cultural strata.
35×35: Megan Knobloch Geilman
Megan Knobloch Geilman studied Art at the California College of the Arts and Brigham Young University. Her work uses art historical reference and symbolic objects to explore doctrine, history, and social issues within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
35×35: Art Morrill
In 2013, Art Morrill’s youngest son’s diagnosis of two heart defects and subsequent surgery and recovery directed Art’s interest toward developing work that explores the structure and manipulability of the body interpreted through a language of abstraction.
35×35: Sarah Winegar
As part of Artists of Utah’s 35×35 exhibition, at Finch Lane Gallery through June 5, 2020, we spoke with the artists about their work. Sarah Winegar is a printmaker in Salt Lake City where she lives with her husband and son. She studied printmaking at the University of Utah and […]
Chris Peterson Frog Water Mural
During lockdowns and quarantines people have been discovering the outdoors. They probably have run across Chris Peterson, who didn’t need a global pandemic to get him out in the wild; and he brings wild settings back with him to urban landscapes, and charges his experience with neon color. […]
35×35: Rachel Hancey
Rachel Hancey is a recent graduate of Utah State University, with a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree with a studio emphasis in Printmaking. She has lived all throughout the west and draws inspiration from its vast spaces and ever-changing light.
