Rob Carney’s Book of Sharks (winner of the 2019 15 Bytes Book Award for Poetry) was a ferocious tour-de-force. The poems in Facts + Figures are more gentle, though not entirely toothless. Carney, whose poetry is grounded in the re-enchantment of the world, begins the collection with a sequence titled “Thirteen Facts,” […]
I remember sitting on a chair in the middle of my art studio wondering how long I could survive with little or no income. Rent was due in two weeks and I only had enough in savings to last about 2 months.
For weeks I did nothing but eat, sleep, worry, sew cloth face masks and stock up on food. And then it happened. Someone who might have been exposed to Covid hugged me. A really long, emotional, teary hug. I had to quarantine myself in our basement for 14 days.
With our “Still Here” series, we are checking in with members of Utah’s art community to see what the past several months have meant for them. Linnie Brown creates layered artworks with collage, paint, printmaking, and drawing that reference on-going human activity within geographical spaces. She grew up in […]
Fire up your computer, pull up a chair, and you’ll have the best seat in the house for three days of plein air painting instruction from 24 instructors who are members of Plein Air Painters of Utah (PAPU). The three-day event is enrolling students now and will go […]
On Friday, November 20, UtahPresents premiered the final episode of a six-part series of Dancing Earth’s Between Underground and Skyworld Cyberspace. The event was live-streamed for ticket holders to view from home. A Q&A with a panel of interdisciplinary artists involved in the project followed the screening of the […]
In order to enter Material Issues, the pieces of which can be seen from above, spread invitingly across the ground level gallery of the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, you must cross the familiar steel bridge and descend the switchbacks of the staircase, first walking away, into the […]
I’m working on art that is constantly making me cry. It’s cathartic. It also helps me ignore (forget, block out?) all the shock from this pandemic, this summer’s social unrest, and the election. Of course, I morally can’t block all of that out, but I have somewhere I can go that helps. I am lucky to have an amazing studio at the Bogue Foundry. It gives me a place to go that isn’t home. I escape. I think about art or music or just clear my head. I can safely chat with fellow artists and still feel like a member of Utah’s great arts community. It is a little place of sanctuary.
It’s surreal to think back to early March when I flew home from San Antonio after a combination day-job/writing trip — the elbow bump greetings with clients and the quiet eeriness of a barely attended AWP writers conference. At the time, I had no notion that Covid-19 would stretch through the end of this year and beyond. My family and I have been fortunate in many ways, some of us able to work from home and maintain our incomes, while others have been fraught with intense anxiety and struggling to get by financially.
If you’ve been to the state Capitol recently, say for marches about the election or Black Lives Matter, you may have spotted a sculptural commemoration of inequality at another time in our history: the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19 th Amendment that gave many women the right to vote […]
Artists of Utah is excited to announce the finalists for this year’s 15 Bytes Book Award for Fiction. For the past eigth years Artists of Utah has celebrated excellence in published works by a Utah author or with a Utah connection with the 15 Bytes Book Awards. The […]
I am the dullest person I know. This pandemic, a bat virus’s game of solitaire with every one of us on earth, can make one duller still, with fright. I try not to fall into deepest/darkest dullness.
I make tomato soup.
I have not seen (this version of) Nine Sinatra Songs by Ballet West and have no plans to review it. In this show, which was given locally at the Capitol Theatre, Ballet West ignores that more than one in one hundred people in Utah have COVID-19 and they refuse […]
On Friday night, I went to the theater. I even went inside the theater. Ballet West’s Nine Sinatra Songs is a return to the stage, but not a return to normal — and that’s a good thing. The mixed repertoire of three works is the company’s first live […]
My wife and I have both been working our day jobs at home for several years and were already leaning well into our own hermitism, so when COVID hit with that first alarming blow last March we didn’t panic too much.
With our “Still Here” series, we are checking in with members of Utah’s art community to see what the past several months have meant for them. Paul Reynolds was born in Salt Lake City in 1950 and raised there. He studied at the University of California, Irvine, and graduated […]
Like for many, the events of 2020 have caused considerable disruption, heartache, and stress in my life. As I look back on this tumultuous time, I could easily dwell on the canceled: travel plans, artist residency, exhibitions, conferences, kids summer camp, and school, as well as the loss of friends and family members. Instead, I would like to focus on the positives.
On Monday night, November 2, the eve of these historic 2020 elections, I stepped into the interactive theatrical experience The Carousel by SONDERimmersive at Dreamscapes, at the Gateway in downtown Salt Lake City. Prior to entry, we received our instructions on mask-wearing, appropriate social distancing from fellow spectators […]
As disorienting, sad, and stressful as the pandemic has been, it would have been a lot worse without art. I’m an introvert and can be quite happy alone for long periods. Just lock me up with my art supplies and I’ll be fine.
Petersen’s dialogue is fast; his descriptions are succinct. Chapter 1 of The Prayer of St. Francis adds another worthy addition to the library of READ LOCAL First.
Stewart Seidman creates expressive acrylic works on canvas and with recycled FedEx envelopes that once served as his paint palettes, transforming everyday materials into compelling contemporary art.
To discover more artists, visit our Utah Artists Directory
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