Randy Rasmussen, photo by Will Thompson

Randy Rasmussen’s new 20 foot painting “Woodside” is smaller than what he’s used to working with. As Technical Director for both Plan B Theatre and Kingsbury Hall his usual canvas is the size of a stage, a scale he’s been working with since his days at Jordan High School. Back then Jordan was one of the last high schools to have a working fly system and Rasmussen was part of the stage crew. It was there that he found his niche, among creative students who made a comfortable home outside the mainstream world. “Theatre is a magnet for people who don’t fit in anywhere else. It’s a place where freaks congregate. It was the only place in high school for a freak and I met my friends there. When there is distinctly a majority and distinctly a minority, that minority gets bonded together really tight and the next thing you know you have twenty to thirty friends that you’ll have for the rest of your life,” Rasmussen says.

After high school Rasmussen went to college at what is now Southern Utah University, where he studied theatre and art. There he had the opportunity to take ceramics classes from Mark Talbert, and, being only 60 miles from Zion National Park, frequently venture out to the desert with his first water color block to start painting outside. “I dreamed about art and thought about art,” Rasmussen says, “but it was Cedar City that gave me the opportunity to really explore it. There were some incredible landscape painters in Southern Utah and Springdale at the time. It was really eye opening.”

He continued to find inspiration in his first job out of college, painting scenery and running a sound board at Pioneer Theatre, where he worked for seven years. “I learned how to make things happen, to dream big and build big.” He worked on several large scale productions from the very beginning; his first was West Side Story. But it is actually a smaller stage that has been one of the most fulfilling things in his life. While at Pioneer Theatre he began to build sets for Plan B Theatre Company. “Once they got to the point where they needed real scenery; I’ve done every set ever since,” Rasmussen says. He has been there for 15 years and still finds the work tremendously satisfying because of a special formula: “If you can get the magic combination of great content, great people to do it with and if you’re really lucky you might find a little money to do it. If you can get those three things it’s a really, really wonderful thing.”

Woodside by Randy Rasmussen at the Rio Grande Cafe, photo by Will Thompson

For almost as long as he’s been with Plan B Theatre Company Rasmussen has also worked at Kingsbury Hall. Along with being in close proximity to the desert, it’s his work with the two theatres that keeps him in Salt Lake City. He also stays because he notes that the polarization between liberals and conservatives in Utah has created a breeding ground for unique art. “Oppression creates dissention. I know some people who are doing some really wild things in this town and it’s stuff you wouldn’t see in LA,” he explains.

Randy Rasmussen mural inside Cinegrill in Salt Lake City

Randy Rasmussen, photo by Will Thompson

It is through his work with theatre and art that he hopes to broaden people’s minds and help them to appreciate perspectives that deviate from their own. Part of that process is to expand his work as a painter, something he is doing with “Woodside.” The piece is a lengthy stretch of desert cliffs based on portions of Highway 6 between Price and Green River. “It’s a part of Utah I’ve known all my life,” he says, noting frequent camping and river trips he’s taken in that area.

The work was commissioned by Rio Grande Café owner Pete Henderson, who had been brainstorming some ways to liven up the décor in his restaurant. “They came to me and I said heck yes I can paint a big painting,” Rasmussen says. He bought the canvas in February and when he wasn’t working on a theatre production he went out to his studio, a barn built in the early 1900’s that sits in his backyard, and painted. The process not only resulted in the latest work to grace the walls at Rio Grande café but it taught Rasmussen more about his own style, “They wanted Maynard Dixon. And I’m not Maynard Dixon but I tried. I looked at his paintings and analyzed them. I think more than learning how to paint like Maynard Dixon I learned how to paint better.” In his first attempt to hang “Woodside” Rasmussen got another lesson: how to shorten paintings. At his first attempt to hang the piece he realized the canvas was two inches longer than the space provided and at the risk of nearly destroying portions of his work he took it home, peeled the canvas back and lopped off the excess length. He laughs about it now but says there were more than a few tense moments during the process.

“Woodside” is the latest of Rasmussen’s paintings to be in a restaurant. His work can also been seen at Cinegrill, where he painted a large mural that is patterned after the wallpaper that hung in the original 1950’s location. Moving forward he hopes to do some more large scale work and to maybe one day be part of a working studio gallery. Theatre remains his first love though. “The collaborative process that’s in theatre is so interesting and fun. When really bright talented people get together and start tossing ideas off each other, it’s great and you don’t get that in a studio. You spend a lot of time with the dog and listening to NPR,” Rasmussen says. His canine companion Wilma kept him company while he worked on “Woodside” and she’s often not far behind his heels.

Rio Grande Cafe is located at 270 South Rio Grande Street Salt Lake City, UT. Cinegrill is located at 344 South 300 East Salt Lake City, UT.

Dale Thompson

Dale Thompson has a B.A. in Liberal Arts from The Evergreen State College and an Masters degree in communications from Westminster College. Her writing career includes work for a local theatre, journalism in Park City, and freelance contributions for various nonprofit organizations.