Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall has announced the recipients of the 2025 Mayor’s Artists Awards, honoring individuals and organizations that have made lasting contributions to the city’s cultural life. A few are such longstanding champions of our arts community—pillars, if you will—we were surprised to learn they hadn’t already been honored.
Established in 1992, the Mayor’s Artists Awards recognize the people and groups who use the arts to enrich community life and elevate the city’s creative spirit. This year’s honorees exemplify the diversity and vibrancy of Salt Lake’s arts ecosystem. The awards will be presented on Friday, June 20, at 5:45 p.m. during the Utah Arts Festival on the Festival Stage at Washington and Library Square.
We want to give a special shout out to Laura Durham, an early champion of Artists of Utah, a one-time writer for 15 Bytes, the creator of our Utah’s 15 program recognizing the state’s most influential artists and currently a member of our board of directors. Durham is Director of Programming & Community Engagement at PBS Utah where she is celebrated for her commitment to storytelling and her support of Utah’s creative communities. With a 25-year career in arts administration, Durham is known for her behind-the-scenes work amplifying artists and fostering meaningful public engagement. Catch a glimpse of Durham at the beginning of her career in this 2003 profile.
Gretchen Dietrich, Executive Director of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts since 2009, is recognized for more than 35 years of leadership in the museum field, including roles at the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Under her direction, the UMFA has seen major increases in attendance, outreach, and national visibility. Read our 2010 profile.
If you’ve watched a film that changed your vision of the world or reshaped your idea of what art can be, there’s a good chance you saw it at the Salt Lake Film Society. With a year-round festival model and stewardship of two landmark theaters, SLFS champions diverse storytelling and has generated more than $150 million in arts and economic impact over the past two decades.
Hot House West, a Salt Lake City–based nonprofit, is recognized for reinvigorating Utah’s acoustic music scene. With over 380 events in 2024 alone, the organization creates spaces for joyful participation and nurtures the next generation of musicians through performance opportunities and educational programs.
Oaxaca en Utah receives the award for its dedication to cultural preservation and celebration. Through events like La Guelaguetza and collaborative art programming, the organization shares the rich heritage of Oaxaca, Mexico, while promoting cross-cultural connection and pride in Indigenous traditions.
Together, these honorees reflect the heart of Salt Lake’s creative community — inclusive, innovative, and deeply engaged. Their recognition during the city’s largest celebration of the arts underscores the vital role that art plays in building and sustaining a vibrant urban culture.
6/17 DESERET NEWS: The trail of Utah wildlife murals, where art and nature converge into adventure
A new trail map, dubbed Wildlife Walls, links murals throughout the state to local wildlife viewing areas, encouraging people to explore Utah’s biodiversity.
Its creator, Chris Peterson, is a local artist with a knack for everything involving nature and the outdoors, particularly encounters with wildlife.
“What I try to communicate in my murals is the magic of wildlife encounters,” he said.
5/29 SLTRIB: A former Utah dairy farmer acquired 1,000 artworks for this museum. See his top 10 gets.
When the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art opened its doors in 1982, its galleries were nearly empty.
The earliest exhibitions at the Logan museum included the expected — Western landscapes, Navajo blankets and cowboy and Native American illustrations. But George Wanlass — the great-nephew of museum founder Nora Eccles Harrison — knew the space needed something more.
“We had a museum,” Wanlass said, “that was mostly just devoid of any contents that suited the magnificence of its setting.”
5/24 SLTRIB: Mammoth painting is an Italian artist’s valentine to southern Utah’s flora and musical heritage
A renowned Italian artist whose large-scale murals adorn buildings in more than dozen countries, Pepe Gaka joined dignitaries in St. George Friday to debut his latest creation.
Dubbed “The Sound of St. George,” the vivid 7,000-square-foot-plus mural covers the west- and south-facing walls of a downtown parking structure shared by the Advenire Hotel and City View Apartments, and pays homage to the desert flora and the area’s orchestra of note, the Southwest Symphony.
St. George City Council member Dannielle Larkin said the mural helps the city and private sector in their ongoing efforts to bolster the area’s economy and beautify the municipal downtown.
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15 Bytes is published by Artists of Utah, a 501 (c) 3 tax-exempt nonprofit.
UTAH’S ART MAGAZINE SINCE 2001, 15 Bytes is published by Artists of Utah, a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Categories: Mixed Media | Recognized
