{"id":39937,"date":"2018-11-09T12:44:59","date_gmt":"2018-11-09T18:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=39937"},"modified":"2018-12-11T13:44:40","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T19:44:40","slug":"kandace-steadman-reimagined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/kandace-steadman-reimagined\/","title":{"rendered":"Kandace Steadman Reimagined"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kandace Steadman in her Salt Lake City home in front of a painting by David Meikle.<\/p><\/div>\n

As she ripped up a book for her show at the downtown library, Kandace Steadman took a moment to enjoy the irony of that reckless yet considered act (adding to the rethinking of how books can be used in different contexts) then settled in for the well-thought-out process involved in creating 24 images from a single copy of the 1991 edition of Utah Art <\/em>by the highbrow and highly respected team of Vern Swanson, Bob Olpin and Bill Seifrit.<\/h4>\n

The 12\u201d x 12\u201d images would mirror the size of the classic coffee-table book, she decided, while the backgrounds would consist of transfers from the pages of the text \u2013 anything from the introduction, to portions of a chapter, to the table of contents or index \u2013 with images combined and collaged to the surface. Finally, Steadman would add paint, \u201csometimes extending what the artists have painted, and sometimes creating a painted context background,\u201d and then she placed the works in wide, flat, black frames. The resulting show, Utah Art Reimagined,<\/em> hangs until November 30, at the Gallery on Library Square.<\/h4>\n
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“Evans, Smith and Lindstrom”<\/p><\/div>\n

It represents a major life shift for Steadman, who is best known for her work as an arts administrator and curator, most recently at the Salt Lake City Arts Council where, following assistant director Kim Duffin\u2019s death in 2012, she took on a large chunk of the responsibilities he had borne for 25 years (others were assumed by Kelsey Moon, who got Duffin\u2019s title). \u201cI could never be the new Kim,\u201d Steadman said at the time, though she is known for working as diligently for artists as Duffin had, scheduling for the Finch Lane Gallery and the Park Gallery, a Guest Writers series and a variety of other programming. She says she took the job because she wanted to help artists become more recognized in Salt Lake City \u2014 to \u201cmake Finch Lane a place where artists want to exhibit and people want to visit.\u201d<\/h4>\n

However, in June she retired from the position of visual arts program manager, in the midst of some unmistakable directional shifts at the Arts Council that she preferred not to address during our interview, saying only that she was taking the opportunity to pursue her art full time, something she could only do \u201cbecause for the past 25 years I have saved every penny and I think I am in a position to do it.\u201d She also will take time to do some hiking and marathon running, vegetable gardening and canning. And she will enjoy spending more time with Robert Walton, her husband of 17 years, but she decidedly will not<\/em> be arising with him at 5 a.m. as he heads for the ice to figure skate \u2014 something he has done seriously for 15 years, in addition to his plumbing and HVAC business.<\/h4>\n
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“Larsen, Fausett, Friberg and Weggeland”<\/p><\/div>\n

Born and bred in Salt Lake City, \u201cWell, Taylorsville would be more precise,\u201d she says, Steadman attended Cottonwood High and later BYU, which she chose because she wanted to go away to college and that gave her \u201cthe chance to go away without being too far away.\u201d The youngest of six (four brothers and a sister), her mother was a secondary English and drama teacher. Steadman believes that at 92 she is the oldest living Teacher of the Year. \u201cShe directed plays and Roadshows back in the days of Roadshows and my father was in theater as well. That\u2019s how they met \u2014 in a play.” Her mother can\u2019t recall the play now\u00a0but is pretty sure it was at the old Salt Lake Theatre. Her father was also a singer and was in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for 35 years. \u201cSo I grew up in a household that was involved with the arts; I just chose a different art form,\u201d says Steadman.<\/h4>\n
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Steadman at the Museum of Utah Art and History in 2005 when it was on Main Street.<\/p><\/div>\n

She got a bachelor\u2019s degree in art history from BYU and, in fact, discovered her passion for the subject in a general survey class her freshman year, causing her to switch her major from interior design. She followed that with an M. Ed. in educational administration, also from the Y, and then left to spend 12 years in Washington, D.C., where she would eventually take charge of programming in the education department at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. On her return to Utah in 2000, Steadman worked as director of development in the College of Education at the University of Utah and earned a master\u2019s in art history in 2005, while Bob Olpin was teaching.<\/h4>\n

Steadman wove those degrees into a career that worked perfectly for her. In 2005, she was appointed executive director at the Museum of Utah Art and History. After five years at the MUAH, Steadman moved on to Salt Lake Community College, where she ran the community outreach programs for the Grand Theatre. Later, she would teach a survey of art history class at Westminster College: \u201cI don\u2019t know if the students will ever fall in love with the subject the way I did, but I can only hope they find the fascination I find in art that I see every day. Looking back, I probably didn\u2019t trust myself as an 18- or 19-year-old to push myself to see what would happen. And now I\u2019m giving myself a chance to explore. I\u2019m not comparing myself to anyone else. It\u2019s more like, \u2018Here\u2019s something, what can I do with this? \u2018\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cI understand art history,\u201d she says, \u201cwhat works aesthetically, and how art continues to push boundaries from what was previously created. However, only recently have I gone from the classroom to the studio to create art for the sake of creating art.\u201d For the past six or seven years, it has occurred to her, as she\u2019s curated shows, \u201cWait a minute, I could do that!\u201d Not, she says, in the sense that \u201cany 5-year-old could do that,\u201d but more like, \u201cWith what I know about art, what could I do?\u201d And she set out to discover what, for example, she could do to make realistic-looking pictures from collage.<\/h4>\n
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Steadman’s studio in the basement of her home.<\/p><\/div>\n

Her training, Steadman explains, has been in workshops taught through Lifelong Learning at the U and Art Access, and attendance at Summer Snow at Snow College. \u201cEach class has taught me new skills and opened my eyes to the possibilities of creation. I enjoy learning, and with my own creativity, putting all of this into works of art. Making art has deepened my appreciation for art, the execution process, and the problem-solving necessary to create an interesting work of art,\u201d Steadman observes, adding that she finds great joy in the process. She has exhibited in group shows at the Utah Arts Festival Gallery, Art Access, the Eccles Art Center in Bountiful, Salt Lake Community College President\u2019s Art Show, and Salt Lake Acting Company as well as in smaller shows at, for example, the (just-closed) Fringe Gallery in August.<\/h4>\n
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“Limb Woman”<\/p><\/div>\n

In the 15 Bytes review of Rocking Paper & Scissors, <\/em>curated by David LeCheminant for Fringe, Maddie Blonquist talks about a piece by Steadman titled \u201cLimb Woman\u201d (\u201cone of [her] more striking works\u201d) that \u201cis entirely decorated with the borrowed limbs of who knows how many magazines. While aesthetically interesting and creative, more importantly, Steadman is perhaps speaking to the danger of fixating on parts rather than the whole and how our perception of reality is often just a composite of pieces. . . . Steadman\u2019s work suggests that the excessive combination of ideal elements will only ever result in something completely unnatural, even disturbing.\u201d<\/h4>\n

One night Steadman began wondering what would happen if she used a single source, instead of 50 magazines; a single book that had a lot of imagery and was related to our artistic community. Also important, a book that was old enough for a reconsideration. \u201cThis book came out in 1991, so it was fabulous at the time, but a whole new generation of artists is coming up and Utah Art <\/em>has been out long enough that people need to look at it again in a new way. I mean, Donna Poulton is writing a new dictionary of Utah artists now, which doesn\u2019t make this dated, but it needs to be seen differently,\u201d says Steadman.<\/p>\n

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“Fausett, Wassmer, Dornan and Harding”<\/p><\/div>\n

She says her own approach for her current library exhibition \u201cis to look at familiar images in a new way, creating fresh appreciation (or to some, perhaps horror at what I have done) to the iconic artworks in our local canon. It has been a nice way to take familiar images and recombine them.\u201d She took a class from artist Namon Bills and he taught her to take the image, affix it to the surface with matte medium, let it dry and then take a sander and sand it down repeatedly. \u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s all reversed.\u201d Or upside-down in some cases. Her intention, she says, \u201cis to create whimsy and the pieces shouldn\u2019t be taken seriously.\u201d<\/h4>\n

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This writer, who reviewed Utah Art<\/em> back in \u201991 and followed the book through numerous iterations that began with Olpin\u2019s 1980 Dictionary of Utah Art <\/em>and likely ended in 2009 with Painters of Utah\u2019s Canyons and Deserts, <\/em>believes the show should be taken seriously indeed. It\u2019s a lot of fun, yes, especially if you are familiar with these mostly-famous-both-then-and-now painters and photographers, but also has plenty to say for itself and the artists represented.<\/h4>\n

The collages are titled using the surnames of those whose work is incorporated. \u201cThat was my nod,\u201d Steadman says: \u201cOlsen Squared and Bishop\u201d (the beautifully colored, dynamic one I can\u2019t get out of my head); \u201cDeffebach and Midgley;\u201d \u201cFletcher and Richardson\u201d (a particularly fine one and, of course, sold); \u201cAndrus, Eaton and Phillips;\u201d \u201cFausett, Wassmer, Dornan, and Harding\u201d (one wonders if the artist can sort out the artists with this many collaged together?), \u201cFrazer and Held\u201d (Steadman has several collages utilizing work by Tribune sports illustrator John Held Jr., who went on to national fame as a cartoonist with The New Yorker, Vanity Fair,\u00a0and Life, among others.) She mixes black-and-white with color, nudes with clothed figures \u2013 they are all rich and fascinating to spend an hour or an afternoon with.<\/h4>\n