{"id":539,"date":"2010-07-07T15:06:44","date_gmt":"2010-07-07T21:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15bytes12\/2010\/07\/07\/silvia-davis\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T11:10:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T18:10:09","slug":"silvia-davis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/silvia-davis\/","title":{"rendered":"Silvia Davis: Penetrating the Ordinary, Bringing Out Its Beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n<\/a>When we arrive at Silvia Davis\u2019 house in Teasdale, Utah, we are greeted by two calm and friendly dogs. They don\u2019t belong to Silvia and her husband Paul , they just like their place. It is a charming, peaceful setting, with an old gingerbread-trimmed house set back from the road, Silvia\u2019s studio to the right of the driveway, her husband\u2019s studio behind it, and two large piles of wood alongside the two studios. One pile heats Paul\u2019s studio in winter, the other is Silvia\u2019s rescued barnwood from which she creates sculptures.<\/p>\n

These sculptures are well-know among afficionados of the Utah art scene. Davis has been commissioned for works in public all over the state, and has exhibited almost every year since 1982. She works primarily with wood and bronze, sometimes in clay. Her wood sculptures of cats, dogs, horses, and inanimate objects are staples at Phillips Gallery in Salt Lake City. Her bronze works have a good market in Santa Fe. Davis grew up in Utah and got her undergraduate and graduate art degrees at the University of Utah, where she met her husband of thirty-one years, Paul Davis. Both are established artists with successful art careers and their contributions to the art community have included teaching as well as making art. They own a studio in Helper , where Paul has often worked with David Dornan (another well-known Utah artist), but make their home in Teasdale, a small community at the foot of Boulder Mountain.<\/p>\n

After greeting the visiting canines, we take a brief tour of Davis’ studio — the tool room, occupied by several large machines necessary for processing her materials, and the main space with several works in progress, smaller tools, bulletin boards, and objects acquired at antique shops, yard sales, etc.\u00a0An old pair of leather boxing gloves await the day she decides to carve a sculpture of them. She points out the barnwood outside the door and the partially completed large dog inside.<\/p>\n