{"id":92110,"date":"2025-04-09T07:38:03","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T14:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=92110"},"modified":"2025-04-17T06:27:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T13:27:22","slug":"from-glassblowing-to-gallery-nights-red-flower-sparks-a-creative-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/from-glassblowing-to-gallery-nights-red-flower-sparks-a-creative-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"From Glassblowing to Gallery Nights: Red Flower Sparks a Creative Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Installation view of “Radical Romance,” Red Flower Studios’ February exhibition. Courtesy of Red Flowers Studios.<\/p><\/div>\n

Originally opening its first glassblowing hotshop and showroom nine years ago in Park City\u2019s Iron Horse District, Red Flower Studios now has a second location with a gallery space in the rapidly developing Granary District of Salt Lake City. The new location hosts glassblowing classes and workshops, facilitated by the owners Daniel Bell and Jeremy Wilstein, with the gallery curated by local painter Vita Rice.<\/h4>\n

Similar to Central 9th and the Maven District, this area has seen rapid development with condos and walk ups being built around the old warehouse Red Flower’s Salt Lake location is based out of on 300 West and 700 South.\u00a0 \u201cThere is so much under construction. In a year and a half time, I am so excited to see what this area looks like,\u201d Rice says.<\/h4>\n
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Still from a video of Red Flower Studios using a glass bowl at 1700\u00b0F to sear salmon, hamachi, and aromatics to create an appetizer.<\/p><\/div>\n

The studio hosts a Cooking on Hot Glass event at the Park City location once a month\u2014five courses, $200 a seat, 20 seats, with a curated menu by visiting chefs Tom Thibedeau of Hidden Peak Cafe in Heber and Matt Nelson, both private chefs. \u201cWe ladle out molten glass and sear things on it,\u201d Rice says. Using all different sorts of glassblowing techniques to cook food, they seared duck and quail breast on one recent menu. \u201cThe chefs are truly artists in their craft,\u201d Rice says. The food is served on glass plates blown in house with their own unique drinking glass.<\/h4>\n

Rice was painting full-time before connecting with the owner to take over the curation and directorship of the Salt Lake City shop. \u201cI want to activate this space with as much art as possible, platforming people who I think are doing great things in the arts,\u201d Rice says. \u201cI like a solo show, having all of your work in context with your other work. But I love a group show, because one piece might not hit the same way for the viewer on its own as it does paired and telling a story with many other pieces of work.\u201d The Salt Lake City space staged their first exhibit, a group show, in January. Opening April 18, the April show features Trevor Dahl, followed by Anna Leigh Moore (May 16-June 14), Carson Young Besser (June 20-July 12) and Jonah Kinikini (July 18-August 9).<\/h4>\n

\u201cI love a show opening. I love a celebration,” Rice says. “I think a lot of times the gallery world can be kind of dry. You walk in on opening night and it\u2019s quiet. It\u2019s like, where\u2019s the DJ?\u201d Rice is a part of a rising generation of artists and curators breathing new life into what has historically been pretentious and haughty\u2014pivoting an old, stale format of galleries away from white walls and white haired people determining what is in and what is not. Why is it boring and drab? What art-making space is white and clean and quiet? The rising generation are reimagining the intersection of professionalism and the spontaneity of art. \u201cWhat is special about this being a glass blowing studio is that we can have a DJ and there is already an undercurrent, a younger pulse built into the fabric of what this place is,\u201d Rice says. \u201cIt feels nice to be able to give people I know the opportunity to show somewhere that really nicely bridges the gap with professionalism and the underground.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Red Flower is dedicated to tapping into the inherent creativity in all of us, giving folks a platform to feel, to learn something new, to be a part of community. \u201cFor our longevity\u2019s sake, being in supportive and inspiring and exciting and engaging community is paramount to our health,\u201d Rice says. \u201cThis is seen across history\u2014and most recently with COVID\u2014people lose touch with community. That\u2019s really bad for our physical and mental and spiritual health. Getting people to meet and greet and expand their vision of what\u2019s around them in this city is huge. … Seeing a piece of art through a screen is a tiny fraction of what the experience is like in person,\u201d Rice says.\u00a0 When an artist can spend months on a piece that is consumed in two seconds on the internet, it is in spaces like Red Flower where we can actually sit with the art, take the pieces in, look at their textures and the nuances in hue, and talk about them together.<\/h4>\n
\"An

Installation view of “Radical Romance,” Red Flower Studios’ February exhibition. Courtesy of Red Flowers Studios.<\/p><\/div>\n

Rice and Red Flower hope to give space for artists to connect, bringing often insular folks together, connecting and feeling inspired by each other. And she sees this as a revolutionary act. \u201cCreativity and making art and community are all very subversive to the oppressive systems at play,\u201d Rice says. \u201cSubversiveness is a feature of creation rather than consumption. Being inspired to make art, to be an artist and be supported is your act of rebellion against capitalist systems and the systems at large that want us to be numb, work, consume Netflix and die\u2026 Or keep us from knowing that there is ecstasy available to you through tapping into your own intrinsic qualities of creativity and joy and fun and expression. In a society that is oppressed in their expression, that is very easy to manipulate and control\u2014it\u2019s a feedback loop that really serves the controlling of a populace\u2014making art, even just for the fun of it, is such an act of rebellion and I want more people to do that because there is more than just consuming the programming that the people who are making the programming are making you consume. You can make your own things and feel connected to your body, and your mind, and your spirit through that and that is really special. Inspiring creativity through the platforming of creativity is definitely a feature of my outward passion I have for sharing art.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Tapping into joy and connection with community is indelible to making a city bloom\u2014something no luxury box apartment could do for this place. Especially in a field so underfunded and underappreciated, Red Flower Studios is making space for art, giving a platform for the local arts to continue to thrive in this rapidly changing city. The space fosters what Rice terms “radical allowance”\u2014\u201cletting ourselves fail and be creative and tapping into that.\u201d Anyone can be creative, you just have to let yourself into yourself. Letting ourselves be bad at something by learning something new can be empowering and validating. You can come into spaces like this and learn something new and meet new people. If we proceed under the presumption that we aren\u2019t artists or aren\u2019t creative enough, that mentality can be prohibitive and stop us from seeing our full potential.<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Check out <\/span>Red Flower Studios website<\/span><\/a> to sign up for classes and book private events or find details about the next <\/span>Cooking on Hot Glass<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Originally opening its first glassblowing hotshop and showroom nine years ago in Park City\u2019s Iron Horse District, Red Flower Studios now has a second location with a gallery space in the rapidly developing Granary District of Salt Lake City. The new location hosts glassblowing classes and workshops, facilitated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1733,"featured_media":92127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,14],"tags":[4710,4709],"class_list":["post-92110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gallery_spotlights","category-visual_arts","tag-red-flower-studio","tag-vita-rice"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/redflower.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-28 12:24:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1733"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92110"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92131,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92110\/revisions\/92131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}