{"id":92703,"date":"2025-05-03T10:39:37","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T17:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=92703"},"modified":"2025-05-05T10:47:44","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T17:47:44","slug":"mixed-media-whale-tales-dino-dreams-and-saints-with-paints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/mixed-media-whale-tales-dino-dreams-and-saints-with-paints\/","title":{"rendered":"Mixed Media: Whale Tales, Dino Dreams, and Saints with Paints"},"content":{"rendered":"
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4\/30 CITY WEEKLY: SLC and the creator of “The Whale” take 630 victory laps around a beloved public artwork. <\/strong><\/p>\n

On a chilly, overcast morning in February, a fit man in his mid-40s jogged steadily in small concentric circles, looping a roundabout in the middle of Salt Lake City’s eclectic 9th and 9th neighborhood. His gait was smooth and practiced, the stride of someone who has likely run marathons\u2014someone familiar with the rigors of pushing through 26 grueling miles.<\/p>\n

But on this day, he ran in tight, dizzying, .04-mile loops\u2014630 of them, to be precise\u2014around a fiberglass whale.<\/p>\n

Tom Mi, founder of the Salty Star Run Club, said the image is a regular occurrence. He can’t help but laugh when he thinks of Jackson Bradshaw\u2014the first person believed to have ever completed a full marathon around the whale sculpture, now dubbed\u00a0the first official “Whale-athon.”<\/p>\n

“It started as a joke,” Mi said. “But now it’s almost like this semi-religious cult following. Obviously, I don’t think any of it is super serious, but people love it.”<\/p>\n

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4\/30 SLTRIB: This Din\u00e9 author\u2019s novel showcases the \u2018grit and resilience\u2019 of Indigenous people. She just received a major honor for it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Stacie Shannon Denetsosie first got the news that she was one of The National Book Foundation\u2019s 2025 \u201c5 Under 35\u201d honorees \u2014 she thought it was a spam call. Then, came the tunnel vision, followed by the tears.<\/p>\n

\u201cI immediately started crying,\u201d Denetsosie, who is a member of Navajo Nation, said. \u201cI scared the poor woman who called me, because it is incredibly special. It shows that my craft as a Din\u00e9 woman, as a writer, it\u2019s been recognized.\u201d<\/p>\n

The foundation acknowledged Denetsosie for her 2023 debut novel, \u201cThe Missing Morningstar and Other Stories\u201d \u2014 a collection of short stories about the long-lasting effects of settler colonialism on Din\u00e9 people.<\/p>\n

READ MORE<\/a><\/p>\n

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4\/30 SLUGMAG: The Enigmatic Artist is Resurrected in the Form of Elmer Presslee<\/strong><\/p>\n

What happened to the artist? I\u2019m not talking about modern-day gimmicky artists looking to go viral and clout chase on Musk\u2019s internet, I\u2019m talking about the true blue artist. People who pour their souls into their work and birth a new life into popular culture. The enigmatic, sometimes unappealing, making us reflect inward against our own will, artists. Think Keith Haring or Edward Hopper. While all hope might seem lost, the last true artist is alive and well, and his name is William Robbins a.k.a. Elmer Presslee.<\/p>\n

This interview is unlike any interview I\u2019ve conducted thus far in my SLUG career. Presslee is hard to follow, and I don\u2019t mean in terms of talking \u2014 we bounce from room to room in his gorgeous home\/private art studio while we talk about LSD, aliens and government conspiracies. We ascend up a ladder to a loft filled with art of big-eyed children, David Bowie portraits, sad clowns caressing monkeys and even an original print of the (slightly racist, as Presslee admits) haunting mural from the original Terror Ride at Lagoon before they painted over it. His living room and kitchen are adorned with a wall of old-school Simpsons figurines and Presslee\u2019s own art. He has an old tube TV that he modified into a fish tank and a Garfield coin-operated mall ride that\u2019s still functional. While we walk and talk, we are followed by his loving and adorable bambino hairless cat, Ziggy. To say I could\u2019ve stayed there for hours would be an understatement.<\/p>\n

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4\/25 DESERET NEWS: Latter-day Saint artists \u2018Lift Up the Hands Which Hang Down\u2019 in new exhibit<\/strong><\/p>\n

Months after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was formally organized in 1830, Frederick G. Williams chose to be baptized as a member of the Church. Williams\u2019 wife, Rebecca Swain, had already joined by that time, and the two were living in Kirtland, Ohio. Williams almost immediately served a mission with Oliver Cowdery to Missouri. And less than two years after he was baptized, Williams was called to serve as a counselor to the Prophet Joseph Smith. This calling is recorded in\u00a0Doctrine and Covenants 81.<\/p>\n

The Lord\u2019s counsel to Williams in the fifth verse of that section called him to be faithful and to stand in this new calling. Four months earlier, Williams\u2019 predecessor in the same calling had been released \u201cwhen he failed to continue in a manner consistent with this appointment\u201d (Doctrine and Covenants 81, section heading). The Lord continued in the second part of\u00a0verse 5\u00a0saying, \u201cSuccor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE<\/a><\/p>\n

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4\/25 SLTRIB: New international exhibit showcases the wide range of LDS art<\/strong><\/p>\n

Art remains one of the best ways to tell the story of faith in all its marvelous variations, which is why The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been sponsoring an international art competition\u00a0every three or four years since 1987.<\/p>\n

\u201cA different style of art is like a different language. \u2026.We have such a variety of art languages as people \u2018liken the scriptures\u2019 unto themselves,\u201d said Latter-day Saint art curator Laura Paulsen Howe,\u00a0who curated the 13th International Art Competition that opened Thursday\u00a0in downtown Salt Lake City. \u201cArtists are going to use the visual grammar that makes sense to them, that they grew up in and that they learned.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE<\/a><\/p>\n

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4\/19 SLTRIB: Could this Salt Lake City artist\u2019s Granary District dino sculpture become the \u2018whale of the west\u2019?<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of Utah\u2019s native creatures\u00a0<\/b>hopes to find a permanent home in the Granary District.<\/p>\n

\u201cKosmo\u201d is a 20-foot-long steel sculpture of a Kosmoceratops, a plant-eating dinosaur discovered in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. He\u2019s the creation of Salt Lake City woodworker\u00a0<\/b>and artist\u00a0<\/b>Garth Franklin, who hopes Kosmo will become a mascot and anchor of the city\u2019s Granary District, like the 9th and 9th\u2019s whale has become to the east.<\/p>\n

Kosmo came about through the\u00a0open streets initiative, an annual project between the city, the Downtown Alliance and The Blocks Arts District meant to improve walkability and promote pedestrian-friendly streets.<\/p>\n

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READ MORE<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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4\/30 CITY WEEKLY: SLC and the creator of “The Whale” take 630 victory laps around a beloved public artwork. On a chilly, overcast morning in February, a fit man in his mid-40s jogged steadily in small concentric circles, looping a roundabout in the middle of Salt Lake City’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-bytes"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-11-18 07:04:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Screenshot-2025-05-05-at-11.46.28-AM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92703","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92703"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92719,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92703\/revisions\/92719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}