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THE LEGENDS ISSUE
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The Message of the Clock | oil, watercolor, acrylic, plaster and resin on canvas 36 x 36 inches; 91.4 x 91.4 centimeters | 2014
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Brigham Young University's Franklin S. Harris Fine Arts Center was considered the "most comprehensive building of its kind at an American university" when it opened in 1964 in Provo, Utah. Now in its 50th anniversary season, the tradition of excellence in the arts and communications cultivated at the center has now expanded into all the world through international tours and broadcasts of BYU performances. It is our pleasure to mark this anniversary season with special events, concerts, and exhibitions that will culminate in a gala arts festival on April 3, 2015. Celebrate with us!
HFAC50.byu.edu/celebrate franklin s. harris BYU President, 1921–45
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14–22 21 27–28
Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra
28
Halloween Hi-Jinks
14–15
Mahler’s Symphony No. 2
Salute to Youth
31
Cirque de la Symphonie
21–22
Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7
29–30
Messiah Sing-In
JAN
Beethoven’s Ninth Joy to the World with Pink Martini Here Comes Santa Claus!
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7–8
Cirque de la Symphonie
Doc Severinsen: Solid Gold
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2–3 9–10 15
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New Year’s in Vienna
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The Streisand Songbook
Debussy, Françaix, Poulenc, & Ibert
20–21
Beethoven’s Violin Concerto
17–25
Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers
30–31
Strauss’ A Hero’s Life MAY
André Watts plays Beethoven 5
10–11
Daphnis & Chloe
Mozart’s Così fan tutte
17–18
Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony
Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf
24–25
The Midtown Men
25
Mahler’s Symphony No. 3
Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker
APR
Beethoven & Wagner
6–7
Peter Pan and Other Adventures
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DIGEST
From the Publisher 08 Guest Editor’s Note 12
14 Editor’s Choice
16 The Legend of Vern Swanson
by Robert T. Benson
22 Two Hearts Beat
by Carmen Stenholm
28 More Than Trees
by Savannah Turk
32 Plein Air Painting
by John Hughes
36 Painterly Expression
by Ehren Clark
44 Beyond the Grand View
by Wade Wixom
52 The Importance of Jazz
by Savannah Turk
56 Finding The Music In Moab
by Nathan Bowen
62 The Timeless Art of Opera
by Kelli Nakagama
Editor’s Choice: Drive with a View by Caleb Meyer
68 When Strings Sing
Caleb Meyer was born and raised in Idaho and went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art Education from Boise State University. Meyer then spent two years studying with renowned artist Robert Moore. He enjoys painting outdoors in the rugged Idaho landscape and finds inspiration in the world around him. Meyer’s style often involves exciting shapes portrayed in exuberant color with varying subject matter, between vast landscapes and vibrant city scenes. “Drive With a View” is a wonderful example of Meyer’s use of color. The refreshing blues and white portray the grandeur of Utah’s mountain landscape and ready the viewer for the winter season. This work is currently on display at District Gallery in Park City, UT.
by Rebecca Stowers
72 The Best of Bestor
by Austen Diamond
76 Striking a Chord
by Eric Schulzke, Deseret News
84 The Art of Screenplay Writing
by Lyman D. Dayton
87 How Pressure Makes Perfect
99
by Joshua Wright
Perspective by Cheryl Collins
90 Memories and Metaphors
101 Gallery Catalog
by Dennis Smith
Selected Works on Display
96 Riding the Creative Process
113 Gallery Directory
by Janice Brooks
Mountain West Listings Premier Fine Arts Digest of the Mountain West
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From the Publisher
O
ne learns early on in art study about the color wheel and the rules of mixing color. Instructors emphasize not to over-mix colors, but also that the most magnificent colors come from some degree of careful and thoughtful mixing. Eventually, one comes to learn that the mere juxtaposing of a particular color right next to its complement creates an enhancing effect that is pleasing to the eye. Publishing a magazine is much different, of course, but we are mindful of the principle that a careful balance is key. I know that mixing and juxtaposing can be risky, however, in each issue of “Fibonacci Fine Arts Digest” we strive to fulfill what was our mission since the beginning of this journey: Exploring, reporting, and celebrating the fine arts, inclusive of music, visual and performing art, and film. We believe those things that inspire are a feast for the soul and can be edible in one publication. Being a physician, in a world of specialization, I appreciate the specialization requirement. The expression, “Jack of all trades, master of none,” describes just why this publication is applying considerable effort to bring a level of rigor to our writing, editing, and design. It seeks not to be a specialist’s journal, but we do have writers who are true pros. This is neither a journal on plein air painting, nor is it a journal on classical piano. But we do report on some of the best painters and musicians in the country. It’s simple. We have in the Mountain West some of the best talent in the various fine arts bailiwicks, and that warrants support, patronage, and promotion. We encourage you to become regular readers of this digest, but we also invite you to step into the local galleries this holiday season. Buy a piece of art. Go to the ballet, the opera, or symphony. See a jazz quartet playing at Sugarhouse Coffee or Gracie’s. Get ready for the Sundance Film Festival. See a local filmmaker’s new release at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. But, by all means, don’t take for granted the art treasures that are here in the Mountain West—here for the taking. This issue is one about legendary talent. While each issue of “Fibonacci Digest” could easily be dubbed The Legends Issue, this edition aims to look at some already legendary people, some emerging legends in the arts community, and promises to be a legendary read. The Fibonacci editorial team is being built from the ground up with dedicated and talented professionals. We are drawing on multi-dimensional people, tapping more and more talent, and building bridges in order to achieve our mission. We are grateful for our guest editor, the talented Austen Diamond. He brings a fresh set of eyes, a critical viewpoint, and heaps of creativity to the Salt Lake City art scene, and to this issue of “Fibonacci Digest.” While we work hard to define our publication and maintain a balance of vibrant and interesting content you’ll enjoy, we invite you to be avid consumers of legendary art. We hope you’ll find some interesting and captivating treasures within our pages as we continue mixing our content, hoping to find the perfect color. “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” ~Pablo Picasso
Robert T. Benson M.D., M.B.A.
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DIGEST
PUBLISHER Robert T. Benson M.D., M.B.A. MANAGING EDITOR Savannah Turk GUEST EDITOR Austen Diamond MARKETING / ART DIRECTOR Joe Olivas FEATURED WRITERS Carmon Stenholm Dennis Smith Ehren Clark Eric Schulzke, Desert News Joshua Wright Lyman D. Dayton Nathan Bowen Rebecca Stowers CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Janice Brooks John Hughes Kelli Nakagama Wade Wixom
On the Cover: “Running Late” by Casey Childs 40 X 24, Oil on Linen Sold to a Private Collection Born in Powell, WY, Childs grew up in the neighboring town of Lovell and had a passion for art from an early age. Childs went on to attend Northwest College, and it was through his studies there with John Giarrizzo that he gained a strong desire to be a painter. After Northwest, Childs continued his education at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree. More training followed with an apprenticeship alongside renowned portrait painter William Whitaker. After college, Childs spent ten years in graphic design, but has since dedicated his life to being a full-time artist. Childs spends much of his time at his recently constructed studio in Pleasant Grove, UT, which was designed after the layout used by the old masters. Childs and his wife, Amanda, along with their sons Evan, Owen, and Cameron, currently live in Utah. Childs is a portrait painter, turning to the human figure for inspiration. In his artist’s statement, Childs says, “My work as a whole encompasses an exploration of the human experience. My interest in the people around me comes from the idea that we look at people every day, but we never really stop to SEE them. In every painting I strive to capture the beauty, variations, and complexities of the human form. The goal of my portrait work is to capture the soul of the individual—not just their likeness.” Receiving First Honors in the Portrait Society of America’s 2011 International Portrait Competition as well as a Certificate of Excellence the previous year, Childs has received notoriety and recognition for his work nationwide and is collected both publicly and privately. “Fibonacci Digest” is thrilled to feature the work of Casey Childs on the cover of The Legends Issue. While many of his portraits are captivating, truth-telling, and sometimes even haunting, “Running Late” perfectly portrays Childs’ style, attention to detail, and engaging use of color. While “legends” can describe prolific people, the word can also describe stories. Childs’ work to tell the legends of everyday people has, in turn, made Childs himself a legend.
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CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Chad Wing Elizabeth Leslie Photography Grace Paradela Kent Miles Kimberly Warner Photography Richard Bowditch For advertising information send inquiries to: Fibonacci Fine Arts Digest 633 N 400 West Salt Lake City, UT 84103 P 435.656.3377 www.fibonaccidigest.com advertising@fibonaccidigest.com The opinions contained in the articles and advertisements published by Fibonacci Fine Arts Digest are not necessarily those of Fibonacci Fine Arts Digest, its officers, directors or employees, nor does publication in Fibonacci Fine Arts Digest constitute an endorsement of the views, products or services contained in said articles or advertisements. The publisher is not responsible or liable for errors or omissions in any advertisement beyond the paid price. Fibonacci Fine Arts Digest is published four times annually by The Taft Co., LLC and is distributed throughout Utah and surrounding areas. Any reproduction, electronic, print, or otherwise without written consent from the publisher is strictly prohibited. Address requests for special permission to the Managing Editor. To subscribe to the Fibonacci Fine Arts Digest, make changes to your current subscription, or purchase back issues, call 435.656.3377 or visit us online at www.fibonaccidigest.com. Copyright © 2014 Fibonacci Fine Arts Digest, The Taft Co., LLC. All rights reserved.
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Guest Editor’s Note
M
y first profound epiphany after experiencing fine art was at The Louvre. Unlike many of the tourists who make their way to France’s most iconic art museum, I wasn’t necessarily there to take witness of the “Mona Lisa.” Maybe I shouldn’t write this here, as the guest editor of “Fibonacci Fine Arts Digest,” knowing that this preeminent painting has been shown to contain the Fibonacci sequence. For me, art has never been about checking off boxes on a list. Rather, it’s been about finding a personal connection, and that’s certainly difficult when pushing through “Mona Lisa’s” passionate paparazzi. When I experience a personal connection to a work of art—whether it be in the halls of a museum, on the walls of a friend’s home, or in the pages of a digest—I let art do what it does best. On its most profound and most basic levels, art makes us ask questions, which are, by extension, part of grander stories. These stories that we conjure could be many things: the story of the painter and his expression; the story within the scene depicted in the picture; the story of how I came to interact with this particular piece. Or, perhaps, it’s a story that runs deeper. Art in its myriad forms—mysterious and illustrious—helps us ask the questions that evoke these stories, which are, of course, metaphor. And such metaphors help us to change the way that we view the world around us. A personal connection to art can be the conduit by which we catch a glimmer in the eye of transcendence. When we see through the lens of another, we bask in empathy and we strengthen our connection to humanity as a whole. Obviously, I’m passionate about the arts. I was only 18 years old when I visited The Louvre, but what I left with after the six hours in that grand space was priceless. With what felt like a million connections to art that was so vast in scope, I left feeling both overwhelmed and deeply moved. That’s when I realized that art is the bridge that has connected us as a people over time— aesthetically, spiritually, and creatively. I’ve always been attracted to a wide swath of artistic stylings. Maybe the seeds of a far-reaching curiosity were planted those many years ago. As you read through the third issue of “Fibonacci Digest,” The Legends Issue, I hope you see the variety at play, and I hope that you “walk out” of the issue with the same sentiment that I left The Louvre carrying. The Legends Issue covers broad strokes, indeed. What’s more, it’s apparent that the writers were moved by their particular subjects to ask important and particular questions. When diving into this issue, you’ll get to know long-time director of the Springville Museum of Art, Vern Swanson, whose story of traveling to Russia at the tail end of the Cold War to collect forgotten art is completely engaging. I think you’ll also be moved at the generosity of Gordon Hanks, who has donated more than $500,000 of his own funds to further jazz in Salt Lake City. And after reading about how Janell James finds the magic in the trees when she renders her impressionistic paintings, maybe you’ll see the light falling on quaking aspens in a whole new way. As a writer, photographer, and founder of 13% SALT—a photo journal of Utah’s modern pioneers, subcultures, and communities—I like to think that I have an eye for elegant, yet approachable design. The beauty of this magazine stands on its own. Clean lines and simple typeface meet an abundance of incredible art. I think that The Legends Issue will proudly live on your coffee table for time to come. I hope it to be a conversation starter during cocktail hour or something that you continually come back to while drinking tea as dawn breaks. I hope that Fibonacci gives the gift of art. And most importantly, as you read on, I hope the art and stories help you ask important questions, whatever they may be. Sincerely, Austen Diamond
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Editor’s Choice
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Drive With a View by Caleb Meyer 36 X 24, Painting District Gallery – Park City, UT
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The Legend of Vern Swanson
From Springville to the Soviet Union, Art Has No Boarders by Robert T. Benson
N
othing can cause the collision of polar opposites— such as a college football player and an art museum, a conservative republican and a liberal democrat, or the free and open frontier of the American Mountain West and the suppressed Soviet regime—as the arts can. Each of these dichotomies have been personified in Vern Swanson’s life, a college football player turned art connoisseur. His is an inspiring journey that has been fueled by a passionate love affair with the fine arts. Swanson himself admits to having the fine arts fever, calling it, “a magnificent obsession.”
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Swanson’s fascination with Soviet art started well after he’d received a Doctorate of Art History from Courtauld Institute of Art at the University of London. Swanson began travelling to Russia in the 1980s. What he found there was life altering—not just for him, but for Soviet art and artists alike. “I saw the art there and it spoke to my soul...it was like finding a long-lost treasure trove,” Swanson said. “The Russians hated it. But the regime was changing and we saw that happening. The more I went there, the more I loved it.”
Nikolai Ivanovich Ulyanov, Spring in the Village, Russia, 1959, Oil on Board, 18.81 x 13 in., Courtesy private collection.
Asked about being an academic, Swanson is modest and credited the leading scholars in the field, but admited that while not a Russian art scholar, he is an expert. “I wouldn’t say I’m a leading scholar in Russian art because I don’t speak Russian, but some may say I’m an expert in middle period Socialist Realist art—what we call working-class impressionism,” Swanson said. For the last three decades, Swanson has made trips to Russia and has been instrumental in curating a world-class collection as previous director for Utah’s first art museum, the Springville Museum of Art. “The museum has been a wonderful experience, which has allowed me to meet so many talented artists, and generous philanthropists. It’s a place that has influenced Utah art,” Swanson said.
Swanson first saw the museum as a young football player at Brigham Young University. It is said that one hot, summer day he ran from BYU’s campus all the way to the museum. There he was, immediately enamored, captivated, and destined. Just as fortuitous as that summer day was the convergence of a handful of collectors who headed to the Soviet Union during the “thaw” of the Cold War. In his book “Soviet Impressionist Painting,” Swanson wrote, “The first alliance for Russian and Soviet art in America was with Raymond E. Johnson of the Overland Gallery in Scottsdale, James Dabakis of Salt Lake City and myself at the Springville Museum of Art in Utah. By the summer of 1990, we were the ‘Bolshoi troika’ [The big three] of Soviet fine art in America. Together, for about a decade, we helped shape America’s appreciation of Socialist Realist painting.” Recounting one of the first moments Swanson discovered the hidden stores of rich and captivating Russian art, Swanson describes the difficulty getting behind closed doors to the studios of the non-state artists. These artists were turning from the state influence on art and actually applying their gifts with Vyacheslav Andreevich Fedorov, The Rye is Almost Ready, 1995, Oil on Canvas, 35.63 x 60.25, Springville Museum of Art Permanent Collection 2002.041
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Mikhail Alekseevich Kostin, In the Stalin Factory. 1949, Oil on Canvas, 52 x 68 in. Springville Museum of Art Permanent Collection 2010.025
the brush to achieve virtuoso paintings depicting life in its raw and real form—not bland, unrewarding, repetitious images of Soviet Union idealism. The creativity of the expressive artist having been suppressed by a communist regime was burgeoning, ready to hatch like a chrysalis.
a large, dank apartment building.” Swanson admitted that though it was exciting, it crossed his mind he might be in danger. “After all, this still was the Soviet Union, with all its paranoia and suspicion. There wasn’t an art market at that time so they weren’t used to Westerners coming to buy their art.”
On this first occasion, after a day of sifting through the state-run academy galleries, Swanson describes an area full of unexciting art, so many artists producing what was seemingly ubiquitous and commoditized. This day he was looking through packed displays and stacks grouped in areas where artists were milling around—an artist co-op of sorts. With his uncanny ability to find the “really good stuff” Swanson saw a needle in a haystack. It was a small, unframed painting leaning against a wall on the ground. He picked it up and, like finding a diamond in the rough, he asked a young, bilingual Russian man who the artist was, and asked if he’d show him to the artist’s studio. After a short negotiation for the man’s services, they were off to find the artist.
Thankfully, their young guide earned his rubles. He led Swanson to a small rooftop apartment where the painting’s reticent artist eventually allowed the American collectors to view his studio, and ultimately many other artists followed suit.
What Swanson described reminds one of a scene from an Indiana Jones movie. The young man agreed to take Swanson to the studio of this little known artist for a few rubles, but needing to sneak away from the young man’s employer—a state-run gallery—they took taxi, train and trail to a near-by apartment complex. Swanson described the adventure with fond memory, “We were literally climbing up staircases to scale to the roof of
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“These studios were often full of stacks of some of the most beautiful paintings I’d ever seen...unframed, and stacked on the floor,” Swanson said. Wistfully, Swanson described the paintings as having “...strong, deliberate brushstrokes, bold color schemes, and virtuoso compositions. I mean these paintings were compelling stories! They all told a story.” Russian Impressionism, as it was collectively coined, was a pictorial language that spoke to Swanson. He didn’t see in the paintings the harsh stereotypes and other Western misconceptions held at that time about the Soviet people. Nor did he see the utopian communistic idealism that an earlier segment of Soviet art had reluctantly uttered through its pious brushworks. What was communicated was artists depicting life as they knew it, emphasizing the intimate and real, life-affirming human side of the proletariat. “The figurative works of the Soviet Realists that I was discover-
ing was simply art mimicking life...artists expressing what they felt, what they saw, what they lived. What I was privileged to view was the art of surpassing quality and enduring relevance...and while not in vogue at the time in Russia, once we started buying, they took notice, all of a sudden it was much more valuable,” Swanson said. Prior to Swanson and his collector comrades’ impact on Soviet art, it was a cheap commodity. The artists would finish a beautiful painting, and to preserve the canvas, which was in short supply, they would often sand down the paint and paint a new picture over the top. “This was the level of apathy for their own artists at the time we discovered this art,” Swanson said. The trips to Russia continued, granting discovery of studio after studio of gifted Russian painters, most of whom weren’t a part of the academy. “They didn’t even know anyone valued their work, but as we bought, they raised their prices. And soon, we had a collection at the Springville art museum of Soviet art that would rival any...and the word was out.” Swanson continued, “The Renaissance that had been going on behind the iron curtain was becoming known thanks to our group’s exposure of what was hidden for far too long.” Swanson spoke fondly of his long friendship with Dabakis, who he described as an art lover, connoisseur of all things Russia, and genius businessman. Smiling as he spoke, Swanson described his gratitude to Dabakis for exposing him to the land of the Soviets.
of art consumption that led to a budding market for this segment of European art. And the people—especially the artists—noticed Swanson’s influence. The namesake of one of Swanson’s favorite artists recently honored him with a significant recognition. The International Plastov Awards, named in honor of Arkady Plastov (18931972), one of the greatest Russian figurative artists of the 20th century, were held recently in London with a prize fund of 25 million rubles ($833,000), making this accolade the world’s biggest art award. Swanson was recognized in the “Tradition and Innovation” category, which honors “painters, curators, and art critics for implementing and developing projects that support and promote Figurative and Realist Art.” Swanson noted, however, that the most important result of his excursions to Russia is that the art has been brought into the market, generating and capturing its considerable value. He quickly likened this to the art in the Mountain West. “Utah art is so wonderful, many don’t even know how really, really good it is. [In Utah, we] often take it for granted,” Swanson said. “Each artist and each piece of art has a story. The more we patronize the galleries and the museums right here in Utah, the more our artists’ value will rise.” Swanson wants artists to win, to be successful, and for their gifts to thrive. He gets excited when he can view yet another
“He and I would likely describe our views on political issues as almost opposites, but our preconceived notions about art in Russia converged toward one thing. After we had viewed literally tens of thousands of paintings, visited hundreds of studios, spanning over 30 trips to Russia, we have a common bond,” Swanson said. “We discovered a treasure trove and saw how our tastes in this art, which was being rejected by its own people, caused the demand to rise...many of these artists are millionaires now.” The unearthing of thousands of what Swanson generally dubbed Russian Impressionist paintings from the Soviet Union was the beginning of a cascade Leonid Georgievich Filatov, Musical Interlude, 1956, Oil on Canvas, 54 x 64.5 Springville Museum of Art Permanent Collection 2001.024
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Photo by Chad Wing
energetic, positive force in the art world, not only here in Utah, but obviously in Europe as well.”
Utah artists’ work. Always a Utah boy at heart, Swanson wants nothing more than for his home state and the surrounding Mountain West region to thrive as an art mecca. Swanson stated, “I believe we have as many or more top quality artists right here in Utah than any other state—that I’m sure about.” When asked what will it take to sure up the art market so that the Mountain West region’s artists can thrive, Swanson believes that new collectors have to be made, more market channels need to be formed, and that the business model for art commercialization cannot be a stagnant, traditional approach. More importantly, Swanson said, “The art needs to be recognized and consumed by the public. The more they buy, the more demand will enhance art’s value...just as it happened when someone showed taste for Russian art on his walls.” In speaking about Russian Impressionist art Swanson said, “It went from trampled under foot to high-demand, almost overnight.” Simply put, Swanson said, “The more that is purchased, the more the demand goes up and the value goes with it.” Although none will argue against the enduring affect Swanson has had on the art community, around the world and in Utah, he still does not take credit for the collections he has curated. He is quick to defer to the generosity of Sam and Diane Stewart, Dorè Eccles Foundation, Jeffrey H. and Helen S. Cardon, Eliie Sonntag, L. Douglas, and Marion Smoot, to name a few. While Swanson is humble in taking credit for his art efforts, others gratuitously give him the recognition he deserves. Thomas Alder, owner of Alderwood Art Gallery in downtown Salt Lake City, himself a Utah art historian, spoke about Swanson, saying, “There isn’t anyone that is his equal when it comes to Mountain West artists and Utah art history. Apart from that, he has an undying passion for the arts. He is an Photo by Chad Wing
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Utah artists, including AD Shaw, Martin Ricks, Steve McGinty, and others, have been quoted saying how much the Russian Impressionism and Soviet Realism brought to light and put on display in Utah by Swanson and his colleagues has influenced their work. Swanson agrees that the Utah artists, with a bent toward painterly landscapes and contemporary art, were pushed by the figurative techniques and the compelling composition of Russian Impressionists. Artists and art enthusiasts alike have come to see the collection Swanson has curated at the Springville Museum of Art, including non-artists ranging from many locals to famous visitors, like Steven Spielberg and Glenn Beck. To spend time with Vern Swanson is a fascinating experience. His mind and life are complex and diverse. His home is a modest, but beautiful place decorated with some near breath-taking pieces of art. Spending time with Swanson, one sees what a kind-hearted, gentle man he is. Yet, his intellectual intensity is as vibrant and undulating as the impasto brushwork on the paintings showcased on his walls. While Swanson is one who lives in serene simplicity on a quiet creek, his office is packed full of books, manuscripts, and periodicals having to do with art. Busy writing his next book, making trips to art shows around the country, and giving lectures, Swanson appears as though he’ll go on forever. The Springville Museum of Art is planning a re-hang of the Russian Collection opening January 14th. “Russian Stories, Soviet Ideals” will focus on the cultural, historical, and political stories that came out of Russia during the Soviet time period, and also examine the ideals of the time period and how they are reflected in the artwork. The exhibition honors Jerald H. Jacobs and his contribution to the museum and especially its collection of Russian artwork. n
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Two Hearts Beat
Springville Museum of Art, Unparalleled Past & Bright Future by Carmen Stenholm
P
ushing their handcarts across a beautiful and often unfriendly young America, 19th century followers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints brought an aesthetic uniquely their own to what would become the state of Utah. Soon after coming across the Great Salt Lake Basin, Mormon settlements started springing up in a trail leading south along the Wasatch Front. Nestled at the base of one mountain peak, Springville began as a small settlement and in 1907 grew into “Utah’s Art City.” In the center of Springville, an imposing building stands amidst beautiful lawns and gardens. A blend of Eastern European and Western Spanish Colonial elements, the Springville Museum of Art houses a treasure trove of art and is an artifact
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in and of itself. But these are merely the broad brushstrokes that begin to define this building. Its history and its purpose demand a closer look. On a warm, late-summer day, I enter through heavy wooden doors reminiscent of those on a Moorish fortress. Over the sound of my footsteps echoing on the Spanish tile floors, I hear slightly hushed voices. Children chat with each other as mothers carry on the long tradition of introducing each new generation of visitors to this place of beauty. Another few steps forward, looking through rows of arches at rooms filled with light, the real wonder of this magical space fills my senses. Weaving its subtle rhythm between them is a
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heart beating somewhere within the brick and mortar, adding a dimension as profound as any found in sanctuaries across the globe. It is not wrong to call this museum of art a sanctuary. It is in many ways a holy place anchoring the spirit of its Mormon past and that cultures’ unique reverence for beauty. To describe the nearly 3,000 works, of which 2,000 are Utah art, is to miss the point. Yes, they are beautiful; yes, they are significant; yes, they are valuable. But their real value lays in the way the Springville community and visitors from around the world relate to this collection. This museum is distinct in that two-thirds of the collection represents local work. In my mind, there is no other museum, large or small, that reflects local artistic excellence like the Springville Museum of Art. The founding of the museum is also unique. In order to acquaint children with the ideas of classical refinement and enlightenment, early settlers resolved to take arts to the young people in their community. In the 1880s and 1890s, art missions to Paris were funded in an effort to educate and train Springville boys in some of the finest art centers in the western world. John Hafen emigrated from Switzerland with his family when he was only six years old. In 1890, Hafen helped convince the Church authorities to sponsor a French Art Mission and returned to Europe to continue his studies in impressionist landscape painting. In 1903, Hafen presented his painting “Mountain Stream” to Springville High School. This was the first seed of the Springville Museum of Art.
Cyrus Dallin, born in Springville in 1861, traveled to Paris in 1887 for studies. Ultimately, he became famous for his sculptures that grace government buildings and parks across the United States. One of his best-known works is the statue of Paul Revere in downtown Boston. However, the monument closest to his heart was the angel Moroni he was commissioned to sculpt for the Salt Lake Temple in 1892. His own words speak most eloquently of both his accomplishments and talent, “I have received two college degrees—besides medals galore—but my greatest honor of all is that I came from Utah.” Starting with Dallin and Hafen’s donations to Springville’s high school students, a fire of passion for art was lit. Other Utah artists began to donate. Students became interested in collecting and began purchasing paintings and sculptures through a program called Art Queen, in which each student paid a penny-per-vote and the girl with the most votes was named queen. The funds were then used to purchase art for the collection. Over the past 150 years, this project grew through dedication and hard work into a separate entity that continues to honor artistic expression and the positive impact art can have on youthful minds and hearts. The museum’s founding fathers, among them Hafen and Dallin, specifically dedicated the Springville Museum of Art “to provide quality, life-affirming art” and “cultural and educational opportunities,” as well as “an acquaintance with excellence, and a belief in the beauty of life.” It is hard to imagine a nobler cause than helping young people translate both the exceptional and the mundane into art. To recognize the value of such a project for their community and to continue to support this effort until the present day is a testament to the enduring passions of a people steeped in the values of beauty and commitment. David O. McKay, the ninth president of the Church, shared his sentiment at the building’s dedication. His words, “A sanctuary of beauty and a temple of contemplation,” may ring archaic to modern ears, but they are a true description of the founder’s intent and the present day affect the museum still has on visitors. While this temple of contemplation promises appreciation for beauty and a deeper understanding of the meaning of life, it also encourages a new world
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of creative thought. Woven throughout this tapestry of human aspirations is the idea that we can connect with the divine by way of art and spiritual centering. As I continue to walk through one hall after another filled with the works of masters, I can feel the presence of another theme echoing between the spaces. I begin to sense the continuity of commitment from one generation to another. It is a reflection of the value Mormon communities place on families and especially their children. The spirit of the Springville Museum of Art is not limited to a certain place or building. Rather, it is an entity fueled by the passion of one generation for the next. It is a reflection of the respect for the work of parents and ancestors. It is the bonds that are created between people when the welfare of all is paramount and individuals support common ideals. This is the heart of the Springville Museum of Art. It is the presence of a rhythm that can be felt as clearly as it can be seen in the building and the pieces of art collected over the last 150 years. It is a love for sheltering the genius of generations and the ability to inspire many more. Fortunately for the people of Springville, it’s also an idea that is still being fueled today as the Utah State Office of Education and the Springville City Fathers continue to fund the museum to uphold its mission to take the arts to children. The Springville Museum of Art is fortunate enough to have a second heartbeat, which I can feel throughout the salons and offices of this grand house. It is the heart of Dr. Rita Wright who has been the museum’s director since 2012. Her passion for the art she cherishes and protects is equaled only by the love of her mission and the people who assist her in bringing to life the work of past and contemporary artists. It is hard to describe Wright without first mentioning her enormous capacity to make every visitor and guest feel welcome. Despite impressive credentials that include education in Utah’s finest universities and vast experience in major museums, Wright is first and foremost a champion of tolerance and cooperative ventures to strengthen community relationships. Wright gives her predecessor, Vern Swanson, credit for his excellent work in building a strong foundation through the acquisition of distinctive masterpieces, including the 20th century Soviet Realist works of art as part of the museum’s permanent collection. Her focus, however, is on a more communal future for the museum.
As Wright continues to rally community support for maintaining and expanding the collection, she also plans to expand programs and classes designed to facilitate youth involvement and learning. Wright wants to inspire and educate children by helping them understand the importance of appreciating art and the different ways that varying cultures have of doing that.
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Wright has a clear understanding of every museum’s tasks to collect, preserve, and share great art. However, while she collects and preserves with the best of them, her passion is for sharing. Education is her focus, for the young and old to understand the artist’s experience as much as the art itself. Wright wants to generate discussions about seeming dichotomies in art and in life. She wants to help people speak to each other about their ideas and their beliefs. She wants them to experience each other directly as well as through the medium of art, which binds each of us more surely than words alone. What’s more, Wright wants to preserve her community’s love for offering art as a sacred space for human expression. She will build programs and move the museum toward a future built on not just dollars, but also a healthy dose of spirit. Perhaps the finest testimony of her success is the two young women waiting for Wright in the hallway when I leave her office. When she opens her door and steps into the hallway, each woman, in turn, hands her the infants they carry in slings against their hearts. Proudly, just as their mothers and grandmothers had done, each mother introduces her tiny baby and announces that this is her child’s first visit to the Springville Museum of Art. n Photos courtesy of the Springville Museum of Art
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435.770.1201 www.jeremywinborg.com
Directors Choice Award, “Grand Canyon Sky” “Artists of Distinction” Exhibit 2014, Santa Barbara, CA
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More Than Trees
Technique Creates a Transformative Experience by Savannah Turk
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anell James’ work feels oddly familiar. From first to last glance, viewers don’t have to shape or mold themselves to fit the painting. In fact, the opposite happens. You take a deep breath. You feel comforted. You are transported into a space that feels like home. That’s the magic of James’ trees. “I hope that [my work] takes [the viewer] somewhere,” James says. “Puts them in the mountains or reminds them of a hike or a family reunion or a time in the fall when they got married…Trees are around us all the time and they have that way of bringing people in. They do for me at least. They provide a very serene state of mind.”
Sitting in her quaint and cozy Sugarhouse living room, James describes her long love affair with trees. Her two golden retrievers, Jasper and Roxy, are huddled around her feet. “As a little kid I remember walking around and looking up through the leaves of the trees to the sky and just seeing the way the light would dance on the branches and through the leaves,” James says. “It just seemed like there were so many colors possible. It seemed to me like the trees always impressed the most contrast on the sky. They always stood out to me more than anything against the blue sky.” James’ paintings capture an important part of the Mountain West’s landscape. Her work depicts what we see everyday, yet overlook. Although trees are commonplace in our scenery, James’ gift is making the mundane transcendent. James’ work transfixes the viewer with her signature combination of color and skill. “Sustainable Growth” embodies James’ style, where an average prairie is turned into an engaging scene with movement, depth, and sense of time. The skill with which James paints, however, would never have come to fruition without the support and guidance of her mentors. One of James’ first mentors was painter Connie Borup. Borup’s own resume is extensive, with years of teaching and exhibiting along the Mountain West. James was fortunate enough to learn from Borup in high school and again in college. James moves from the cozy living room to her upstairs study. There, she shows me a small watercolor of a bird and flower hung on the back wall. James explains that this simple and elegant piece was created in Borup’s high school AP art class and was one of the first pieces that she painted that really motivated her to pursue art as a career. In 2006, James began painting full time. She started studying with David Dornan, Paul Davis, and a number of other talented artists in Helper, Utah. James’ art took her to the Lighting the Way 40 x 30 Oil on Canvas
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Bay Area Classical Artist Atelier for two years of study, and then she spent another six months in Paris, France at Studio Escalier. In France, James was classically trained to draw the human figure. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do then, but I knew that I wanted to be classically trained and that being a really good draftsman was part of the ABCs,” James says. It’s clear that learning to draw the human figure was an important first step in James’ career. Understanding value, learning to turn a form, using light—these are the classic skills that maintain the quality of James’ paintings. But her work extends beyond her technical prowess. “You get the fundamentals really solid and then you can break all the rules you want,” James says with a smile. James breaks the rules in a graceful way. Her consistent subject matter allows her to play with color, light, and space. Her strokes range from smooth and calming lines to jolting
silhouettes of bold color. View a classic piece, like “Lighting the Way,” which depicts a trail in Millcreek Canyon, or a mess of purple branches in a yellow sky, such as “Sunkissed” from her contemporary series. It’s obvious James’ attention to technique is always on point and her creativity is never lacking. Impressionist artists such as Monet and Manet have influenced James’ style. She, like many Impressionist-era artists, breaks the rules laid out by classic painting standards. James looks to the landscape that surrounds her every day life for inspiration and captures its natural beauty. Up close, her pieces are textured and nebulous. But when the viewer takes a step back, the scene comes into focus. The overall effect of James’ intricate branches is what transports the viewer. Another clear inspiration for James is American Tonalism. This technique uses color values that are close together, but creates depth with light. While the palate is demure, the light is more dramatic, simplified, and abstract, leaving something to the imagination. Although many of James’ pieces are bright
Super Hero Within Oil on Canvas, 36 x 36 Trove Gallery, Park City, UT
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“Utah is definitely whipping out some amazing artists, but it’s because we’ve had some really tallented teachers.”
Sustainable Growth 60 x 48 Oil on Canvas Rare Gallery of Fine Art Jackson, WY
with color, the influence of American Tonalism has been a large contributor to James’ process. Sinking into her leather couch, James explains that her pieces begin very abstract, covered in large chunks of geometric shapes filled with bold, bright color. Then, she carves into the negative space. James’ use of negative space is largely what makes her work so captivating. This method helps create the vibrant moving skies that transfix anyone who looks upon her trees. “I try to let that abstract nature of the initial layers come through, which I think is very random,” James explains. “I ply with plastic and sponges and all sorts of different things to get it to be so free.” Perhaps the most important part of James’ process is glazing. With this technique, a glaze is created from an oil or varnish pigment and then slathered across the painting. Layer after layer, James carves away at her trees, letting the sky come through and manipulating the color. James repeatedly mentions the work of George Inness, glazing pioneer and a master of American Tonalism. He, along with many other classical masters, has used the glazing process to enhance his work. The glaze creates transparency and depth from the multiple layers that grow on top of each other to create a mysterious and captivating painting. James’ piece “River Walk” is a great example of what a glaze creates. James explains why she works so hard to subdue the vibrant colors that start off her work. “It adds a richness and depth. My work that’s more traditional starts out very bright and hot like some of my other work. But when I glaze it, it ends up a lot more rich. You can really manipulate it. It kind of gives you twice as many colors using a glaze. “ Jasper looses his chew toy. A few minutes are spent searching for the plastic, purple toy and once Jasper is happy, James continues, saying, “I want to be seen as an artist who is constantly trying to evolve and grow. Really, my goal is, if there is a goal, to be the best artist I can possibly be, which requires continual learning.” James’ passion for growth is one of her greatest Sun Kissed 30 x 24 Oil on Canvas Trove Gallery, Park City, UT
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River Walk 48 x 48 Oil on Canvas Private Collection 2013 Spring Salon, Springville Museum, Springville, UT
qualities. Her desire to learn is never limited, and it comes in many forms. Whether combining art and philanthropy to support the Huntsman Cancer Institute, collaborating with colleagues for the Rio Grande Arts show, or returning to Helper for a few weeks of study, James is always pushing herself. This forward momentum, in life and in art, is partially what has made her so successful. James pays her respects to her mentors. “I’m lucky to have so many great teachers. Utah is definitely whipping out some amazing artists, but it’s because we’ve had some really talented teachers.” Perhaps someday James will become another strong mentor in the Mountain West art community, but for now she is enjoying creating her work and building a base of admiring collectors. One doesn’t have to travel far to get a taste of James’ work. Trove Gallery in Park City, UT, Coda Gallery in Palm Desert, CA, 15th Street Gallery in Salt Lake City, UT, Rare Gallery in Jackson Hole, WY, and Nordstrom at City Creek in Salt Lake City all proudly display Janell James trees. Fans can follow James to her group exhibition at the Rio Gallery May 8th through June 12th and marvel at the work of her collaborators Brandon Cook, Nathan Florence, Craig Cleveland, Steven Lee Adams, Hadley Rampton, and Eric Thompson as well. Any admirer of the Mountain West’s scenery should take the opportunity to step into a James landscape. You never know what the trees will have in store for you. n
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Plein Air Painting
A History of One of Today’s Most Popular Methods by John Hughes
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ainting has taken on many forms and techniques throughout its existence. Some techniques have fallen by the wayside while others have been molded and perfected over thousands of years. The sometimes-turbulent past of certain techniques may surprise those who have never questioned how the works hung on gallery walls came to be. One such technique is plein air painting, which jumped seas and overcame a lengthy disappearance to become one of the most popular methods today. Although the artistic method constitutes a kind of loose knit group, they all go by the same title, “Plein Air Painter.” En plein air is French, and means to paint “in the open air.” Plein air painting really gained popularity in the 1870s during the period of French Impressionism, due mostly to the availability of pre-mixed oil paints in tubes that were then made accessable to artists for the first time. Names like Monet, Renoir, and Pizarro are some of the better-known adherents to the movement that shocked the art world and got the ball rolling for many other “-isms” that came along afterward.
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In America, during the late 19th century and in the early part of the 20th century, there were groups of artists devoted to capturing nature out in the open air as well, such as the New England artists and the Plein Air Painters of Northern and Southern California. These movements grew in popularity during the turn of the century and held sway for many years before being overtaken by the modernists. Many of the plein air artists were largely forgotten until a resurgence of interest began again in the late 1970s and early 1980s, due to the re-discovery of the California Plein Air Painters’ works by entities such as the Red Fern Galley in Laguna Beach California. Names like Edgar Payne, Sam Hyde Harris, Hanson Puthuff, and many others who were once largely forgotten, are now huge names in the art world. Their works command high dollars at auction. Fortunately, the plein air movement didn’t die out completely in the United States, thanks to small enclaves of artists who hung on like dried leaves blowing in the wind. Like a vein
Mr. Tree Field Study 10 x 12 Oil on Canvas Montgomery Lee Fine Art Park City, UT
Clearing Skies 20 x 24 Oil on Canvas Montgomery Lee Fine Art Park City, UT
Left: January on Silver Lake 12 x 24 Oil on Canvas
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“Painting from life is the most effective and rewarding way for a landscape painter to work in terms of visual information.”
that still had a spark of life, a select few of these artists were able to keep it alive and pass it down from one generation to the next. In New England, there were artists such as Emile Gruppé, Aldro Hibbard, and many others, who kept the tradition alive. In Utah, LeConte Stewart was one of the regional artists who studied at the Art Student League in New York City and also in Woodstock, New York with some of America’s most famous artists, and then brought back what he learned. Slowly and thankfully, plein air’s popularity grew again, and resulted in a robust following of adherents who practice their craft today by the thousands. Recently, through the efforts of Eric Rhoads and Steve Doherty of “Plein Air Magazine,” the plein air movement has taken on a whole new dimension with the advent of “Plein Air Magazine” and the Plein Air Convention held every year in varying locations. The philosophy of plein air is a basic one, which states that Above: Western Hills 16 x 20 Oil on Canvas Montgomery Lee Fine Art, Park City, UT
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painting from life is the most effective and rewarding way for a landscape painter to work in terms of visual information and the inspiration one gets from being in the environment. This doesn’t mean that a plein air artist never works in a studio setting—far from it—but it does mean that they are visually trained in a way that separates them from the ordinary landscape painter who never ventures outside the confines of the studio and only works from photographic reference. The emotional connection that the artist experiences out in nature also goes a long way to inspire and imbue the work with a sense of reality that is hard to achieve in the studio alone. John Hughes is a plein air painter residing in Taylorsville, Utah with his wife Teresa. He is a member of the Plein Air Painters of Utah as well as the Rocky Mountain Plein Air Painters. n
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Painterly Expression
Finding Artistic Language in Painting Techniques by Ehren Clark
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imilar to how we use conversation to express ourselves, our thoughts, and ideas, art has its own distinctive language. Just as an individual has his personal way of communicating and his own particular thoughts, an individual painter will grow his own painterly language over time. This dialect is uniquely tailored through practice to that artist. The ways and means that an artist seeks to express his truths are then conveyed in his work through his found language. This is not an exact science, but a metaphorical reality, very present in every painter’s manner. The process of understanding an artist’s language can only be done by looking at an individual artist and discovering his means of expression— how he might use paint to express himself and his approach to the canvas. This, of course, as every artist has a unique approach to reality, will differ, resulting in a limitless wealth of artistic approaches to painting. Unraveling them has unlimited possibility.
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In an exploration of painterly language, we will look at five Utah artists. Each is exceptionally strong and each has an exceptionally bold way of looking at the world and translating their way of seeing onto the canvas. Photorealism To begin, we look at Bradford Overton. Overton might be considered a photorealist by the casual observer. Indeed, Overton, who studied painting at the University of Utah, has a method that is absolutely literal to the appearance of the form and an exact rendering of the appearance of things. However, contrary to other photorealist works, Overton’s work is much more than simply about the copying of form. Overton’s work has a philosophy far more reaching than that. Overton’s work today deals with phenomenology of space, the ontology of form, and the reality of their being in space. “Estrella” is a thoughtfully stacked arrangement of cardboard boxes, with a verisimilitude that is precise. One might say, “It looks like a picture,” and so it does. But that is not the extent to which Overton labors to reveal this remarkable effect. He achieves this remarkable level of naturalism and believability
Suspension by Brad Overton 60 x 60 Oil on Canvas
his hair, totally detached from his day-to-day self, although entirely photorealistic. This series uses the Clown as subject and in “Suspension,” where he is painted balanced on a highwire, accentuates the ontology of the Clown in space as well as the artist as Clown. It is a series by an artist who demonstrates his painterly language of photorealism, but one specific to him. Photorealism does not have to be a singular mode of expression, but in the subjective methodology of the sensibilities of the artist, becomes an extension of whom that artist is, it becomes the language of that artist. Realism in Nature
and poses the boxes as such, placing them to question in an existential way. The reflection of these boxes on the polished floor only heightens the perception of this. The same might be said of “Sherpa.” This colorful turtle, painted with such precision, with a tulip-filled vase on its back, might be preposterous, if not for the ontological, philosophical inquisition Overton is exploring. This is made more acute as we see this Sherpa perilously close to a ledge, close to the very extension and plausibility of its safety. The existential question is made quite literal here as is the phenomenon of the passing of time as the turtle, or tortoise, which Overton paints several of, is notoriously slow, thus the ontology of its temporal being is brought to question. Another, most profound example of Overton’s photorealism with a phenomenological perspective is his “Suspension.” This piece is from his Zuni Clown series, a number of disguised self-portraits of the artist as the Clown. The piece in question places the artist, completely covered in body paint with a simple cloth around his waist and a striped rag covering Far Left: Sherpa by Brad Overton 16 x 20 Oil on Canvas
The art of Connie Borup might not be as precisely rendered as Overton’s, yet she takes a keen and penetrative look at nature and the world around her. Borup also studied at the University of Utah and her last show at Phillips Gallery showed, although not photorealistic, just how accurately an artist might get to painting water. But it is Borup’s unique approach to painting, her method, and her artistic language that allows her to do so. Borup employs an approach that is true to nature, which allows the beauty in nature to address how the subject will be articulated. Borup is a painter very much attuned with nature, as it seems she has a way of listening to it, to allow it to dictate her formal language in order to let its purity and formal essence resonate. Borup is a painter who thinks not with the ego, but with perception first, and for that reason, her works speak truthfully. This truthfulness to nature allows Borup to capture the essence of water on canvas with the utmost authenticity. In “Watery Resting Place,” it is the periphery and reality of nature that surrounds the water, the leaves that have fallen onto the water, and the cast shadow that displaces itself upon the water that allows the reality of water to materialize. Thus, Left: Estrella by Brad Overton 48 x 55 Oil on Canvas
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this clear being, this transparency of substance, attains an absolute sense of place through the natural context it finds itself in.
fact. Rather, his style and subject matter is masterfully articulated and he implores a planned structure of painting based on meaning that has its core rooted in family and faith.
“Tree’s Reflection” is just that: a tree’s reflection. The viewer perceives this image as such and perceives that this is a body of water being looked at, without a boundary or edges. Simply by this arboreal reflection that takes on a singular form, the viewer can discern that only a water’s reflection will give this image.
For each of his works, Pugh goes through a careful staging of construction for his designs, building on form, and basing his compositional choices on that which is meaningful to him, be it a personal connection with one of his children or an aspect of his belief in God.
It is through Borup’s very nature as an artist and her truthfulness to nature itself that her painterly language has developed in a way that is singular, authentic, and pure. She displaces the ego, and puts the subject, the being of the natural world, before anything else, making this reality possible and manifest.
One recent and easily distinguished piece is “Three Brothers.” We can ascertain from the title that the basis for the tall junipers is ostensibly being a part of three brothers. Most certainly, for an artist of faith, the number three has a deeper representation, consistent with deity. But here we can see how this artist’s language for his landscape begins with a symbolic construction, with choices that are evoked by meaning personal to him.
Landscape Painting Landscape painting may be the type of painting with the most approaches, thus one may find a countless diversity of artistic language within this particular genre. Generally speaking, the more developed the artist, the more developed and distinctive that language. One easily recognized artist with a singular approach, whose brushstroke, choice of subject, and application of that subject can quickly be spotted, is Jeff Pugh. Pugh studied painting and drawing at the University of Utah and his singular style and methodology are nothing matter-ofAbove Left: Watery Resting Place by Connie Borup 24 x 48 Oil on Canvas
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Above Right: Tree’s Reflection by Connie Borup 36 x 48 Oil on Canvas
Right: Red Gate by Jeff Pugh 24 x 38 Oil on Canvas
Three Brothers by Jeff Pugh 48 x 36 Oil on Canvas
From this point comes further compositional questions, such as the cows in the pasture, which also will have personal significance to Pugh, although what that may be we cannot know. What we do know is that the work is very personally based. The artist never uses a brush. He uses a palette knife, which leaves a distinctive signature style that anyone knowing Pugh’s work will recognize. “Red Gate” shows just how structured Pugh’s artistic approach is and how unique is his artistic language. It is a style that is abstracted, in that it takes form and uses it in its most essential and fundamental structure. For example, the red gate itself. We know already that it has meaning for Pugh, perhaps it is a new door in his life, a new possibility, a new beginning, but the manner in which it is painted is entirely structured and elemental, broken down to its simplest form and abstracted. The entrance around the red gate is but three simple lines, one long, horizontal line and two vertical—nothing could be simpler. The backs of the cattle can hardly be seen, but are simply black lines as well. The grasses and brush are an application of dense, thick lines of a range of color, again an abstraction, using colors like blues and reds. This is the essence of plein air painting—painting color as it actually is in
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Meet Me At The Tower Theatre by Karen Horne 24 x 24 Oil on Canvas
the changing light, the reality of it, and not what we assume it to be. The hills behind are broken up into an abstracted structure of light and dark, with some plein air effect. And due to Pugh’s mastery of light, we know the day is coming to a close and the cattle are coming home. Contemporary Impressionism More abstracted than Pugh’s plein air approach, and what might be called a contemporary impressionist technique, is a language very personal to Salt Lake City artist Karen Horne, whose recent series “Night and Day” captured the essence of the heart of Salt Lake City in familiar scenes. As Horne employed her methodology to capture the spirit of dancers, café scenes, or cityscapes, Horne was able to capture the sprit, movement, and vitality of downtown Salt Lake City in a way that is unique to her particular artistic language. Horne was educated at Yale University, where she fell in love with her art history classes. She went on to receive her Masters of Fine Art at Indiana University. With travels to Italy and living in New York City, where she worked at the Frick Collection and was consumed by scenes of contemporary life, she became a painter of modern life and was enraptured by the fluctuating world around her. This continues to be her artistic language. In “Meet Me at the Tower Theatre,” all of the visual information we are given are impressions of emanating color in the night. The hot glow of the Tower Theatre sign in red, the white radiance of the marquis, the lights of the night café, a vermillion red brilliance from a shop window, and instead of particulars of individuals sitting al fresco, the visual information given is the light surrounding them that informs the viewer of their position and presence. It is an energetic and vibrant scene of the Salt Lake City nightlife. Awash by Karen Horne 60 x 36 Oil on Canvas
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Defining Moment by Darryl Erdmann 43 x 46
In “Awash,” the viewer finds a scene of the flux of city life that is more abstracted. In this case, as pedestrians rush to and from the Capitol Theatre in downtown Salt Lake City, rain has started to pour; what the viewer sees in this nocturne is a whirl of dark, silhouetted figures as elongated forms with umbrellas. We recognize these figures only by the wealth of vivid color that surrounds them, forming their outline. To the rear, we see the glowing white, pink, and yellow light of the theatre marquis; we know the streets are wet by the cast light of intense yellow, white, and green that floods the scene and forms the shadows, making this painting magical and pulsating with life. Abstract Darryl Erdmann was always drawn to painting and learned informally vast technique with his father in the auto shop with welding and mechanics. He received his formal education at Utah State University and has always been drawn to express conceptual ideas through his art. His broad artistic language has always been one of total abstraction, as the viewer must “read” his works through symbolic and expressive means, and find their way to reaching a synthesis with the meaning intended in a formally abstracted language. At a show at Dibble Gallery this year called “Spirit of Place,” Erdmann was asked to respond visually to two locations of choice and to how each location dictated his formal language. For the location Alpine Loop, Erdmann said that what he experienced registered a sense of cognitive ability to be at peace and feel at harmony with his surroundings. The result is “Defining Moment,” with a large field of aspen green and then a literal white loop in a black square—thinking within the box.
Art has a language of its own, but how the artist chooses to express himself is a very definitive lexicon of its own as well. It is a distinctive language for a singular artist, with a categorical mode of expression, and with a unique artistic voice. To learn the language of that particular artist will help the viewer come closer to an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual synergy with that work and reach an affinity with that artist. Great artists have their language. To discover it is an adventure and to create it is a lifetime. n
Erdmann’s response to Kennecott Mine, just prior to its slide and devastation, was altogether different. His language is decidedly a different aspect of his artistic vocabulary for this this scene of total destruction and upheaval that he could not grapple with cognitively. In “What’s Mined is Yours,” with a predominant area of calm sable, there is a cutting wedge of vociferous black, with heavy lines and jutting protrusions, lacerating the image with chaotic expression and color. What’s Mined is Yours by Darryl Erdman 38 x 48
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JASON BOWEN Cloud Forms, Italy 22 x 28 Oil on Canvas
Garden Gallery Half Moon Bay, CA Selby House Menlo Park, CA Repartee Gallery Orem, UT Haven Gallery St. George, UT Main Street Gallery St. George, UT 1474 Springdell Dr., Provo Utah 84604 (925) 323 0664
jasonbowenart.blogspot.com Jasonbowenart@att.net
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Beyond the Grand View
Kate Starling Talks College, Planting Roots & Finishing a Painting by Wade Wixom
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y all indications, Kate Starling has emerged as one of America’s top landscape painters. But rather than taking the typical path to the pinnacles of artistic success, Starling’s road took some surprising twists, with a few diversions along the way. Known best for her intimate views of the Southwest desert, Starling, her husband Jim, and their family live amongst the massive monoliths and flat-topped mesas surrounding Zion National Park. I sat down with Starling in her Rockville, Utah studio to learn about her unique journey to becoming the artist she is today.
trips. My husband and I got married in ‘82 and I was working as a geologist. I had some friends in college who lived in Midland, Texas, so we went there. We enjoyed it, but we missed this area and we just decided we’d do whatever we could to come back. Jim started working for the Park Service and I went back to school to get a teaching certificate. I was going to teach high school Earth Science, art was my minor. But I realized that I really wasn’t suited for teaching. I didn’t like to hear myself talk all the time! The subjects of your paintings seem to surround you here. Is that intentional?
How did you end up as an artist living in Rockville, Utah? I grew up in Phoenix and no matter where I lived after that, I kept coming back to the Southwest to backpack or do river
My art is central to the way I live. I’m not too interested in going around the world to paint. I really just want to paint the area where I live and what I see every day. How did you make the transition from geologist to artist? Truthfully, I always did art. No matter where I lived, I’d take art classes at the local community college or enter art shows. But I didn’t have any skill. I grew up in the ‘70s when you’d take an art class and you were just supposed to express yourself. No one would show you how to do anything. Then I ended up at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, and my teacher was Yu Ji, from China. He never heard that you weren’t supposed to teach anything. He was a figure painter who was very academically trained. I intended to do the same thing because I just thought that was the best thing ever. So I dropped the idea of teaching and I just became a painter and I worked seasonally for the Park Service. Did Yu Ji teach you to paint landscapes? We went outside to work a couple of times a year just to break it up, but I never intended to be a landscape painter at all. I didn’t really know how to do it. It wasn’t until I was raising my oldest child that I learned how to be a landscape painter. I’d have dinner ready, Jim would come home, I’d hand the baby off and go outside to paint. Big Thunderhead 18 x 14 Oil on Canvas
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Above Right: Red Stripe Cliffs 24 x 40 Oil on Canvas
What caused you to turn to landscapes? I think the reason I became a landscape painter is the same reason I backpacked or became a geologist–I loved being outside. I was in my 30s when I learned to paint, and when I did, it was like a bomb went off in my head and I knew that this is what I wanted to do. It took a while to develop the skills and my own way of painting, but I worked singularly toward that goal for 20 years. Learning to paint and draw landscapes isn’t so different from other objects. You have shapes with a light side, a dark side, reflected light, and cast shadows. So having a good foundation helped. What kept you from going into art when you first went to college? I always loved art, but there was no way I was going to say to my parents, “I’m going to be an artist.” I got a degree in something I could get a job in. It wasn’t like they ever said, “You have to.” I just knew. But I think there is something about being an artist where you just can’t deny it. It’s going to come out one way or the other. Or if you don’t, you’re going to start behaving badly.
this to the world.” It’s more visceral than that. And I think its a personal challenge, like, “Can I express this on my canvas?” So what is it that you most want to express? My work is pretty obvious. However, there are things that I want to say. One is the environmental ethic of living gently, not bothering the land or other people; living simply. There is also a celebration of what we have visually to look at, which is decreasing with time, so I guess there is somewhat of a political motive. I am practical, and I do understand that we live in the world and use things, but I love wild land, and I’m serious about trying to preserve what we have left. Are there other messages you want to communicate? One of the things that’s essential to my work is that I don’t just paint big, majestic landscapes of the obvious places. A lot of
Where does the passion come from? I think there’s this undeniable impulse when, as an artist, you see something that moves you, you just want to express that in whatever medium you use. But I don’t really think about it like, “Oh, I need to show Old Road to the Corral 20 x 30 Oil on Canvas
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Two Trucks 12 x 16 Oil on Canvas
what I want to paint is the beauty of everyday life. In the end, it’s all about the way that the sunlight hits something, and you can find that anywhere in the right light. But I do my best work in the places I know and the things I see every day. It makes me sort of calm down and start to see more of what is actually here, and not just the things that are expected. So that’s why I became more at peace just living in this little town and settling down and making a body of work that’s authentic to me and the place. Do you feel that it’s necessary to know a lot about a subject in order to paint it? When it comes down to it, a painting is only good when you get the composition right and you execute it well. You shouldn’t have to know how a tree grows to know how to paint it, but knowing a place helps you feel something about it. I get bored easily. I’m kind of ADD; I need a lot of stimulation, so knowing a lot about the rocks gives me something to think about besides just how it looks. It keeps me at the easel long enough to paint it. It’s not so much that I need to know the science of it to stay interested, but just being so familiar with it that you see a lot of things in it in all different lights and all different seasons. In that, there’s an inspiration that’s surprising sometimes. We end up painting what is most obvious when we’re not as familiar with a place. Is there a point where you can know too much about a subject to paint it well? Maybe…It goes back to something that Yu Ji used to teach us with observational painting. He said, “Paint what you see, not what you know.” And what I think he meant is, “Don’t paint what you think you know about something.” And then, once you learn how to paint what you see, he’d want you to understand it. We are all clouded by the stuff we know, especially in the visual world. You miss a lot of stuff if you can’t see past that. You can miss a lot when you are just looking for the grand view. Of the living artists who paint similar subjects, whom do you most admire? The landscape painters I most admire are Len Blue Truck 9 x 12 Oil on Canvas
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Center Left: Cove Road 9 x 12 Oil on Canvas
Calm Water Narrows 20 x 24 Oil on Linen
Chemiel and Clyde Aspevig. Chemiel pushes into compositions that are usually not very conventional, but he makes it work. Aspevig is just the master of nuance, and I really like when he just paints a square yard of prairie plant life. It’s amazing and so subtle. He started off painting the grand scene, but I learn a lot from seeing what he chooses to paint. How has your work changed or progressed over the years? When you first start painting, you’re just struggling to deal with your materials, and even learning how to paint without making a mess on yourself is a challenge. Then you get to that point where you are able to start saying something. Teachers are always asking, “What is it you’re trying to say?” and at first you’re just thinking, “I’m barely able to paint this!” But eventually you figure it out, and now you’re able to execute. I tell the students in my workshops that before you can write a novel, you have to have a language that you can use. And once you’re really familiar with it, then maybe you can make something that’s even approaching decent, let alone “art.” Do you still approach painting like you’re trying to push toward something, or do you feel like you’ve arrived? There’s this long continuum and it’s taken a long time. I would say that maybe, about 10 years ago, I sort of made this break. At that point, I could start to say something rather than just practice my craft. That’s when some nuance came in and I became much more able to make a statement. But even now, every time I sit down to paint something, it’s always going to be somewhat of a panic; like an excitement about the composition, and then excitement about starting, and then at some point there’s this despair, like, “Oh, I’m never going to get this.” And then something kind of starts happening on your canvas and you’re going, “Yes!” How do you develop your ideas for a painting? I don’t come up with things just inside my head, and looking at a photograph is usually not enough. I usually need to start with a plein air sketch, and I need to paint it once or even a
couple of times before it kind of jells inside my head. Then I can take it further. Typically, some of the things I’ve painted are just themes that I go on, where something really starts to get familiar, and I pursue it. Like the first time I painted an old truck, I hated it, but then I started finding trucks everywhere and I started to compose with them. “Old Road to the Corral” is the first time that I painted a road. I loved the way that the pavement was kind of cracked, and then I started seeing these things everywhere. I started getting really into it, and then I realized that there’s something in me where, when I was a kid traveling around, we’d be driving and you’d look down and see this old highway where it would go into a tunnel someplace and it would just end. It made me curious about where it went. I always wanted to get out and start walking on it. I think this was my response to that. There was something there, and I just wanted to explore it in my own head. Even though your paintings are representational, there seems to be a strong abstract quality in your work. I really admire abstract art. It was probably my first love, but then I dropped back into academic painting. One thing I’ve come to understand about myself is that I’m pretty literal. For example, I have a hard time understanding poetry. I need to have things spelled out. I think that’s why, although there will always be abstract elements in my painting, I’ll never be able to be a purely abstract painter because I need to see something literal and concrete. That’s just what my mind wants.
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How do you know when your paintings are “finished”? The human brain is really good at filling in the blanks of things. I think that if you leave some things out of a painting, our minds will fill in those places. I also know that if you cross a certain line, then you have to finish everything to make it look right. So unless you are a super photorealist, you’re never going to get there. At some point you just have to back off. My process is that I just work on something until I’m just kind of done in my head, and I’ll leave it alone. I’ll put it up on the rail above a window and just leave it there. And eventually I’ll be in the house, like cooking or vacuuming or something, and I’ll look at it for the thousandth time, and I’ll finally see what it needs to finish it. Sometimes I don’t see it until after I’ve shipped it off, and I’ll look at a picture and think, “Oh no, I can’t even fix it now!” So what I do now is to have my son come in and sit him down, he’ll spot whatever it is that’s wrong. Now he knows that if I call him in to talk to him, that’s what he’s supposed to do. What do you like most about being an artist? Artists are so lucky that we get to do this and make a living at it, and I think a lot of us would do it even if we couldn’t make a living. In a way, it’s like the money just lets you keep on going. It’s tough to make a living in art, and I’ve thankfully never had to make a living on my own. My husband has a job with a steady paycheck, and I don’t think I could have done this without that, along with his emotional support. I’m just really happy where I am. n
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The Importance of Jazz The Man Keeping Jazz Alive in Salt Lake City by Savannah Turk
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he profound influence art can have on one’s life is a story that continues to pervade society. A single interaction with art can change a life’s course and write history. That ability, the power of art in all of its forms, is what makes it enduring. For Gordon Hanks, his life changing moment with art came in a high school classroom in 1960. At age 16, young Hanks listened in awe to a fresh-out-ofcollege music teacher with a passion for jazz. There, Hanks says he “discovered” jazz music. Unlike many art tales, Hanks did not grow up to be a famous jazz musician or renowned music teacher; he became a pharmacist. That passion for jazz, however, did lead to an important part of Salt Lake City’s art make-up: the GAM Foundation. In 1994, Hanks and his friend Michael MacKay took a look at the world around them. Hanks had four young daughters and
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he worried that they would never get the exposure to great jazz music that fuelled his musical passion. That’s when a pharmacist and business owner created one of the most important foundations in Utah’s art history. With a simple goal to bring great live jazz to Salt Lake City, the GAM Foundation was born; a non-profit that has produced over 200 jazz concerts and contributed over one million dollars to music education and appreciation programs in its 20 years in the valley. Today, the foundation is run by Hanks and his daughter Amanda Lufkin. The GAM Foundation’s main focus has been on a winter music series called JazzSLC. For two decades, the GAM Foundation has brought over 500 renowned artists from all over the world to Salt Lake City. The 2014-2015 season kicked off in September with Monty Alexander and the Harlem Kinston Express and will continue bringing impressive jazz musicians to the stage through May. The concert series
has become such an icon in the jazz community that artists are begging to be invited and will clear their schedules to become a part of the line-up.
Satchmo by Stewart Seidman 27 x 57 Acryloc on Recycled FedEx Envelopes
Each year, Hanks has the challenge of narrowing the group of 30 to 40 applicants down to nine lucky acts. From repeat performers to series first-timers, musicians entreat to become a part of JazzSLC. “Everybody wants to come back,” Hanks says. “The audience is very appreciative and we do things the right way.”
Each year, the GAM Foundation offers discount tickets to high school students along the Wasatch Front. The GAM Foundation proactively reaches out to music educators from Ogden to Provo and asks them to encourage students to expose themselves to jazz music. This program brings anywhere from 150 to 350 students to each concert during the winter series and Hanks hopes that the shows will inspire a passion for music in these students the way he was inspired at 16.
Hanks’ formula for a successful series involves enthusiasm, talent, and a not-for-profit attitude. Creating a series devoted to passion, not profits, is what makes the series a must-do for jazz musicians. World-renowned pianist Hiromi will only be in the U.S. for three days, one spent in Salt Lake City on November 10th at the Capitol Theatre, JazzSLC’s home. Jazz vocalist Stacey Kent will be performing in the series for the fifth time on February 23rd. Visiting from Europe, Kent will only play four shows in the United States, but she always leaves a spot open for JazzSLC.
The foundation has worked with visiting musicians to lead student workshops and MacKay organized a 12-year program
“Stacey has become a dear friend of my wife and I. Whenever I call, she makes the effort,” Hanks says. In fact, many jazz artists are thirsty to perform in JazzSLC because of Hanks’ passion for the music. His “purely for the love of it” attitude is infectious and it’s inspiring to see this mild-mannered pharmacist open up when jazz becomes the topic of conversation. “Like in all the arts, if people aren’t willing to step up, things just won’t happen. Twenty years ago we made a commitment that people would be exposed to this art. That’s our commitment and we stand by it,” Hanks asserts. This commitment has inspired the GAM Foundation to donate over one million dollars to music education in hopes that students will be moved by jazz and encouraged to pursue the arts. Photo by Chad Wing
Photo by Chad Wing
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Left: Sheila at the Salt Lake City International Jazz Festival. Center: Ellis Hall, “The Ambassador Of Soul” at the Salt Lake City International Jazz Festival.
that brought monthly jazz concerts to the Salt Lake Valley Youth Detention Center as a way of unifying and motivating struggling kids. The GAM Foundation also works closely with many of Utah’s universities, but most closely with the University of Utah. The foundation proudly sponsors two scholarships at the U for students in the jazz music program to encourage budding young artists to pursue a career in this field. In fact, four prominent Utah universities offer a jazz specific music degree, something that Hanks believes contributes to the vibrant jazz community in this unlikely jazz-savvy city. “It’s interesting that the colleges all have really strong jazz studies programs. We have a very strong culture supporting jazz [in Utah],” Hanks says. Hanks points out that the non-profit JazzSLC concert series is one of only four of its kind in the United States; the other three being in Miami, FL, Indianapolis, IN, and Columbus, OH. The not-for-profit nature of the series allows the focus to be on the music; however, the struggle for funding is always in the back of Hanks’ mind. Over the last 20 years, Hanks has invested over half a million dollars of his own money into the GAM Foundation. While the love of the art is enough motivation for Hanks to continue spending, he worries about the future of the foundation when he retires. “It makes me very nervous,” Hanks says. “Will it just go away or will someone pick up the saddle and keep going?” Competing with other local non-profits for funding used to be very frustrating for Hanks as he struggled to simply break even year after year. But eventually, Hanks came to terms with the reality of the arts industry and took competition out of the equation. He says, “I decided there are so many great causes out there. I feel blessed to be able to do what I’ve done. The reality is that everyone has got their own passion.” Rick Braun & Richard Elliot at the Salt Lake City International Jazz Festival.
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While the uncertainty of funding and legacy weigh on Hanks’ mind, he feels optimistic about the future of jazz music in Salt Lake City. The JazzSLC series has a strong following and Hanks commends the Dean of Fine Arts at the University of Utah for his efforts in preserving and promoting art and jazz in the valley.
Music” award and KUER’s “Voice of Jazz” award. Hanks himself has been honored by the “Salt Lake Tribune” as one of the 25 most influential Utahns in arts and entertainment, as well as by the League of Women Voters, “Salt Lake City Weekly,” and the Utah Music Educator’s Association to name a few.
“I feel very passionate about the arts and their future in the community,” Hanks says. Plain and simple, he states, “Arts are essential.”
In his persistently selfless manner, Hanks talks about the awards he and the GAM Foundation have received. “It’s one of those things that makes my heart full; knowing that what we are doing for the city and for students is of great value.”
The way Hanks talks about how jazz has captured his soul gives one hope for the future of art. His commitment to exposure and education is reassuring, reminding the community that art has an inherent power and cannot be overlooked. Even without large fiscal endowments, art will prevail because of the passion it inspires in others. It is reassuring to see that the efforts of the GAM Foundation have not gone unnoticed. The foundation has received numerous awards, including the University of Utah’s “Excellence in
Hanks encourages everyone to experience a JazzSLC concert. An audience composed of youthful music-lovers and experienced jazz connoisseurs makes for an appreciative and encapsulating audience that contributes to the series’ prolonged success, according to Hanks. Even those wary of jazz music, he assures, are sure to enjoy the show. Perhaps it will even inspire a young listener to follow in Hanks’ footsteps and provide the necessary service of jazz preservation in Salt Lake City that he has performed for the last 20 years. n
TAYLORS PIANO SERVICE TUNING | REPAIRS | RESTORATIONS
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Finding The Music In Moab Unique Music Festival Offers an Escape Into Sound by Nathan Bowen
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first attended the Moab Music Festival (MMF) in 2002. There I witnessed a stunning performance by a Chinese erhu player. The fiddler was there to perform a few works by Chen Yi, who had been invited as a guest composer for the festival. This mesmerizing performance brought about the question, “How did a Chinese erhu player end up in Moab?” In order to understand the pairing of a remote location with an obscure, but gorgeous Chinese instrument, I had to learn about the circumstances that led to MMF and its adventurous programming. I started at the source, with founders Michael Barrett and his wife, Leslie Tomkins. Back in the early 1990s Barrett and Tomkins were actively looking to start a summer music festival. Barrett had already successfully begun the New York Festival of Song and was anxious to take on another musical project. One summer the couple was spending a week vacationing at Arches National Park. While sitting together under one of the park’s colossal arches and viewing a summer storm pour rain in the distance, Tomkins turned to her husband and said, “Why don’t we have the festival here?” In 1993 they ran their first season, which was modest in scope but was solid from top to bottom in scale and vision. MMF is now in its 22nd season and enjoys a solid reputation for innovation and quality programming. It is a shining example
of an arts organization that is flourishing despite gloomy forecasts for the fine arts. The festival runs for a little over two weeks, taking place at the tail end of August and the beginning of September, and draws in fantastic talent, partially due to its timing, but also because the festival is so unique compared to other summer festivals. MMF’s combination of philanthropy and local talent is one facet that makes the festival stand out from the rest. The small, full-time staff that stays in Moab year-round puts a significant amount of effort into promoting the arts locally, in conjunction with an Artist-in-Residence program that caters to arts education in local schools. In discussing their philanthropic initiatives, Tomkins, who serves as the festival’s Artistic Director, said, “We think of ourselves as an organization that can offer more to the community than just an annual event. Really the whole idea was not just to sort of show up and then disappear…it’s important for us to be integrated in the community.“ One doesn’t need to look very hard to find this attitude reflected in the season lineup. This year one of the concerts featured work by three local composers in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Canyonlands National Park. One of the composers, Gerald Elias, is a retired Utah Symphony violinist and was Associate Concertmaster for years. The other two, Navajo composer Juantio Becenti and sixteen-year-old Neal Stucki, are both self-taught. In conversation with Barrett, he seemed equally enthused about Becenti and Stucki, and clearly has been an advocate in promoting their growth as composers. In addition to fostering local talent, MMF has a Composer-in-Residence program that has brought in some of the country’s top composers, including Lou Harrison, Lukas Foss, and Aaron Jay Kernis. Moab is not large enough to sustain a full season of concert works and employ a full orchestra, however, this allows audiences to be fairly open to new works. Jeremy Turner, a cellist who has played for fourteen years with New York’s Metropolitan Opera, and is a regular along the summer festi-
Photo by Elizabeth Leslie Photography
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“It’s a totally different way to experience music.”
val circuit, observed, “Certainly the town is more focused on outdoor activities and adventure than it is on classical music… As a result, the local audience is as open and excited to learn and hear about different types of music as anyone.” MMF has been able to build its reputation over time, as Moab is becoming a destination for the culturally inclined as well outdoor enthusiasts. “There was a woman I spoke with from Portland who used to come to Moab for mountain biking and hiking and now she comes every year for the music festival,” Turner said. “She’s travelling all this way not just to go mountain biking, but she’s coming to check out the concerts. I think the more that the festival gets audiences like that, the cooler it is.” According to surveys, generally half of the audience hails from out of town, and half are local. “We get people from Grand Junction, Denver, Salt Lake, Santa Fe, but we also get people from England, the Czech Republic, and Australia,” said Barrett. “People have heard about and known about this festival one way or another, and they cut out the articles and they save for it, figure out when they can do it, and it can take three or four years to get here, but it’s on their list.”
To fully appreciate what Barrett is hinting at, one needs to understand what is behind the festival’s tagline, “Music in concert with the landscape.” In what has now become tradition, MMF has three specialty settings for concerts that are truly off the grid: Musical Hike Concerts—requiring a hike to get to the concert location, Grotto Concerts—where participants are taken to and from a towering red-rock enclave via a 45-minute boat ride, and a Musical Raft Trip—a four-day excursion along the Colorado River that mixes concerts with camping, fine cuisine, and the grandeur of Canyonlands National Park. Describing the Musical Hike, Turner said, “We hiked about a mile into a dried-out riverbed canyon and played a bunch of Brazilian music by Antonio Carlos Jobim. So there I am, holding my main instrument and main bow that I play with in concert halls all over the place, but here we are in the middle of nowhere, playing this music in flip flops and hiking clothes, and it’s awesome. It’s a totally different way to experience music.” The setting has a tremendously arresting visual backdrop, but when the music begins it is immediately apparent how Above Photo by Elizabeth Leslie Photography
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the land alters the acoustic. During that same concert, Turner described how Artist-in-Residence Christopher Layer began a piece by improvising a few notes on the flute. He then paused to let those notes echo throughout the canyon walls two or three times before playing again. Tomkins noted, “We’ve found that when people are familiar with artists through visiting from year after year, they begin to appreciate what performers are doing on a whole other level because they’re not simply looking at people they don’t know or understand. They’re able to appreciate the nuance of non-verbal communication that goes into a performance.” In a time when much of the music one hears is not live, this focus on person-to-person contact seems to fill a void. “For those who come annually, they come to understand what they’re seeing in a whole different way over the period of years, and it’s incredibly gratifying,” said Tomkins. This intimacy between the audience and performers underscores the entire ethos of the festival and it is nowhere more apparent than in the Musical Raft Trip. When I spoke with Turner, he was about to leave the next day for the trek, and his voice was brimming with excitement. “You go out for three nights and four days. By the time you settle in for the second concert, you’ve been out there for a while. You haven’t showered. You’re deep in Canyonlands at that point on the
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Colorado River, you’re cell phone is off, you haven’t had any contact with the outside world, and you basically have this little community that you float down the river with.” In comparison to the status quo, this experience unquestionably stands alone. “Some concerts will feature the players talking to the audience in an attempt to break down some of those old-fashioned barriers of being very formal, playing the piece, and then walking off stage. But that’s still very much the current model,” Turner said. “This is ten steps forward in that you’re living with the audience for a couple of days, and they’re living with you, and you’re going on hikes together, and drinking coffee, and having breakfast. And then when you hit the rapids, you’re all in one boat, literally.” When Turner speaks about the impact of the land from the perspective of a big-city dweller, it is clear that the landscape brings out unexpected qualities in each performance. Turner reminisced, “I have fond memories of playing a Bach suite out there in the middle of nowhere and hearing it echo through the canyon. I saw a hawk flying over my head, and it’s just really unique.” Barrett and Tomkins saw early on that the setting would allow visiting musicians to tap into a special dimension for performance. “As musicians,” Barrett said, “the main thing is to
“As musicians,the main thing is to maintain your sense of wonder and passion for why you love music.”
Photo by Richard Bowditch
the audience on a little journey. They come out of there feeling a little smarter, and they understand what they were listening to, its historical context, and why it might be more important than just an abstract piece of music,” Barrett said. This kind of leadership is tremendously refreshing in the classical world, which frequently suffers from a bunker mentality when it comes to promotion and audience retention. Too often arts organizations seek only to preserve aging audiences instead of creatively growing new viewers, and will stick to standard works in hopes that broad-based appeal will magically translate into more buy-in.
maintain your sense of wonder and passion for why you love music, and what’s great about it. If you’re able to talk about music that way, and share it with an audience, they get it.”
MMF is unique in many facets, but perhaps the most important is its attention to content. The music itself is always tastefully chosen, performed, and presented. Barrett put it this way, “I think performing great music is like preparing and serving a great dinner. If the content, or ingredients, are excellent…people can have a beautiful, pure experience, and they understand that what they are listening to, or eating, is very, very good. If you tell them of the few ingredients you did add…it just becomes that much more savory. Going deeper into music is rewarding in the same way. Engaging the mind and connecting it to your heart is what makes music so important to us as human beings.” n
By pushing the humanness of music squarely into the foreground, the door is opened to do more creative and specific programming. MMF is not a purely classical music festival. This year, for example, there was Irish folk music, music from South America, including Colombian harpist Edmar Castaneda, and jazz from guitarist John Pizzarelli. The musicianship is uncompromisingly excellent, and so is the diversity. Each year, the themes of the concerts change, but Barrett’s basic philosophy remains constant. “I am a big believer in sharing with people what is amazing about the music, and some of the secrets I’ve discovered over years of study,” Barrett said. “There are people who come to concerts who aren’t aficionados and they might feel a little bit unprepared. I feel like it’s my job to put them at ease, help them see that this can be an easy, joyful experience, and then clue them in on what to listen for.” For Barrett, presenting and programming works for the festival is about telling a story that makes the music a little more meaningful. “I’m not just playing pieces by various composers. The concerts will always have a thematic line that takes Photo by Richard Bowditch
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IDYLLIC IMAGES FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2014 7:30 PM
HALLOWEEN SPOOKTACULAR “MOVIE MONSTERS” with
St. George Dance Company
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2014 7:30 PM
JENNY OAKS BAKER: HANDEL’S MESSIAH SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2014 7:30 PM MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2014 7:30 PM
TABLEAU NOUVEAU FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015 7:30 PM
YOUTH CONCERTO CLASSIC FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 2015 7:30 PM
CLASSIC ROCK & OTHER FAVORITES FRIDAY, MAY 8, 2015 7:30 PM
PATRIOTIC POPS UNDER THE STARS with
St. George Dance Company
SATURDAY MAY 16, 2015 8:00 PM Tanner Amphitheater in Springdale - after the 8:00 pm
Tickets may be purchased at DSUTIX.COM or by calling 435.652.7800 Watch for other special Southwest Symphony Orchestra events by visiting WWW.SOUTHWESTSYMPHONY.CO
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M A G I C A L EXPRESSIONS COLORFUL IMPRESSIONS
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The Timeless Art of Opera
Utah Opera’s “Madame Butterfly” Captures Opera’s Essence by Kelli Nakagama
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hroughout history there is evidence that humans have always been aching to find ways to express themselves. In ancient days they adorned clay pots with depictions of those around them, they erected sculptures honoring their gods. Eventually people painted massive masterpieces on the ceilings of churches and composed symphonies consisting of hundreds of instruments. Today we call all of these things art.
sity to society centuries ago is now admired as art, inspiring awe and emotion the same way as sculptures. Therefore, we call it art as well.
Art evolved into myriad channels. The qualifications a creation must meet to be deemed art sparks a debate that has existed almost as long as the need for expression itself. But in its most basic of definitions, art is simply something that speaks to someone in a way that provokes a feeling. Beyond that, the boundaries of art are fluid. Art can be anything, provided it is dense with emotion.
There is a form of art that tells a story through music. It is art in all of its most captivating forms: It is visual, musical, dramatic, and—most of all—it is visceral. It blends all of those elements into one magnificent array on stage, creating a masterpiece that spans time, culture, and even language barriers. We call this art opera.
Strolling through art museums leads one to believe that the line between art and archeology—and thus art and history—is blurred, as historical artifacts like decorated pots line gallery walls alongside paintings. What was once a functional neces-
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But art does not stop there. Art also tells a story. Oftentimes that story is eternal, even if its morals evolve with time, it remains relevant because art is always relevant.
“It is an expression,” said lyric soprano Yunah Lee, who performed with the Utah Opera in October as the lead in “Madame Butterfly.” “People scream when they’re happy or when they’re sad. We are able to do that in a refined way. It’s the same release. And it’s unbelievably fulfilling.”
Photo by Chad Wing
Like most art, opera is embedded in tradition. Its beginnings are rooted in classical music, but the evolution of opera is better traced through its most famous creators like Mozart, Puccini, Verdi, and Wagner, whose famous works are just as powerful today as they were centuries ago. The masterpieces of opera are just as timeless as those paintings and sculptures that line The Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They are beautifully powerful. But unlike those literal still lifes opera is constantly evolving, acting as a bridge between the centuries. As Lee’s voice teacher told her, “You never recreate things, you always create.” For her, every night is a new experience, a new performance, even though she has sung the title role in “Madame Butterfly” an astounding 137 times and counting. Opera has become a living, breathing art form that walks a fine line between staying true to its original creators and morphing with time for modern audiences. Costumes and sets change dramatically with each production, some even using pyrotechnics, state-of-the-art movie screens, and special effects. A contrast to the most wonderful irony of all: So much technology has been introduced to this centuries-old art form, yet the singers do not use microphones to amplify their voices. Proof that some things are still best in their original form. Even each production takes on a life of its own, becoming a living organism that changes from performance to performance. “You can hear me or even our cast do a different performance on Friday night than they will do on Sunday because energies are different and things are different,” explains mezzo-soprano Nina Yoshida Nelsen, who plays Suzuki in Utah Opera’s production of “Madame Butterfly.” “That’s the best thing about live theater is that it only happens right there and it will never, ever happen again.” The stories told through opera have a way of cementing themselves in any era. Once the layers of costumes and language barriers are lifted, many of the core storylines remain relevant. Even for a story like “Madame Butterfly” that was written 116 years ago, it still touches audiences today. The story touches people because of the intense emotion, as portrayed through
its music. “Music doesn’t age, it’s an international language,” Lee says, “It still speaks to us.” “Madame Butterfly” is one of Puccini’s most famous operatic works. The opera transports audiences to Japan in 1904, telling the semi-true story of American Naval Officer B.F. Pinkerton who marries a young Japanese woman named CioCio San, better known as Butterfly. Shortly after their wedding he returns to the United States, leaving Butterfly in Japan. Unknown to him, she gives birth to their son. For three years he doesn’t come back to Japan. Butterfly’s maid Suzuki tries to convince her that he’s never returning, but Butterfly will not believe it. Soon Pinkerton sends word of
Photo courtesy of Kent Miles and the Utah Opera
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artistic elements of visual, musical, and dramatic requirements to create an emotionally powerful masterpiece. And, of course, it brings with it a heavy dose of tradition. For Nelsen, this production not only marks her nearly 50th time playing Suzuki, but also a special event for her family. Her son Rhys joins her on stage to play Cio-Cio San’s son and in doing so, he becomes the third generation in the family to perform in “Madame Butterfly,” as Nina’s mother-in-law performed Cio-Cio San in the first production of Puccini’s classic by Edmonton Opera in Alberta, Canada. While Nina doesn’t normally suffer from stage fright, she admits that this production is different. “I’m more nervous about this production than I’ve ever been about anything,” she said, motioning to her four-year-old son. It’s a tall order for such a young child. As Cio-Cio San’s son, his role is a prominent part of the story. “The show revolves around him, story-wise, and so it’s very important,” Lee said. His role has the ability to change the entire dynamic of the opera. “I get a different experience even with the same kid in one production because he acts different every night,” Lee explains.
his return, but doesn’t reveal he will be coming with his new American wife. Butterfly and Suzuki wait all night for Pinkerton’s arrival. Pinkerton has been informed of his son and his American wife has agreed to raise him in the United States. When they finally arrive at Butterfly’s house, he sees that it is decorated for his return. She agrees to give up her son only if Pinkerton comes himself to see her. She gives her son an American flag to hold, blindfolds him, then slits her throat as Pinkerton rushes in moments too late. Utah Opera opens its 2014-2015 season with an updated production of “Madame Butterfly,” combining all the necessary
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Luckily Rhys’ real mom will be on stage almost the entire opera. It is through Suzuki’s eyes that the audience sees the story unfold. “I’m seeing it the same way the audience sees it because I’m there the whole time watching it,” Nelsen said of her character, Suzuki. “It’s sort of like ‘Downton Abbey’ where you have the servants that are the eyes and the ears of the house and they may not be interacting all the time with everyone, but they know more than anybody else.” So what draws Lee to return to “Madame Butterfly” for over a hundred performances? She said she was called to it. The Korean-born lyric soprano looks the part and can hit the notes, so she said, “It’s a good package.” And for Nelsen, “There’s nothing that fits my voice better than this role,” she said. Both singers agreed that you never become a master of a role, even after performing it so many times. I suspect their performance will beg to differ.
Art tends to be surrounded by a lot of hype and expectation; there is an idea that some art cannot be appreciated without prior knowledge or understanding of similar art forms. Opera suffers heavily from this misconception, but it’s simply not true. Yet, people are still afraid to attend the opera without knowing anything about it. “A lot of people think of the fat lady singing in opera, but it’s not that,” Nelsen said. “It’s theater, it’s drama, it’s music. You’ve got an orchestra, you’ve got costumes, you’ve got sets and props, and it’s really accessible to anybody. Especially in ‘Madame Butterfly,’ you’ve got themes that you will recognize. You’ve got the national anthem, you’ve got the Japanese national anthem, you’ve got all this stuff where you hear little bits and pieces and you go, ‘Hey, I know that from somewhere,’ even though you may have never seen the opera.” Lee echoes Nelson’s statement. “You don’t have to worry about it or be intimidated by this opera because the story is so simple and tragically beautiful,” she said. “It is coming with this gorgeous tune. It is the best tragic love story that cannot get much better than this. I don’t think it’s complicated to anybody, it’s just a simply sad tragedy that will break everyone’s heart.” If the definition of art is simply the expression of a feeling meant to provoke an emotion, then opera is truly an art. Maybe it is on that level that it becomes less intimidating. Yet, opera maintains its power, its energy, from the music. “Although the story is so beautiful and important, without the
music it’s not as powerful,” Lee said. “I always think of that last chord in ‘Butterfly’—still, after hearing all the rehearsals that I’ve heard, maybe thousands of times, of that last phrase— and every single time it still gets me. That chord, that last chord of Butterfly, takes the whole experience into a whole different level.” This way of telling stories through emotion, through music— this way of telling stories through art that we call opera is a beauty and a power unlike anything else in the world. That, too, makes it timeless. And I call that magnificent. When I asked four-year-old Rhys if he’s excited to perform on stage with his mom, he answered enthusiastically, “Yes!” then added that the rehearsal started “after my nap.” It turns out no matter how magnificent the art form, at the end of the day, it’s still made by humans who cannot make magic without any sleep. n
Photos by Chad Wing
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Jim Wilcox
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When Strings Sing
Peter Prier and Sons Create World-Class Instruments by Rebecca Stowers
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violinist’s virtuosity is typically attributed to excellent training, solid technique, and musical aptitude. But, the artist’s performance is only completed by the quality of his instrument. A musician’s counterpart is selected carefully to match the sound and quality he is trying to achieve. Factory made stringed instruments are limited in the brilliance they can produce. Handmade instruments crafted with carefully selected materials, passionate precision, and mathematical proportions produce perfectly bright, rich tones. The craft of making stringed instruments is an age old art, one that continues to be developed and advanced from the great work of Stradivarius, Amat, and Guarneri, a group of families distinguished as master luthiers in the 17th and 18th centu-
ries. These craftsmen set the pattern for the finest stringed instruments ever made. Reaching astronomical prices and becoming worthy of museum preservation, modern luthiers are studying the exceptional proportions and patterns from these masterpieces to model their instruments while adding genius of their own. Peter Paul Prier is a recognized contemporary luthier who brings extraordinary sound and beauty to his instruments. An accomplished violinist, Peter leaned on his musical experience while apprenticing under the guidance of Alouis Hornsteiner, Paul Seckendorf, and Leo Aschauer at the Violin Making School in Mittenwald and worked in the shop of Walter Hamma in Stuttgart. Following his position in Germany, he immigrated to the United States in 1960 to work under Ludwig Aschauer at Pearce Music Company in Salt Lake City, Utah. Peter has significantly contributed to the musical arts in Utah, providing services to musicians, teachers, and students for almost 50 years. From 1961 to 1964, Peter played with the Utah Symphony. He opened his own shop in 1965 and continues as Senior Director, which he now runs with his son Dan Prier. He later established the Violin Making School of America, which was purchased in 2006 by graduate Charles Woolf and has produced many graduates who run some of the finest shops in the world. In 1998, he founded the Bow Making School of America, and in order to provide a venue for up-andcoming musicians, Peter opened the Salt Lake City Recital Hall. Peter has constructed 160 violins, 17 violas, 29 cellos, 2 basses, and 3 guitars of classical design. Many famous musicians and concert soloists, including Lord Yehudi Menuhin, violinist and conductor Joseph Silverstein, and solo violinist Daniel Heifetz, as well as many others play
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“I want to bring the same passion of the old masters to my work and leave it here in the Intermountain West.”
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“The secret in creating a masterful stringed instrument is first passion and then mathematics.”
Peter’s instruments. As a nameless violinist, I am proud owner of one of Peter’s violins. The instrument has a unique story and is instantly recognized and caressed by its maker on every occasion I return to the shop with it.
“A musician’s counterpart, his intrument, is selected carefully to match the sound and quality he is trying to achieve.” The familiar strum of violin strings welcomes visitors when they open the door of Peter Prier Violin and Sons. Recalling the days when I frequented the shop as a young violin student, I returned recently to interview Dan Prier, Peter’s youngest son and Chief Financial Officer of the violin shop. We sat in a room lined with rows of hanging violins and violas. I opened up my violin case and Dan beamed as I told him the history of Above Photos: by Chad Wing
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the instrument. After suffering from a stroke, Peter took longer than usual to carve the back, a solid piece with knots. Dan recalled how as a young apprentice to his father, he assisted with the work of carving those knots. The instrument sings bright on the high register and is rich and full on the lower. Dan’s passion for his trade is contagious. He apprenticed under his father at a young age of twelve. In a family of six children and all playing a stringed instrument, it was in the DNA. At age 19, Dan enrolled in the world-renowned luthier school his father founded. After successfully receiving certification at the Violin School of America, Dan wanted to stretch his wings beyond his father’s sphere. He attended The Chicago School of Violin Making and became a journeyman for Carl F. Becker. He returned to Utah to carry on the work of his father and shape his own career as a master. As a luthier, Dan is most excited about making violins, violas, and cellos. He manages to make a few instruments each year between managing the instrument restoration and violin sales at Peter Prier and Sons. Dan’s theory to the secret in creating a masterful stringed Right Page: by Chad Wing
with
When asked what Dan hopes to achieve as a master luthier, he responded, “I want to bring the same passion of the old masters to my work and leave it here in the Intermountain West.” As a work of art, each instrument is unique with its own personality, sound, look, and feel. Once a musician finds the instrument that complements his talent, it becomes a part of his art. n
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instrument is first passion and then mathematics. Pointing to the upper, middle, lower bout, the F-holes, and the scroll, Dan explained how balance and proportion is carefully calculated in each instrument. Many luthiers have signature style marks, but perfect ratios are fundamental to successful sound. Luthiers are trained in wood selection and use of additional materials as they affect the sound and beauty of the instrument.
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The Best of Bestor
Utah’s King of Christmas, Kurt Bestor Spreads Holiday Cheer by Austen Diamond
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Kurt Bestor Christmas has been a staple of the holiday season in Utah for 27 years—a longer run than any other holiday show in Utah, save the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and for good reason. An Emmy-award-winning composer, Kurt Bestor crafts compositions that range from New Age to a melting pot of world music, which you can hear on more than 40 feature films, 16 albums, numerous television themes, and so on. But Bestor is best known for his renderings of both new and familiar Christmas tunes, including famous standards, like “Prayer of the Children.” With his spirited tunes brought to life by the talented backup band, The Collective, Bestor charms holiday cheer into audiences each year during his week-long run of holiday performances. Bestor talked with “Fibonocci Fine Arts Digest” about the challenges of writing Christmas music in July, what fans can expect at the upcoming run, how he connects to the fine arts, and more. You always seem to be pushing the envelope for yourself creatively. What do you have in store for the 2014 holiday concert? I find a bit of a conundrum putting together my show each year. People always want to hear “the hits,” and after 26 years, I could program my shows without ever lifting a pencil—or computer keyboard. However, I think art is indeed about pushing parameters, even if just a little. So, after playing a few Bestor Christmas favorites, I do a few new things that no one has heard of and in a style that might not be so traditional. For example, I recently did a new arrangement of three Christmas songs in a medley titled “Christmas Cubanismo,” which featured my bass player Carlitos del Puerto. This year, I am featuring a 100-voice children’s choir. Just that alone is pushing my parameter a bit. And I am going to ask these kids to not sing like kids; I just finished a version of Sussex Carol that makes them sing in Gaelic and with some pretty adventuresome harmonies.
You probably start thinking about Christmas when it’s 90 degrees outside. Does it ever seem strange to write holiday songs in the summer? Yeah, it never feels right doing Christmas music in July, August, September, or even October, for that matter. But I have no choice. I need a good four to five months of work to make it all happen. What have you been listening to recently that might inspire your songwriting for this run? I have been getting into traditional Irish music quite a bit, as well as music from the Middle East. You’ll hear that influence this year. Also, my bass player is on the road with Chick Corea, so I may pay homage to Corea on a tune. You try to write more edgy music than people find on your recorded work. Can you talk about that a bit? Frankly, I get bored with the stuff I did before. I have grown a lot in the 26 years (half my life!) that I have been doing my holiday show. So playing the 1988 Christmas stuff makes me a little stir crazy. On the other hand, it still works for me, and the audience pays to hear some of the hits, so it’s a balance. On my new album, I think people can definitely hear some “edge” and experimentation. Looking back on the 26 years of A Kurt Bestor Christmas, is there anything that stands out to you as your favorite memory/song/etc.? I love performing with different guests each year. Melissa Manchester—who I loved growing up—was a particular favorite, and I had to pinch myself during that three-song set with her. We’re still fast friends. Also, performing with Jonathan Butler from South Africa was particularly exciting, since he is the consummate pro. One more: I know I’m not alone when I say that a very memorable moment was when 14 year old Liel Kolet from Israel joined me in singing my arrangement of Photo by Austen Diamond 13% SALT
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S t e v e S tau f f e r M y L i f e ’ s Pa s s i o n
Hoytsville Barn 12 x 16 oil on panel Plein Air painted
“I can tell you that as an Artist his talents are endless...” - K. Potter 15th Street Gallery 1519 south 1500 east Salt Lake City, Utah 84105
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“Jerusalem of Gold.” People still ask for her to come back. When you come to the end of your career, what do you want to be known for? Since I am not breaking any new barriers in music composition—at least harmonically and orchestration-wise—I would love to be known for connecting my art to my soul and then to the audience in a way that is sincere and honest and that truly moves people. I want people to escape into my music, be transported, and to have a memorable experience with it. I am also grateful for the legacy that “Prayer of the Children” seems to be. It is still sung worldwide by a number of artists and for some amazing causes.
Attend A Kurt Bestor Christmas in Salt Lake City at Abravanel Hall December 18th through 20th and in Park City at the Egyptian Theater December 24th and 25th. Photographer’s Note: The large photo was first published on 13% SALT, a photo journal of Utah’s modern pioneers, subcultures, and communities. Bestor is the Big Man of the Utah Christmas Music World, which is obvious by looking at the picture—he couldn’t even fit in his Christmas chair. This shoot was accomplished at Modern Display for two reasons: 1. to capture the Christmas spirit with the establishment’s assortment of festive lights, and 2. because Bestor had to pick up LED lights to put in his drummer’s dreadlocks. n
Do you have any distinct memories with the fine arts, in whatever capacity, as you were growing up that helped you become the composer you are today? My entry into the fine arts was less about going to a museum and more about being taught about art in all things—nature, relationships, architecture, etc. My mother was very integral in making me aware of the beauty of art all around me. It was only later in life that I connected the dots from that upbringing to loving art in museums, galleries, etc. Are you a collector? While I can’t afford most art that I love, my wife and I love contemporized folk art, especially from East Africa, where she was raised. If I weren’t a musician, I would have been an architect. I was lucky enough to have been on the committee to choose the “Star-chitect,” Cesar Pelli, who has designed the new Eccles Performing Arts Center in Salt Lake City, and I am watching that with much joy. As for art that I would love to own, I tend to lean toward the contemporary side of things—from Picasso to Klee and Francis Bacon. As a hobby, I love stone sculpture, but have yet to find someone I could emulate. For fun, what’s your favorite Christmas ornament, and what’s the story behind it? My parents had a ski jumper ornament from the 1960 Olympic Games that I loved dearly. Though now he’s missing his skis, he hangs on my tree each year and reminds me, not only of my childhood, but my more recent experiences composing for two Olympic Games—Calgary and Salt Lake City. Photo courtesy of kurtbestor.com
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Striking a Chord
Underprivileged Classrooms Benefit From Music Education by Eric Schulzke, Deseret News
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wo-dozen papier-mâché violins rotate in 48 diminutive hands as 24 second-graders chant in unison.
as they’ve been all week long. And they’ll do this every day for the rest of the school year.
“This is my violin,” the kids sing. “This is where I put my chin. E, A, D, G are the four strings, and the F holes let it ring. Here’s the front and here’s the back, if I drop it, it might crack! So I hold it close beside me, rest position you now see.”
Bravo is modeled on El Sistema, a Venezuelan youth music program that for over 40 years now has transformed the lives of kids in impoverished barrios, turned out world-class musicians, and spawned imitators around the world—but only recently broke through in the United States.
Two boys mischievously drop their mock violins when they recite the line about dropping them. The teacher gently admonishes them. Today, the class will get real violins, and the room brims with squirmy anticipation. It’s a balmy Friday afternoon in August at the end of the first week of school, and the afterschool program, called Bravo Youth Orchestras, is just starting its second year at Rosa Parks Elementary School in Portland, Oregon. Outside the school, soccer games spring up and there is languor in the air. But inside, there is rigor, as 60-some second-, third- and fourthgraders study the violin. They’ll be there for two hours today,
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Rosa Parks Elementary could use a breakthrough. It consistently scores in the bottom five percent of Oregon schools on key measures. With 96 percent of its kids on free or reduced lunch, Rosa Parks faces steep socioeconomic challenges—in the poorest school in Portland. The community is full of lowincome immigrant families. Kids here speak a combined total of 18 different languages at home. Principal Tamala Newsome hopes this intense music education program will help jumpstart her school. She has been a principal in this neighborhood for 17 years and has seen a
Xavier gets help painting f-holes on his violin from BRAVO Executive Director Seth Truby. Photo by Kimberly Warner Photography
lot happen—not all of it good. The community fought drugs, crime, and blight. About 10 years ago, it was reborn with new economically diverse housing units, a thriving community garden, a sports and community center, and Rosa Parks Elementary, which opened in 2006. But as the persistently low tests scores attest, there is ample room to grow. And so, while some of these second graders with their mock violins may become concert musicians, and while real musicianship is demanded, no one at Rosa Parks is focused on musical virtuosity as an endgame. They want something more. The theory behind El Sistema remains loose and multifaceted. Advocates talk a lot about brain development, spatial reasoning, character, leadership, perseverance, and broadened horizons. They emphasize the rigor and commitment of hunkering down for 10 hours a week, the social aspects of ensemble play, the stretched horizons, and the heightened confidence that comes as kids move into a larger world they have never seen before. Much research remains to be done to fully understand whether and how El Sistema does what its supporters believe it does. The first wave of research is only now underway. Meanwhile, Newsome, like many El Sistema advocates across the country, isn’t waiting around. When Newsome heard that Seth Truby, Bravo’s executive director, was looking for a Portland school for a launch pad, she chased him down and sold him on Rosa Parks. “Bravo coming to Rosa Parks is nothing short of amazing,” Newsome said. “We know that music is good for kids, we know the research behind music and math, but the most important thing, I think, is that our kids are getting to do things and go places that were not possible before.” Next door to the antsy second-graders, an advanced group of 40 third- and fourth-graders warms its voices for 30 minutes of choral work. They’ll learn all their new material by singing the notes here before playing them on their instruments. “If you can sing it, it’s much easier to play it,” Truby said. Left: The BRAVO Rosa Parks String Orchestra and Chorus celebrates a year of amazing musical progress. Photo by Kimberly Warner Photography
“Choir helps with musical awareness and spatial relationships. They may not know what a sixth is, but they can sing it, and somewhere in the brain they are learning it.” To be fair, even the older group is somewhat fidgety. It’s the end of a 10-hour afterschool workweek and the first week of school. It’s warm outside, and kids are kids. A few parents and community mentors are sprinkled through the room to help maintain focus. “But you’ll be surprised at their skill level,” Truby says. “This is an impressive group.” After 30 minutes of choir, they spend 45 minutes in orchestra sections — first and second violins, violas and cellos—doing repertoire and technical drills. Then they move into ensemble, where all the sections play together. Ensemble is the key to El Sistema. Working with large numbers of students who can’t afford private instruction, the method makes a virtue of necessity. It has to scale, and so, from the very first day the kids work in large groups, honing not Above: BRAVO students make their own paper mache violins for use during the first week of the program. Photo by Kimberly Warner Photography
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just technique, but also teamwork, sociability and leadership. El Sistema also prides itself on connecting kids to the larger world. Last year Bravo brought 30 guest artists who performed and shared their own musical history. The artists ranged from folk and jazz to classical and world music. Students also gain poise and skill by performing for each other. Once a week, in small groups or as individuals, students perform for the whole class. Sometimes they work from the shared repertoire. Sometimes they play their own compositions. “The kids are very attentive, very focused on what their peers can do,” Truby said. “And they always look forward eagerly to their turn.” In one generation since its 1975 founding, El Sistema has burgeoned into a powerful force in its home country of Venezuela, gained world acclaim, and inspired imitations from Scotland to South Korea.
“That’s when a lot of people began to take notice,” Thompson said. “They were stunned to see a conductor who is not European, who is so young, and who didn’t come from any of the top music conservatories suddenly leading the L.A. Philharmonic.” With Dudamel’s ascendancy, scattered American programs became a cohesive and burgeoning movement, Thompson said. When he entered the field in 2009, there were 30 American El Sistema programs. Today, there are over 100. El Sistema USA, which Thompson chairs, incorporated just two years ago, aiming to build the loose movement into an effective network of U.S. programs, expanding awareness, securing funding, refining best practices, and helping local programs flourish.
But it remains relatively new in the United States, said Stanford Thompson, the founder and director of Play on Philly!, Philadelphia’s El Sistema incarnation.
The beauty of a robust national network is that while everyone can experiment, no one must start from scratch. In launching Bravo last year, Seth Truby shadowed a number of older programs.
El Sistema exploded in popularity here after 2009, when
One of these was El Sistema Colorado, which began in the
Above: Teaching Artist Eri Nogueira leads a sectional rehearsal with Jaqai and nine other young violinists. Photo by Kimberly Warner Photography
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Gustavo Dudamel—a brilliant young Venezuelan conductor and a product of El Sistema—became music director of the Los Angles Philharmonic.
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Hezekiah and Amaryon warming up in the hall before the BRAVO Spring Concert. Photo by Kimberly Warner Photography
Denver area in January 2012. Core elements of the Colorado and Portland programs are closely aligned. Both integrate K-1 classroom instruction with an intense, 10-hour-a-week afterschool program for older kids. The older Colorado program now has two elementary schools feeding into a single middle school and a high school program launching this fall. Truby aims to follow that path, but said he wants to grow slowly and carefully. With the Colorado high school program launching this fall, students will be getting four hours of music a day, five days a week, said Jan Brennan, executive director of El Sistema Colorado. Those four hours include two class periods during the school day. “Intensity is critical,” Brennan said. “I think that is one of the lessons we have learned from El Sistema. It’s a very different experience from taking a lesson once a week.” Amidst the intense music training, however, the focus on student growth, perseverance, and broadened horizons remains central in both Portland and Denver. Last year, the Colorado students played in over 20 performances in the community, including at Red Rocks Amphitheater with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. In Portland, Bravo played a lighter community schedule in its inaugural year, but it is ramping up. “Imagine those kids going out in the community, standing up on the stage, having something to contribute and feeling the crowd’s appreciation,” Brennan said. “That alters the life trajectory of these kids. Red Rocks is just a few miles but a world away from where these kids live.” Truby is very quality-conscious. He refers to his teachers as “teacher-artists,” and he pays them above market rates for afterschool programs. He also strives for a 10-to-1 student-teacher ratio in the younger grades. You won’t get results by cutSecond-graders work on violin technique in their sectional rehearsal. Photo by Kimberly Warner Photography
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ting corners, he argues. “Its a real monetary investment,” he acknowledged. His funding comes from the BRAVO board of directors and numerous local donors. If El Sistema were merely a cultural enrichment, proving its value might not be such a serious matter. But because supporters cast it as a social intervention for at-risk children, it faces a tough data gauntlet before skeptics will come around and donors will go “all in.” Funded by the government in a less data-driven society, El Sistema in Venezuela has never faced the kind of scrutiny American foundations and educators insist upon. Finding data is now the job of WolfBrown, a firm that measures the impact of non-profit social projects. Funded by major foundations, WolfBrown will study El Sistema in action over the next two years to determine if the music program can “buffer the effects of risks like poverty, unsafe neighborhoods, and unequal opportunities to learn and develop, and build a wider understanding of the role that music can play in individual and community development.”
to experience the triumph that comes after struggle and discipline, to open doors for them to see city hall and the art museum, and to be part of a team.” Here again are the elusive qualitative measures the team at WolfBrown hopes to translate into measurable data. But Truby does have two impressive indicators from Bravo’s first year. First, there is the enthusiasm of new students to join the program. Of roughly 75 first graders who took the mandatory one-hour per week introductory program last year, 35 applied for the intensive afterschool program this spring. Bravo had openings for 24 of those students. Even more striking, of the 41 second-graders who last year launched the intensive afterschool program, 36 signed up again this year for the advanced class. “That is an amazing retention rate,” Truby said, “given how hard these kids work.” n
Researchers want to know how and whether the method changes lives. Does it shape identity? Does it build character and perseverance or develop mentoring relationships with adults and peers? What makes one El Sistema program more effective than another? Are some dosages and approaches more effective? In addition, WolfBrown will also look for musical skill development. “It will take years to get definitive answers,” said Steven Holochwost, the developmental psychologist spearheading the research. He notes that it took 40 years to assemble the now-definitive data proving the worth of early childhood education. “We don’t see this as the last word,” Holochowost said. Back at Rosa Parks, Truby understands the role of hard data, but is excited about what he has seen already on the ground. His objectives with Bravo are both ambitious and difficult to measure. “We aren’t all that invested in whether they go on in a career in music,” he said. “We want music to be a vehicle for them
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JANELL JAMES “SUSTAINABLE GROWTH” 60 x 48 OIL ON CANVAS
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The Art of Screenplay Writing Transferring the Spirit of a Novel Into a Script by Lyman D. Dayton
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fttimes I hear an armchair critic of film state what now has become a cliché: “The movie didn’t measure up to the book.” By making that statement, the critic is letting us know that he did, in fact, read the book. But perhaps what critics don’t realize is that, by making that statement, they’re comparing apples to oranges; a statement akin to saying, “I prefer Michelangelo’s statue of David to Rembrandt’s paintings of David.” In fairness to the critic, he felt something in the book that he didn’t feel in the movie. But conveying that spirit in film can be elusive. In prose, you, as the reader, are given the magical capacity to know what’s in the mind of the protagonist. You know what they are thinking because the author is telling you. In film, the audience can only conclude what the protagonist is thinking by their actions. The exception to that would be if the screenplay’s author writes narration that lets you know what the protagonist is thinking, and if that’s the case one could well ask the question, ‘What’s the point of making the movie?” Film students are encouraged to “show, don’t tell.” In prose, I can write, “and the troops landed in Normandy.” It’s easy to write, not so easy to show. A screenwriter must convey the spirit of the novel in his own medium, which means he must find a way to show the audience what a novel tells them. I first got a true sense of the complexities in adapting a novel to a screenplay in the ‘70s when I produced my first film: Wilson Rawls’ “Where the Red Fern Grows.” I had opted to make the film as true to the book as possible, and because the character Billy Colman had redbone hounds—a specialized breed of hunting dog—I was determined that we would find redbone hounds to play the part. When we got to the book’s location, Tahlequah, Oklahoma, we discovered that there were blu-
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etick hounds, black and tan hounds, treeing walker hounds, and even bloodhounds, but no redbone hounds. Apparently, redbones were considered lesser dogs by true coon hunters. There was a great sentiment toward replacing the redbones with one of the more popular breeds, but I had committed to the author that we would stay as true to the book as possible. Fortunately, we eventually found a redbone kennel in a nearby town. It was a great find, but it was only the beginning. In the novel, Billy picks up his dogs when they are six weeks old. In a few pages the puppies are three months old, and a few pages more they are six months old, then adolescents, and finally full-grown dogs. We had five weeks to shoot the movie. We needed a large male for Dan and a petite female for Ann. These acting dogs had to be trained by experts for weeks before we filmed. Then, of course, we needed a large male and a petite female that would fight the cougar, since we certainly could not risk putting our acting dogs in that situation. The total number of redbones used in the movie to depict Dan alone was twelve. I learned so much about the hunting culture in the Ozarks while working with the redbones that in rereading the novel, I believe I felt much of what Rawls was writing about. That’s the thing about story; the only way to capture the spirit of doing something is by actually doing it. By going out and hunting with Rawls by night, I was better able to encapsulate the emotion of the novel in the film. In theory, a 120-page screenplay should have the same amount of density as the 500-page novel it derives its content from. Given that a novel is not limited by time and space and that a feature film is, certain aspects must be taken into consideration; a lesson I quickly learned when filming “Where the Red Fern Grows.” Good screenplay writing includes hard research, volumes of notes, and when you’ve filled volumes of notebooks, you edit, edit, and edit. That’s the best way to adapt a novel when working within the confines of film and to accurately capture the sprit of what you’re trying to portray.
When you read a book or make a movie, indulging in the atmosphere allows you to feel it in a way you wouldn’t have otherwise. In retelling the story of another, while using a different medium, some details won’t easily transfer. But conveying the sometimes-elusive essence of the original work is what the screenwriter must really aspire to do.
Lyman D. Dayton has been a film writer, director and mentor for over 40 years. His first major film debut was “Where The Red Fern Grows” in 1973 and he has gone on to create numerous successful films, mainly in the family film genre. Dayton spent five years at Brigham Young University mentoring students in Philosophy of Film and Screenplay. He now resides in Santa Clara, Utah with his wife, Elizabeth. n
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How Pressure Makes Perfect You Are Better Than You Think You Are by Joshua Wright
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hat’s it? Only three Beethoven Sonatas? And what about Bach? You’ve only listed five Preludes and Fugues? You have a ton of Chopin on here, but other areas of your list are pretty weak. Josh, overall this list is pretty small. Beef it up to include everything you’ve ever taught as well.”
I set out adding to my list, which slowly grew to about fifty hours worth of repertoire. I took the list into my professor again. “This is much better. Let’s practice for the test now.” He proceeded to ask me question after question of things I didn’t know, that I should have known.
The worst and best part about doing a doctorate in Piano Performance at the University of Michigan is that you don’t have to write a dissertation. Instead, they make you do an extra recital, and they make you go through two highly intense oral exams, the first one being the most difficult of your entire degree. Everyone dreads this monumental exam, where five faculty members grill you on any detail of your entire repertoire list, which is all of the pieces you’ve ever studied in your life. I would venture to guess that the original list I took to my teacher was about twenty-five hours worth of music, things that I’ve really studied, performed, and worked on exhaustively. Now he wanted me to include everything I’d ever taught, because according to him, “The faculty will get much pickier and more harsh the shorter your list is.”
I have been a fierce competitor and performer all my life, sacrificing extensive reading of books about music for more and more hours at the piano. “Explain the difference between the Schumann’s “Fantasiestucke” and Debussy’s Preludes, how they use narratives, or how they do not use narratives, give me specific examples from the music, talk about their individual compositional styles, how they relate and how they differ, then tie that into the larger theme of differences between French and German music.” I gave numerous examples, explained everything I knew about the topic, but it was still too broad. I practiced with all five professors on my committee, and I walked out of every meeting feeling more and more like an idiot. I have been playing for twenty years, competing on an international level, perform-
“In short, this experience taught me that we are all much better than we think we are.”
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“After studying all day, every day, I had sharpened my mind.”
ing concerts, teaching a full studio since age sixteen. How had I missed so much? I had the wonderful opportunity throughout the summer to have a full schedule of concerts, performing weekly from May 1st through August 12th. I knew things would be crazy when I returned to Michigan on August 14th, since my test was only a few weeks away on September 3rd. I knew that studying for my doctoral exam would be difficult, but I wasn’t prepared for the amount of stress and time that practicing for a test of this magnitude would take. After starting out with a five-hours-per-day study routine, I endured the aforementioned “practice sessions”—more like beat-downs—and resolved to up my studying to about 10 to 12 hours per day. Some may not be surprised at that amount of intensive studying, however, for a musician who is practicing four hours per day, teaching four or five hours per day, and playing a heavy amount of concerts, this was extreme. My wife, who holds her doctorate in Piano Performance from the University of Utah, made it her full-time job for that month to help me study, practice testing me, help me compile an amazing study guide, and think of any possible question the faculty might ask. Finally, the day of the test came, and I had the idea to wake up really early to get in a few extra hours of review. By the time 1:30 p.m. rolled around, I was dead tired. I panicked and thought, “How am I going to remember all of this material? I had been studying non-stop for over three weeks, all day, every day, and now I am blanking!” However, when the questions started being asked, information immediately came to my head. Out of that 800-page study guide my wife had helped me compile, the answers came to my mind one after another. Of course, there were certain things they asked that I wasn’t sure of, but I was able to formulate cogent answers that satisfied the committee of professors. I was relieved that the test was over, and eager to get back Photos courtesy of joshwrightpiano.com
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to practicing. After all, I was performing in Connecticut, Wyoming, and finally in Washington D.C. for my Kennedy Center debut in the coming weeks and months. Connecticut was only two weeks away, and the Kennedy Center concert contained a large amount of new material. It was a different kind of stress, the kind that I really thrive on and enjoy. I started practicing vigorously the next day, and to my astonishment, I was learning things faster than I ever had. I re-learned and memorized the first movement of the Schumann Sonata No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22 in two days, something that would have usually taken me a week. The next few days, I learned and memorized the fourth movement, something I had only spent two weeks learning the previous summer. Everything was flowing with such energy that I was able to get my whole program ready for Connecticut about a week early. How was I doing this, and why hadn’t I been able to do it before? I realize now that after going through such an extreme exercise as the doctoral oral exam, studying all day, every day, I had sharpened my mind to such a degree that it tired less quickly, it fatigued much more slowly. The competitive and stressful environment had hardened my willpower to withstand the normal wear-and-tear of a few hours of practice. I learned that when we are put in extreme situations, it doesn’t necessarily just make us better at that task, but in all areas of our life. In short, this experience taught me that we are all much better than we think we are, and when we allow ourselves to endure fiery and strenuous situations, we emerge stronger than ever.
Joshua Wright is a pianist and teacher from the Mountain West. He has performed with numerous symphonies in the region, won mention in multiple international piano competitions, and has recored five albums. Wright’s self-titled album topped Billboard’s Classical Traditional Chart, where Wright was named the #1 artist only three weeks after the album release in 2011. Wright continues to perform and teach across the Untied States and is married to Dr. Lindsay Wright. n
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Memories and Metaphors An Artist Captures His Life In Paint by Dennis Smith
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remember the neon lights of Copenhagen with fond nostalgia.
There was that first evening I arrived as a young missionary, when we drove from the airport into the middle of the city through Radhus Plads, which is surrounded with long flashing strips of neon in all its colors, with signs on all the hotels glowing brilliantly against the dusky sunset. I felt as if I had come to the end of the earth, that it was twenty times more garish than I imagined it could be and that I would never return home again. In a sense, that was true. I recall another evening, too, when we were riding our bicycles along the edge of one of the long, triangular lakes that circle the ancient inner city. On the opposite side of the lake was a row of buildings barely visible in the darkness except for the neon signs on the roofs of a few of the buildings that threw bright, mirrored reflections across the water. I wanted to stop and just look at the fluidly merging colors, but I needn’t have been concerned. The vision had already imposed a deep impression that remains with me to this day, as clearly as if it happened last evening.
Another neon memory was implanted at Trianglen (The Triangle), an intersection near where the little mermaid sits perched in the harbor. For some reason, the neon lights of Trianglen burned themselves into memory so immediately and so deeply that I have never been able to get them out of my mind. I have wanted to paint Trianglen for years, and about six months ago I did. The view in “Trianglen” is from above, looking down and out in a broad, panoramic perspective. The wide streets are almost vacant, with only a few people here and there, a few cars, and one lone streetcar chasing itself through the foreground. The neon lights are only just beginning to glow in a hazy sunset; and overhead, a late 1800s airship hangs in a lazy sky. I realized as I created the dirigible that I am in it, or that I am the whole essence of it. In the months since then, I have wondered if the painting wasn’t a way of empowering myself in the strange new landscape, and that, in fact, we all build airships to rise above circumstance, to gain control of our lives, and to experience new landscapes where we can learn to trust and love. My Danish neon painting named “Apple Peddler II” is bursting with a plethora of personal metaphors, akin to many that others will identify with in their own lives. Sunset has always acted as a universal metaphor for endings. For me it has the religious significance of both endings and beginnings. I feel the coming of night; the beauty reminds me that sunrise will be just as beautiful. The clouds hold me close to earth. The pedestrian strips along the bottom, like the second hand of a watch, remind me of the passing of time. The statue of the king is an affirmation of worldly glories that we circle about endlessly with our lights on searching for truth. Continuing to look at “Apple Peddler II,” the lights in all the windows are the people in the Trianglen 30 x 40 Oil on Canvas
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world and the exits from the roundabout go to the ends of the earth. I was homesick, and the Volkswagen sign on the top of a building we passed every day reminded me constantly of Veloy, my sweetheart waiting at home for me. The red “Tom’s” neon sign is for Helge, the man we brought into the church who was a salesman for Tom’s Chokolade, and has become a dear and lifelong friend. In the end, this is a painting about a naïve young man questioning his own faith in a new and foreign environment. For “Winter Ivy” I return to a root metaphor: home. Not just the house itself, for it is not literally my own, but Charlie Clark’s, an elderly man who lived on 100 West in Alpine. Because so many of my paintings have been centered on Alpine, I have slowly realized that my home town is my own central metaphor for the center of the universe. And when you think about it, in each of our own minds, if we are emotionally honest, we think of ourselves as the center of the universe. The passage of years and the incessant growth of ivy cover much of our memories, but whether we wish to or not, we leave a trail behind us. Early on in my winter paintings, I would paint kids pulling their peers on sleds, slowly realizing it was my siblings and I pulling each other. The metaphor takes on an even broader meaning when one realizes the scripture that says that we are our brother’s keeper.
got to thinking about my grandpa’s sister, who felt somewhat ostracized in a small town, who had a child outside of marriage, and I began to feel a tremendous empathy for her, and all those who feel judged or abandoned by society. The road becomes a road that passes by without stopping. The cabin becomes a still and lonely abode with lonely eyes. But there is still a loving presence of God that loves her and watches over her. I know we all have memories, but for people like me, memories enter the mind as valuable files for further reference. Whenever I see something that impresses me, I must try to own it if I can. I have to have it, and sometimes panic that it might be lost. I have realized that the images I see are not only
“Alone” started out as a landscape of Parley’s Canyon, a long way from where it ended up. I Above: Apple Peddler II 24 x 36 Oil on Canvas
Right: Winter Ivy 24 x 30 Oil on Canvas
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reality, but also symbols of meaning beyond reality. Figuring out how to spontaneously loosen these metaphors from the mind and get them onto the canvas has been one of the most difficult tasks of my life. Little children do it easily. They do not spoil the process by thinking too much about it. However, usually by the time we have left the simple world of childhood we have lost the key to the filing cabinet, and too often we never find it again. One of my tasks has been to conjure the memories and metaphors up, firstly for myself, but also for others. It is the patterns, the colors, the forms, and the images they suggest that all become part and parcel of what I do. When I see a cut in a piece of wood from an old house that is being torn down, I can almost feel the people who cut the wood or lived in the house. I can’t know them, of course, but I can wonder about them. When I walk down a cobblestone street, I can hear silent voices, thousands of them, all around me. I cannot go an hour without feeling and wondering. And now that I am getting older it is getting worse and better at the same time. Maybe it is true what they say about entering a second childhood because the memories of my earlier years are becoming crisper, even as my driving is becoming more hazardous. My grandpa’s farm, my dad’s scratch-gravel 49 acres with its few tiny plots of wheat and alfalfa, the makeshift barn and corral, where the milk cow and Roany, the horse, shared quarters, and where we parked the grey Ferguson tractor, are images as fresh in my mind as the brisk cold morning air in my face when I would walk to McDaniel’s corner to catch the bus as a child. Looking back, I realize that my many sculptures over the years have been the visions of a child, searching and soaring toward broader landscapes. I am aware that those thousands of scribbled sketches have been attempts to catch the moment as it passes, to save it the same way mom bottled fruit and stored it down in the fruit room, and dad wrapped beef and deer meat in white butcher paper and packed it in the freezer. Alone 20 x 24 Oil on Canvas
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My paintings, they have been the most difficult to figure out. I avoided them for twenty years and struggled mightily for twenty more before the combination lock to all the deepest files could be unlocked. I feel I am on the cusp of everything I needed to learn in order to accomplish what I wanted to do. And though I am grateful for what I have been able to do, there is so much more to be done. I feel what my dad must have felt every spring when he would go through the orchard and prune the apple trees. There were so many new branches sprouting out that needed to be clipped. The roots and main branches could never sustain such a load. Some of them had to be pruned back. And that’s how it is in my mind. The files are so full. There is no way I can ever get to them all. Yet still, the memories keep piling up. What a blessed dilemma.
Dennis Smith is a sculptor, painter and writer living in Alpine Utah. He is a noted member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and some of his artwork deals with themes regarding the LDS church. His work is featured in notable locations such as the Salt Lake City International Airport and Primary Children’s Medical Center. In June 2014, the state of Utah awarded Smith the “Best in State” award in the category of Modern Painting. n
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Celebrity Concert Series World-Class Performing Arts October 2014 - April 2015
The Jive Aces Straight from the UK! November 15, 2014 7:30pm
www.celebrityconcertseries.com 435-652-7800
Concerts held in the Cox Performing Arts Center
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l
Dixie State University Campus, St. George, Utah
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Internationally Acclaimed Pianist December 12 & 13, 2014 7:30pm
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Riding the Creative Process Creative Drought, Creative Flow, Creative Flood by Janice Brooks
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t may not be difficult to see yourself as a starving artist, to dwell in the dry spells and the drought. But, try to imagine this scene: On day one you are notified that five of your paintings have been sold to a wealthy art collector. On day seven, as a result of your big sale and notoriety, you are commissioned to paint a large mural for a public art space. Your adrenaline is flowing, your creative ideas cannot be held back. Three weeks later, you are presented with the opportunity to be a fill-in speaker at a major national arts conference. Your flow stops, stalls. You spend hours preparing your slideshow. You agonize over addressing an audience. But you do it, apparently well. A famous author approaches you about collaborating, a prominent art dealer wants to purchase your entire inventory, and your newly appointed agent pushes you for more, more, more. Creative drought becomes the confidence of creative flow, and then the hang-on-to-your-hat demands of a creative flood. When your artistry opens up, you’ll find yourself wading deep in abundant opportunity. Be warned, however, that you may also find yourself panicked and immobilized.
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Let me be the first to admit, in my younger years I often selfsabotaged my times of great creativity and, instead, built up emotional levees of fear. I would run for cover and hide behind self-doubt and protests that I needed more time to prepare. But over time, through experience, and with some grit, I learned how to ride my periodic creative waves, and do it with joy. Floods are natural, sometimes seasonal and oftentimes impulsive. Water, whether a trickle or pour, weaves such beautiful patterns, but it always moves toward its destination. So it is with our creative process. How best to navigate the rapids when you’re caught in a raging flood? Call Out For Help Send out a professional, artistic SOS and also rally others with unique talents. The trick here is to identify and be keenly specific about your request. Folks will jump on board to help, if they know what you need and how they can assist. Too
frightened to speak in public? Call a theatrical friend and stage a run through. Need to get a presence online? Hire a high school student or a savvy grandma to manage your social media or set up your slideshow. Reach out to those around you to get the job done. Find a Beach Make some room for yourself, some time to nurture your art. Take a temporary hiatus from peripheral demands and social commitments, and be strong. Take a picture of your desk or studio to email to friends with a note, “Having the time of my life, will get back to you when I finish my project.” Put Your Life Jacket On and Get Back In the Water Make this your jump in—or off, if you’re not ready—point. It will take all your courage and fortitude to stay off the safe, marginally unproductive edge. Many creative artists fall head first into the false and creatively unhealthy self-labeling of being a “procrastinator.” “Procrastinate” from the Latin pro (“forward”) plus crastinus (“of tomorrow”), signifies literally “putting forward until tomorrow.” Originally the term was descriptive, not judgmental, a neutral word meaning postponement. Even though procrastination now carries a pejorative connotation, it does not describe a motive. Thus, if, and when, you find yourself floating in creative floodwaters, “putting forward” toward your destination, become part of the meandering creative process to get there. Paddle Like Mad and Go Along For the Wild Ride Enough said. Janice Brooks is a social entrepreneur with a motivating passion for creating and supporting transformational experiences that heighten and enliven the artistic, creative, cultural, and literary arts. Professionally, Brooks is an expert speaker, public affairs strategist, business consultant, community activist, poet, freelance writer, and storyteller. She lives in Ivins, Utah with her husband and son. n
Photos by Grace Paradela
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Perspective
From the Book “Female Energy” by Cheryl Collins
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he soft glow of the moon sends nurturing comfort from afar to all forms of life on earth. Her energy is harmony and peace, compassion and tolerance. Her light radiates vibrations of peaceful power to earth. She shares the night sky with the glittering stars of the galaxy. They remind us that we are not alone. They broaden our perspective and expand our circle of awareness to include the big picture. They remind us to live in the mystery, to trust during darkness and to listen for inspiration. We are all entitled, for we are all here as part of the miracle of life. We all share the same energy - and it is grand, expansive, all powerful. Our part in it reveals itself day by day. Our job is to live in joy and gratitude, and to share our gifts, to give at least as much as we take and to leave this world a better place for future generations.
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Friday, June 13 Friday, October 10 Friday, December 12
6-9 PM
10 Fine Art Venues
On-site Art Demonstrations Live Music & Fun! Map and information at:
StGeorgeArt.com *Don’t miss the Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit by Art Around the Corner! Map & self-guided Sculpture Tour available at : ArtAroundTheCorner.org
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177 East 200 South Salt Lake City, UT 84111 801.355.3383 modernwestfineart.com
63 W Center St Cedar City, UT 84720 435.632.5539 gallerygala.com
pg 102
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haven G A L L E R Y
444 Main Street Park City, UT 84060 435-658-169 mccartheygallery.net
1495 S Blackridge Drive St George, UT 84770 435-656-3377 havengallerystgeorge.com
pg 107
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1051 Zion Park Blvd, Springdale, UT 84767 435-772-6888 deziongallery.com
35 N. Main Street, St George, UT 84770 435-817-7869 mainstreetgallerystgeorge.com
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Selected Works on Display
To Advertise Your Gallery’s Selected Works in our Digest Catalog contact: 435-656-3377 advertise@fibonaccidigest.com
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Moonshine by Mark Eberhard 42 x 42 Oil on Canvas MODERN WEST FINE ART
Razorback Bluff by Rob Colvin 42 x 42 Oil on Canvas MODERN WEST FINE ART
Twelve by Annette Lemieux Acrylic Silkscreen Ink on Wood Panel (2) panels at 38 x 40 MODERN WEST FINE ART
Sea Butterfly by Ario Namingha 15 x 13 x 4 Texas Shell, Bass Wood & Bronze MODERN WEST FINE ART 102 •
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Night Owl-Crow Indian Man by Kevin Red Star 30 x 40 Acrylic on Canvas MODERN WEST FINE ART
Gibson Wilderness by Woody Shepherd 72 x 71 Oil & Acrylic on Hardwood Panel MODERN WEST FINE ART
Horses on the Hill With Cloud by Phil Epp 40 x 40 Acrylic on Board MODERN WEST FINE ART
Heat by Lenka Konopasek 30 x 40 Oill on Canvaas MODERN WEST FINE ART
Into the Glittery World by Shonto Begay 48 x 24 Acrylic on Canvas MODERN WEST FINE ART
Filtered Sun by Dan Namingha 40 x 30 Acrylic on Canvas MODERN WEST FINE ART
Warrior on Horse by Ben Steele 90 x 80 Oil on (3) Panels MODERN WEST FINE ART
Mountain Storm by David Jonason 36 x 48 Oill on Canvas MODERN WEST FINE ART
Nude 1 by Jann Hathworth 36 x 42 Oil on Canvas & Vinyl MODERN WEST FINE ART
Suzie Yazzie by Logan Maxwell Hagege 30 x 20 Oil on Linen MODERN WEST FINE ART Premier Fine Arts Digest of the Mountain West
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Red by Dave Newman 30 x 30 Mixed Media MODERN WEST FINE ART
Bladed Bloom by Ed Mell 24 x 18 Oil on Linen MODERN WEST FINE ART Grazing Under the Needle by John Berry 16 x 20 Oil on Canvas MODERN WEST FINE ART
The Grand Tetons by Tracy Felix 36 x 48 Oil on Panel MODERN WEST FINE ART 104 •
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Keokook by Stanley Natchez 40 x 46 Oil and Mixed Media on Gold Leaf MODERN WEST FINE ART
Me and the Bones by David Ence 23 x 29 Acrylic, Pen and Colored Pencil on Paper GALLERY GALA The Glamour of the Show by Andrew Marvick 36 x 36 Oil, Watercolor, Acrylic and Resin on Canvas GALLERY GALA
Matilda by Jack Seibold 12 x 9 x 11 Weldded Steel GALLERY GALA
Dawn Burst by Aimee Bonham 32 x 48 Oil on Cradled Birch Panel GALLERY GALA
The Man Who Found Out by Andrew Marvik 72 x 48 Oil, Watercolor, Acrylic and Resin on Canvas GALLERY GALA Premier Fine Arts Digest of the Mountain West
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Digital Bytes Infusing Nature by Aimee Bonham 40 x 40 Oil on Cradled Birch Panel GALLERY GALA
Nothwithstanding by Jack Seibold 23 x 14 x 19 Welded Steel GALLERY GALA
Alien Landscape by David Ence 23 x 29 Acrylic, Pen and Colored Pencil on Paper GALLERY GALA
Black Hole by Terrance Wright 30 x 20 Acrylic on Canvas with Resin GALLERY GALA
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Tiger Lily by Terrance Wright 48 x 24 Acrylic on Canvas with Resin GALLERY GALA
Windy Day by Igor Alenandrovich Popov 17 1/4 x 29 3/4 Oil on Board McCARTHEY GALLERY
Sasha Komarov by Alexandra Feliksovna Torkreva 30 1/2 x 39 1/2 Oil on Canvas McCARTHEY GALLERY
Spring on Kaspean Sea by Alexei & Sergei Takchev 29 1/4 x 43 1/4 Oil on Board McCARTHEY GALLERY
Peasants at the Shed by Grigory Leontievich Chainikov 50 x 40 Oil on Canvas McCARTHEY GALLERY
First Snow by Alexei & Sergei Takchev 26 1/4 x 36 Oil on Board McCARTHEY GALLERY
Sunflowers by Vasily Kirillovich Nechitailo 40 3/4 x 32 1/4 Oil on Cardboard McCARTHEY GALLERY
The Lilac by Yuri Petrovich Kugach 5 1/4 x 9 3/4 Oil on Board McCARTHEY GALLERY Premier Fine Arts Digest of the Mountain West
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Colors of Autum by Roland Lee 8 x 12 Watercolor HAVEN GALLERY
Monkey Business by Dennis Smith #3 of #30 Bronze HAVEN GALLERY
Charolaise Bull by Ron Russon 48 x 48 Oil on Canvas HAVEN GALLERY 108 108 •
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Mama Boots by Angela Fife 30 x 15 Oil on Canvas HAVEN GALLERY
The Artist by Edward Hlavka & Kate Starling #10 of #36 Bronze HAVEN GALLERY
Favorite Spot by James Biggers 12 x 16 Oil on Linen HAVEN GALLERY
Saturday Morning by Susette Gertsch 36 x 38 Oil on Canvas HAVEN GALLERY
The Conversation by Stewart Seidman 40 x 30 Acrylic on Canvas HAVEN GALLERY
Grainery by Steve Stauffer 9 x 12 Oil on Linen Panel HAVEN GALLERY Premier Fine Arts Digest of the Mountain West
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November Rain by Fredrick Stephens 20 x 30 Oil on Canvas HAVEN GALLERY
Millcreek Canyon by Frank Huff 48 x 60 Oil on Canvas HAVEN GALLERY
Tahani by Robert Benson 11 x 14 Oil on Canvas HAVEN GALLERY
In the West Field by Martin Ricks 8 x 10 Oil on Polyflax HAVEN GALLERY 110 •
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Waiting by Carlos Reales 30 x 24 Oil on Canvas HAVEN GALLERY
The Player by Jason Bowen 30 x 20 Oil on Canvas HAVEN GALLERY
Turned Wood Vase by Chris Bair 10 x 8 x8 Screwbean Mesquite Burl DeZION GALLERY
Wotan’s Lightning by Jason Butler/ArgoShots 24 x 48 MetalPrint DeZION GALLERY
Zion Narrows Light by Sidney Shutt 30 x 40 Oil Palette Knife DeZION GALLERY
Sterling Silver & Rare Stone Jewelry by Bruce Nell DeZION GALLERY
Hammered Iron & Stone Jewelry by Dean Wilson DeZION GALLERY
Escalante Canyon From Kiva by J. Brad Holt 24 x 30 Oil DeZION GALLERY
Evening Light by Cody DeLong 12 x 20 Oil DeZION GALLERY
Free Ride by Chris Deverill 10 x 13.5 x 6 Bronze Sculpture DeZION GALLERY Premier Fine Arts Digest of the Mountain West
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Durres by Jeremy Winborg 12 x 16 Oil on Canvas MAIN STREET GALLERY
Seastacks by Casey Childs 8 x 10 Oil on Linen MAIN STREET GALLERY
Peace in Venice by Huinan Liu 12 x 12 Oil on Canvas MAIN STREET GALLERY
Prarie Storm by Casey Childs 17 x 10 Oil on Linen MAIN STREET GALLERY
Yellow Duster by Robert Benson 12 x 16 Oil on Canvas MAIN STREET GALLERY
Lake Powel in the Morning by Sam Smith 12 x 16 Oil on Canvas MAIN STREET GALLERY 112 112 •
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The Last Drive by Jason Bowen 9 x 12 Oil on Canvas MAIN STREET GALLERY
Gallery Directory
Listings Throughout the Mountain West
15th Street Gallery 1519 S 1500 East Salt Lake City, UT 84105 15thstreetgallery.com A Gallery 1321 S 2100 East Salt Lake City, UT 84108 agalleryonline.com Al Rounds Studio 60 E South Temple Ste 34 Salt Lake City, UT 84111 alrounds.com Alderwood Fine Art 641 E South Temple Salt Lake City, UT 84102 alderwoodfineart.com Alice Gallery 617 E South Temple Salt Lake City, UT 84102 alicegallery.org Alpine Art 430 E South Temple Salt Lake City, UT 84111 alpineartinc.com
Anthony’s Fine Art & Antiques 401 E 200 South Salt Lake City, UT 84111 anthonysfineart.com
Astoria Fine Art 35 E Deloney Ave Jackson, WY 83001 astoriafineart.com
Contemporary Arts Center 1217 S Main St Las Vegas, NV 89104 lasvegascac.org
Art Access Gallery 230 S 500 West #125 Salt Lake City, UT 84101 accessart.org
Authentique Gallery Art & Design 199 N Main St St George, UT 84770 authentiquegallery.com
Cornerstone Gallery of Fine Art 175 S Main St Ste 100 Salt Lake City, UT 84111 cornerstonegallery.net
Art at the Main 210 E 400 South Salt Lake City, UT 84111 artatthemain.com
Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art 3600 Las Vegas Blvd S Las Vegas, NV 89109 bellagio.com
David Ericson Fine Art 418 S 200 West Salt Lake City, UT 84101 davidericson-fineart.com
ARTe Gallery and Framing Shop 415 S Dixie Dr. St George, UT 84770 arte4artgallery.com
Bret Webster Images 312 Main St Park City, UT 84060 bretwebsterimages.com
David J. West Gallery 801 Zion Park Blvd Springdale, UT 84767 davidjwest.com
Brushworks Gallery 160 E 800 South Salt Lake City, UT 84111 brushworksgallery.com
DeZion Gallery 1051 Zion Park Blvd Springdale, UT 84767 deziongallery.com
Charley Hafen Jewelers 1409 S 900 East Salt Lake City, UT 84105 charleyhafen.com
District Gallery 751 Main St Park City, UT 84060 districtartgallery.com
ArtisticLifestyles Gallery Las Vegas 2758 S Highland Dr Ste B Las Vegas, NV 89109 artisticlifestyles.com Artworks Park City 461 Main St Park City, UT 84060 artworksparkcity.com
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113 • 113
Earth & Light Gallery 847 Coyote Gulch Ct Ivins, UT 84738 cdwood.zenfolio.com
Hope Gallery 268 Main St Park City, UT 84060 hopegallery.com
Evergreen Framing Co. & Gallery, Inc. 3295 S 2000 East Salt Lake City, UT 84109 evergreengallery.com
Illume Gallery of Fine Art 60 E South Temple Salt Lake City, UT 84111 illumegalleryoffineart.com
F. Weixler Gallery 132 ‘E’ Street Salt Lake City, UT 84103 fweixlerco.com Fatali Gallery 556 Main St Park City, UT 84060 fatali.com Gallery 873 873 Coyote Gulch Ct Ivins, UT 84738 gallery873.com Gallery MAR 436 Main St Park City, UT 84060 gallerymar.com Haven Gallery 1495 S Black Ridge Dr St George, UT 84770 fibonaccifinearts.com Hope Gallery 151 S Main St Salt Lake City, UT 84111 hopegallery.com
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J GO Gallery 408 Main St Park City, UT 84060 jgogallery.com Julie Nester Gallery 1280 Iron Horse Dr Park City, UT 84060 julienestergallery.com
Kush Fine Art Las Vegas 3500 Las Vegas Blvd S Ste G27 Las Vegas, NV 89109 vladimirkush.com
Martin Lawrence Galleries 3500 S Las Vegas Blvd S Las Vegas, NV 89109 martinlawrence.com
LaFave Gallery 1214 Zion Park Blvd Springdale, UT 84767 lafavegallery.com
McMillen Fine Art Gallery 1678 Redstone Center Dr Ste 120 Park City, UT 84098 mcmillenfineart.com
Lanny Barnard Gallery 74 S Main St Salt Lake City, UT 84101 lannybarnardgalleryslc.com
Meyer Gallery 305 Main Street Park City, UT 84060 meyergallery.com
Logan Fine Art 60 W 100 North Logan, UT 84321 loganfineartgallery.com
Michael Bedard Fine Art Gallery 29 W 200 North St George, UT 84770 bedardfineart.com
Coyote Gulch Art Village 875 Coyote Gulch Ct Ivins, UT 84738 coyotegulchartvillage.com
Lucheni Sculpture Gallery 110 Bristol Rd Logan, UT 84341
Kevin Barry Fine Arts 6001 S Decatur Blvd Las Vegas, NV 89118 kevinbarryfineart.com
Lustre Gallery 171 S Pine St Telluride, CO 81435 lustregallery.com
Kimball Art Center 638 Park Ave Park City, UT 84060 kimballartcenter.org
Main Street Gallery 35 N. Main St St George, UT 84770 mainstreetgallerystgeorge.com
King’s Gallery 13 W Center St Logan, UT 84321 antiquesutah.com
Mangelsen-Images of Nature Gallery 364 Main St Park City, UT 84060 mangelsen.com
Milici Studios 95 E Shelbourne Ave Las Vegas, NV 89123 milicistudios.com Mission Gallery 173 N Main St St George, UT 84770 themissiongallery.com Modern West Fine Art 177 E 200 South Salt Lake City, Utah 84111 modernwestfineart.com Montgomery-Lee Fine Art 608 Main St Park City, UT 84060 montgomeryleefineart.com
Mountain Trails Gallery 301 Main St Park City, UT 84060 mountaintrailsgalleries.com
Sagebrush Fine Art 3065 S West Temple Salt Lake City, UT 84115 sagebrushfineart.com
Terzian Galleries 309 Main St Park City, UT 84060 terziangalleries.com
Whitaker Studio 899 Coyote Gulch Ct Ivins, UT 84738 whitakerstudio.com
Old Church Gallery 868 Zion Park Blvd Springdale, UT 84767
Sean Nathan Ricks: The Main Street Gallery 909 S Main St Ste F Logan, UT 84321
Thomas Anthony Gallery 340 Main St Park City, UT 84060 thomasanthonygallery.com
Williams Fine Art 132 ‘E’ Street Salt Lake City, UT 84103 williamsfineart.com
Sears Art Museum Gallery 155 S University Ave St George, UT 84770 dixieculturalarts.com/ sears-museum
McCarthey Gallery 444 Main St Park City, UT 84060 mccartheygallery.net
Willie Holdman Utah Photographs Gallery 580 Main St Park City, UT 84060 willieholdman.com
Park City Fine Art 577 Main St Park City, UT 84060 parkcityfineart.com Phillips Gallery 444 E 200 South Salt Lake City, UT 84111 phillips-gallery.com Relics Framemakers & Fine Art Gallery 4685 S Holladay Blvd Salt Lake City, UT 84117 relicsframemakers.com
Silver Queen Fine Art 577 Main St Park City, UT 84060 silverqueenfineart.com Slusser Gallery 447 E 100 South Salt Lake City, UT 84111 slussergallery.com
Rich Haines Galleries 751 Main St Park City, UT 84060 richhainesgalleries.com
Sorella Gallery 868 Zion Park Blvd Springdale, UT 84767
Rare Gallery 60 E Broadway Ave Jackson, WY 83001 raregalleryjacksonhole.com
Split Rock Gallery 2 W St George Blvd St George, UT 84770 splitrockinc.com
Rio Gallery 300 S Rio Grande St Salt Lake City, UT 84101 riogallery.org
Stanfield Fine Art 751 Main St Park City, UT 84060 stanfieldfineart.com
Trove Gallery 804 Main St Park City, UT 84060 troveparkcity.com Utah Artist Hands 163 E Broadway Salt Lake City, UT 84111 utahands.com Urban Arts Gallery 137 S Rio Grande St Salt Lake City, UT 84101 utaharts.org/locations/ urban-arts-gallery West Light Images 333 Main St Park City, UT 84060 westlightimages.com
Winborg Masterpieces 55 N Main St Logan, UT 84321 winborg.com World Focus Gallery 20 N Main St St George, UT 84770 Worthington Gallery, Inc. 789 Zion Park Blvd Springdale, UT 84767 worthingtongallery.com Wyland Galleries Las Vegas 3663 S Las Vegas Blvd S Ste 245 Las Vegas, NV 89109 wylandgalleries.com
Wide Angle 51 N Main St St George, UT 84770 wideangleart.com
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• 119
WINTER CONCERT SERIES
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