Meet Salt & Smoke Artisan Meats

Salt & Smoke Artisan Meats' owner and butcher Frody Volgger

“Frody will be breaking down a pig on Friday,” Cassie Little, sales manager of Salt & Smoke Artisan Meats, tells me. It’s my first chance to go behind the scenes of Frody Volgger’s newest venture — a butcher shop focusing on heritage pigs, European-style sausages and specialty meats. I’m to meet a photographer from The … Read more

Torrey House Press gains momentum as a literary test lab for new American West voices

More than two decades after Wallace Stegner, the dean of Western writers, died in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a new generation of writers has emerged to empower the voices of activism and advocacy in conservation and preservation, especially through the intellectual and cultural forces of literary fiction. However, these new authors also take on equally … Read more

Even Stevens, serving more than food

To say Even Stevens’ sandwiches are good is an understatement. Couple that good food with a conscience and a mission of changing their community, and you have something great. For every sandwich sold at Even Stevens, another is donated to a local non-profit helping to end hunger in the community. But the company is so … Read more

ASTA music educators conference: Teachers are flipping the classroom in bold ways

For math, science economics and more recently art history, the Khan Academy changed the rules by flipping the classroom and offering hundreds of videos online to students in more than 40 languages. Something similar and just as exciting is happening in music education, an area that has been especially vulnerable to budget cutting by school … Read more

A Visit With Amour Spreads

“We sold out of our elderberry marmalade yesterday, so we need to go find some berries to make more marmalade” said the message from Casee Francis, one half of the Amour Spreads duo. Casee and John Francis don’t freeze fruit once picked, so when they’re out, it’s time to look for some more in the … Read more

Pop-culture artist Robin Banks’ timeless interpretations

In Salt Lake City, there are many venues for finding Robin Banks’ fresh, bright and playful pop art and culture illustrations that have a timeless imprint upon retro and classic interpretations of cartoon and comic figures. In just six years, Banks (who prefers the singular generic pronoun “they”) has compiled a diverse professional portfolio including … Read more

Utah composer Troy Lennerd’s music proves fruitful in global ways

Just a quick glance of Troy Lennerd’s music output reveals a 21st century composer who sees audiences and music listeners not as a sign of artistic weakness, of surrendering to temptations of commercialization but as a worthwhile instrument for making accessible music that is as significant as any abstract avant-garde exploration of new sounds. The … Read more

Backstage at Utah Arts Festival 2014: Dallas artist Jennifer Lashbrook turns paint swatches into unique portraits

Many artists at the Utah Arts Festival’s Artists Marketplace are increasingly finding that any material, which might have been discarded previously or considered an afterthought, is worth converting into appealing art forms. Jennifer Lashbrook from Dallas, who won this year’s People’s Choice Award in the Artist Marketplace, creates portraits from paint swatches she gathers from … Read more

Backstage at Utah Arts Festival 2014: Harper and Midwest Kind, MarchFourth Marching Band to close out festival on soulful, rousing notes

Harper and Midwest Kind, June 29, 2 p.m., Art Yard stage; 4:30 p.m., City-County Building Stage, and 9 p.m. Park Stage For someone born in the United Kingdom and who spent his formative years in Perth Australia and whose early musical experience included playing trumpet and euphonium in brass bands, Peter D. Harper has become one … Read more