INTRODUCTION One year ago, when The Utah Review presented the 2019 edition of the top 10 moments of the Utah Enlightenment, it was a jubilant representation of Utah’s integral strengths as a community of the arts and the momentum that catapulted Salt Lake City as one of the Intermountain West’s most dynamic centers for creative … Read more
Without the benefit of festival shows, exhibitions and gallery events during a pandemic year, many local visual artists have been challenged to stay as visible as possible. With the holiday season approaching, several of Salt Lake City’s major visual arts institutions are using digital platforms as well as their physical locations for opportunities to highlight … Read more
Normally for four days in June, Library Square and the surrounding civic campus in downtown Salt Lake City are transformed into a village of arts and culture for the Utah Arts Festival (UAF), the state’s largest multi-disciplinary gathering of its kind, drawing between 70,000 and 80,000 visitors annually. Despite the inevitable decision in March to … Read more
It is not an artifice that the mind has added to human nature. The mind has added nothing to human nature. It is a violence from within that protects us from a violence without. It is the imagination pressing back against the pressure of reality. It seems, in the last analysis, to have something to … Read more
Growing up first in Walnut Creek and then in Danville, California, Stacy Garrop played piano but her real music strengths were as an alto singer in choir and saxophonist in her high school marching band. At one point, her love of poetry inspired her to try her hand at writing her own verses but that … Read more
The art of poetry slams has enjoyed a solid base of popularity at the Utah Arts Festival and its strength has followed the growth of the literary art form. Many of the individuals who will be competing in the qualifying individual rounds (June 23) and then in the finals (June 26) epitomize the growth of … Read more
Each year, the Utah Arts Festival is the most effective barometer of the strength, impact and potential of arts in the state. At 40, the festival is really a cosmopolitan miniature city in which more than 80,000 people will sample from the largest slate of programming, artists and performers ever presented at one time in … Read more
Late last year, it took only a few hours for a social media controversy to erupt that would force the Old Navy clothing company to pull a line of T-shirts and sweatshirts which featured the tag “Young Aspiring Artist” with the word “artist” crossed out and replaced with “astronaut” or “president”. The controversy brought a … Read more
There was a lot to celebrate in 2015 with the Utah Enlightenment, a creative movement where courage defines some of the state’s most interesting and independent artists. Indeed, the Enlightenment disturbs and disrupts the peculiar Utah penchant to be civil and docile or to be content with platitudes and pleasantries. Artists are reclaiming Utah’s unique … Read more