Alternative Venues: Salt Lake City
SLGA's
Affiliate Members
The Salt Lake Gallery
Association also welcomes what they call “affiliate members” -- arts-related
businesses whose exhibit of artwork is not their primary function, but
host regular exhibits during business hours and stay open late on Gallery
Stroll. Design Firms such as W. Communications have separate spaces where
they have decided to exhibit the work of local artists. Thin Air Design
sells design products, but has a gallery upstairs (showing artist Marha
Tarnawiecki, seen above). The Gay and Lesbian Center has a Gallery and the
Rose Wagner has a gallery as well. The newest affiliate members are Evergreen
Framing and Gallery and Ken Sanders Rare Books.
Some of these "affiliate members"
have been featured as Alternative Venues in previous editions of 15 Bytes.
For a listing of Alternative Venues, visit the AoU Forum and click "Topics"
in the menu bar.
Alternative Venue: Salt Lake City
Evergreen
Framing and Gallery
Evergreen has been
in the framing and gallery business for almost twenty years, but recently
built a new building for the purpose of exhibiting artwork on a more professional
scale. Now located on 3295 South and 200 East, owners Maj and Kelly Omana
built a larger freestanding building just around the corner. Manager Jodi
Steen says they’ve enjoyed a tremendous increase in business due to the
more visible building.
It is this larger gallery space
that motivated Jodi Steen to apply for membership with the Salt Lake Gallery
Association, “We want to visibly show our support of the local arts.
We don't want people to think of us as just a frame shop, because now
we really have great gallery space.”
The business has done fairly well
with art sales in addition to their framing services and says that artists
love to exhibit with them. The exhibits are purely invitational, but they
are open to any artist who wants to send them a proposal.
Evergreen Framing and Gallery is
a little more out of the way than most of the galleries on Gallery Stroll,
but their location isn’t too far away from many of the other galleries
in Sugar House. It’s a great place to stop on your way to or from downtown
on the third Friday of each month.
In December, Evergreen will be
exhibiting ceramicist Renee Gilson, oil paintings by Jeff Pugh (below)
and David Schiltz, watercolors by Rich Vroom, and the mixed media works
of Joan Howell and Jodi Steen.
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Alternative Venue: Salt Lake City
Ken Sanders
Rare Books
by Kent Rigby
Ken Sanders, though neither an artist nor a gallery owner, has been
exhibiting artwork for over thirty years. In the various businesses
Sanders has run over the years, including his current venture, Ken Sanders
Rare Books, Sanders has developed a variety of exhibitions featuring
everything from Rock and Roll posters and to paintings by poet E. E. Cummings.
It was a young Ken Sanders’ love of books that nurtured his appreciation
of the visual arts. At the age of twelve, Sanders began to pay particular
attention to the pictures in illustrated books. He developed a passion
for the hand processes involved with the “book arts”. Sanders collected
books with heroic and romantic illustrations by the artists of the Brandywine
School such as Maxfield Parrish, John Arnell, Gustov Gore’ and Howard Pyle.
Sanders curated his first art exhibits while a co-owner of Cosmic
Aeroplane in the mid-seventies. One of his first exhibits, "Air Powered,"
featured airbrush art by national artists working during the sixties
and early seventies. Fifty images from that show were also displayed
at the Salt Lake Art Center.
Sanders and Cosmic Aeroplane also worked together to produce exhibitions
with the Blue Mouse theater while both businesses were neighbors on
100 South Street. Exhibits hosted including Phillip Hyde’s “Lost Glen
Canyon Images” and the extremely popular “60’s and 70’s Rock and Roll
Posters” show. The poster show was also exhibited at the Art Barn.
During the Cosmic Aeroplane years, Sanders commissioned local
artists to produce art for the annual Cosmic Calendars. Neil Passey
created the classic “Cosmic Woman” calendar still recognized as a local
icon. Many posters were printed from the calendar art created by artists
such as Neil Passey, Pat Eddington and Rob Brown.
After the Cosmic Aeroplane days, Sanders started his own publishing
company, Dream Garden Press, which produced seventeen National Park
and Wilderness calendars in a single year. “I had to select from over
50,000 images submitted for those calendars,” Sanders remembers. Dream
Garden Press published the famous Edward Abbey “Western World” calendar
as well as many great books including the classic R. Crumb illustrated
“Monkey Wrench Gang” by Edward Abbey and Trent Harris’ cult classic “Mondo
Utah”.
Ken Sanders Rare Books opened about six and a half years ago
and immediately began to display art shows. Notable exhibits held at
the new bookstore have included an exhibit of photographs from around the
world by Scott Carries taken while on assignment for NPR, and Lea Bell’s
silkscreen posters and prints of Kilby Court concert announcements. “Lea
is a great talent that is really going to go places,” quipped Sanders. “She
is going to be included in ’The Art of Modern Rock’ a book dedicated to
rock music related art.”
New exhibits in the
works are a revival of the 60’s and 70’s Rock Posters show; an exhibit
of marionettes and old puppets; photographs and stage sets created by
Dave Brothers; watercolors, drawings and paintings by poet E. E. Cummings;
and a show of old 10 inch, 78 rpm picture disks, with images on both sides
of the records by obscure and unknown artists. Sanders plans on taping
and playing the music from the records during the exhibit.
“I’d also like to do a retrospective show of works by Neil Passey, a
local artist that created hundreds of works and never received the recognition
he deserved”.
Sander’s interest in displaying visual art is not profit orientated,
“I tend to gravitate towards the non-traditional stuff. I like to expose
people to things they wouldn’t otherwise be able to see and experience.”
The art, music and politics movement of the 60’s and 70’s spawned much
of the art Sanders has shown. “I’m beginning to see a resurgence of that
kind of art work starting to be produced by young artists which is encouraging
to me.”
Sander's favorite book is a compendium from 1927 titled “Achievements
in Letter Press Arts”, a visual record of the best of the printing arts
from that year. His literary passions include explorations and travels
of the American West, visual representations of the west, Western history
and literature, early Mormon history and illustrated manuscripts.
Ken Sanders Rare Books also hosts occasional performance art
and has Alex Caldiero scheduled for January 2004.
Visit Ken Sanders Rare Books for a rare treat!
268 South 200 East
SLC, Utah 84111
(801) 521-3819
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