15 Bytes

Bess Wohl's In at Pioneer Theatre Company

2011-02-22T00:55:42Z

In this month's edition of 15 Bytes our Culture Conversation focused on local, intimate theatre experiences, especially productions of work by local talent. Among the plays mentioned was In, the work of local playwright Bess Wohl which had its world premier this past weekend. Our review is below. Later this week on this site you'll find reviews of Another Language's Duel*Ality and Matthew Ivan Bennett's Mesa Verde.

Julie Jesneck and Jason Ralph. Photo by Alexander Weisman.

The Results are In
a review of Bess Wohl's new play
by Dale Thompson

Maybe you remember taking the SATs or ACTs, filling in bubbles on a scantron and turning it in by placing it with a pile of hundreds, and feeling as if that small piece of paper carried the weight of your future. Then you waited and wondered if those scores would be good enough, if they would be your trump card in a cutthroat game of admissions to your top choice school. At that age it sometimes feels like everything in life will be determined by a simple acceptance or rejection, so much so that some families go to great lengths to give their children every possible advantage. They hire well regarded tutors who graduated from Harvard, or pay a doctor a little extra to diagnose a small handicap that will allow their child to get special consideration, so their children can have an Ivy League future. It’s all or nothing. This is the story of In, the World Premier of Bess Wohl’s latest work at Pioneer Theatre.

The young man trying to get in to Harvard is Jordy, played by Jason Ralph in his Pioneer Theatre debut. Ralph is convincing as a 17-year-old who has feigned a desire to follow in his father’s footsteps for so many years that it may just become a lifelong condition. He plays sports, takes Advanced Placement classes because that’s what he’s supposed to do, and his favorite subject in school is lunch. Jordy’s first attempt at the SAT resulted in less than ideal scores so his mother has hired Sara, a tutor and Harvard Alumnus played by Julie Jesneck, also new to Pioneer Theatre. Sara is a bright young woman rapidly approaching 30 and she is clearly a little dismayed by her life’s path. She is an Ivy League graduate and an aspiring author, but here she is, a tutor giving pointers on the SAT, the very test that we’re told determines your future. Sara obviously did well and has a keen grasp of English literature and the world around her, yet her future has not played out at all the way she imagined it. Jesneck portrays Sara with the same urgency a person feels on the morning of the SATs. While her performance is effective the audience might find themselves feeling a bit frenzied just by watching her intense portrayal of an academic go-getter who played the game just right but feels at a loss.

Alexandra Neil and Jason Ralph. Photo by Alexander Weisman.

A highlight of the play is Alexandra Neil in the role of Pammie, Jordy’s mother. She is a former hippie who traded flower power for country club socials. With little else to do during the day, Pammie gets her hair done, has her nails impeccably manicured, and collects the artwork of famous artists so she can say it hangs on her walls, even though it brings her very little joy. With drink in hand she expresses concern over her son’s academic future, gets him the best tutor money can buy, and leaves for Aspen. In some ways the character of Pammie serves as a cautionary tale to anyone who believes that good looks and an unlimited supply of cash means you have arrived in the world. For Pammie it means maintaining appearances and getting ahead without giving any consideration to the people you step on. Her son’s success is more about bragging rights than his actual happiness.

The set design is a thoughtful creation by James Wolk. Much of the play takes place in Pammie’s well –appointed upper crust living room in New York. An array of enlarged scantrons hovers around the couch and dining room table, where Sara and Jordy study. The columns of multiple choice answer sheets are displayed well enough that they can fade in to the background and become nothing more intrusive than wallpaper. But they also serve as a reminder of the pervasive theme, the test that is literally and figuratively hanging over everyone’s head.

The test serves as more than just a hoop to be jumped through so Jordy can get in to Harvard. It’s also the catalyst for scenarios that test the character’s moral fiber. These raise larger questions about what success is, how far a person will go to get it, and whether having that success correlates to a meaningful and rewarding life.

Wohl approaches these issues by drawing on some of her own experiences as a tutor in New York who graduated from Harvard and the Yale School of Drama. Her insights feel honest and the writing is not without a sense of humor. She offers a real perspective on the pressures of acceptance, the sacrifices we make in our lives, and ultimately asks us if those sacrifices are worth it. Wohl does not offer a definitive answer. It’s not a multiple choice question, but like the process of preparing for and facing difficult tests (not always those with acronyms for names), the response will shape your life.

Bess Wohl's In is at Pioneer Theatre Company through March 5. Click here to buy tickets.

Reading of New Play by Kathleen Cahill

2011-02-21T18:28:19Z

Salt Lake Acting Company's New Play Sounding Series presents a free reading of Kathleen Cahill’s comedy, COURSE 86B IN THE CATALOGUE, on Monday, February 21 at 7 pm. The play is a work in progress by the author of this season’s success, THE PERSIAN QUARTER.

Ms. Cahill says: “This play is very different from other pieces I’ve written. It's a flat out comedy, a comedy with serious intent but still a comedy... and I don't want to think about how hard it is to write comedy ... When you parachute out of an airplane it's better not to look. The reading is a way for me to learn about it, hear it in front of an audience, get a sense of what's working or not. It's an opportunity to make use of audience reactions as a contribution to this new work as it begins its journey.”]]> COURSE 86B IN THE CATALOGUE is a comedy about evolution. It tells the story of a visiting paleontologist from Harvard, Stevie Stuart, who is teaching a course at a small community college in the southern corner of an arid state. She has just broken up with her husband, Bill, a Boston businessman who has a “flexible” attitude to the truth. She discovers that the college is set on land which contains extraordinary artifacts from the ancient past – some of them still living. Ms. Cahill calls the play “a riff on our ideas about our origins and the concept of time.”

In addition to THE PERSIAN QUARTER, Kathleen Cahill is also the author of last season’s CHARM which premiered at SLAC, and opens in March at the Orlando Shakespeare Theatre in Florida . She has lived in Utah for the last five years and says that “something in the air of this state has been a great stimulation to my creative process.” She has taught playwriting at the University of Utah , and is currently a Senior Writer on PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre, where she writes the introductions presented by Alan Cummings and Laura Linney.

The cast for the reading will be Colleen Baum, Daniel Beecher, Mark Fossen, Shannon Musgrave, and Cassandra Stokes-Wylie.

The audience does not need a ticket in advance to attend this reading. The building will open one hour prior to the performance when general admission tickets will be distributed, and the theatre will open half an hour before the performance.
Salt Lake Acting Company is located at 168 W 500 N, Salt Lake City , Utah , 84103.
For more information call 801- 363-7522 or visit www.saltlakeactingcompany.org

Sunday Reading: The Digital Experience

2011-02-21T00:28:46Z

As we're busy doing an initial redesign of the 15 Bytes portion of our site, code and art in the digital age have been on our mind. And we're not the only ones, as we found in these two recently published articles in the national media:

In The New Republic art critic Jed Perl tells us what Google's Art Project does -- and doesn't -- mean for art. Perl gives a sobriety check for anyone who is addicted to the newest technological gadget: "A reproduction is a reproduction. And a high resolution image on a computer screen brings you no closer to the reality of a work of art than a halftone in a newspaper."

While in The New Yorker Adam Gopnik examines the future of books -- and everything else -- in the digital age. Comparing the internet to toasters (facetiously) and TV (seriously) Gopnik writes, "It is the wraparound presence, not the specific evils, of the machine that oppresses us."

We at 15 Bytes are aware that we provide what could be called a synthetic experience—not the same thing as reading a real magazine. But one thing we insist on, in our own defense, is the primacy of the actual experience of art in any form. While the experts ponder over and argue about the novel in digital form or the pixel version of great paintings, we search for art experiences anywhere within Utah's extensive-yet-finite borders. Our hope (and expectation) is that readers will be moved by our prose—whether read off the screen or printed out for traditional poring over—will be moved to get out and go see as much as reasonable of the vast Utah holdings in painting and sculpture and the many occasions of dance, music, theater, and "performance."

On a sadder note, on Saturday we went to Border's, the popular bookstore in Murray, in search of our favorite cup of hot cocoa, only to spot a man on the corner waving a sign that read, "Borders Closing: Everything Must Go." And sure enough, it was true. While the parent corporation, which has decided to shut 30% of its stores, including this last remaining one in Salt Lake, must be thrilled to see the parking lot as full as if it were Christmas, with cars prowling or standing and waiting for a space to open, and the three-deep files of customers before the books, loading up their arms with bargains, the sadness on the faces of the employees was enough to bring a smart to the eyes. We weren't sure whether to commiserate with our favorite booksellers or allow them to not think about what they're going to be—unemployed at a time when in can take a year or more to find another job—for a few hectic moments.

The most telling thing, however, was that sense—no doubt connected in a visceral way to how it felt watching Egypt a few weeks ago—that something that had been fodder for the imagination the last few years has arrived at last. One of the handful of bookstores we count on is disappearing before our eyes. We can remember when one of us confessed to the booksellers at Sam Weller's Zion's Books that we worked at a Barnes and Noble, only to have them say there was nothing to apologize for. Indeed, the struggles of a few years ago to dominate the book marketplace have lost their urgency, now that no one knows if books will still be available other than on line in the years ahead. With Ken Sanders threatened by clueless, insensitive legislators, and B&N getting rid of books in favor of merchandise it can more easily manipulate (digital books, games, toys) the day looms when there may be no place in town to sip a mocha and read the latest in print. And if that seemed impossible but now seems probable, should we assume it can't happen to art as well?

Karl Pace and Martha Klein: Another Look

2011-02-18T07:40:50Z

Carol Fulton takes a closer look at Karl Pace and Martha Klein, who were one of the couple's featured in this month's special feature on artist couples and who will be having an exhibit opening this evening.

by Carol Fulton | photos by Bill Fulton

“It has never been agonizing or anything less than pleasant to work together,” says artist Karl Pace about making and selling art with his wife Martha Klein. Many artists work together, but Pace and Klein also sell together, on the art festival circuit as well as local shows. This is a second marriage for both of them. They share an addiction to documentaries about artists, love gardening, and have really enjoyed traveling together for 11 years doing the Art Festival Circuit around the Western part of the U.S. It wasn’t something you could just breeze into – there’s a lot of pre-planning, applying to the festivals, packing the truck, setting up and striking the booths, figuring out pricing, how to do the credit card thing, how to get to the venue, where to stay at a reasonable price. And of course there’s making all the art to take to the festivals.

Martha used to co-own a craft cooperative in downtown Salt Lake City, back when she worked in textiles. She says there were about a dozen members and inevitably there was tension, competition, anger. So when she and Karl decided to go on the Festival circuit, she put a lot of thought into how to make it work. They pro-rated everything, keeping track of their expenses, how much each made in sales, so the person who made more in sales paid more of the overall expenses. They always had two booths, but made sure they were next to each other. The cost of getting there would be the same, just the booth would be extra. “We’ve always kept our finances separate, but we’re one. We are kind of an ‘us,’” says Martha. Both of them have won several awards at festivals, including a few “Best In Show.” That’s no mean feat considering the number of participants at any given venue.

The only disagreements the couple runs into are about what art to buy or trade to hang in their house. Things are quickly resolved -- Karl, with tongue in cheek, says, “I just let her have her way” and Martha laughingly adds, “Because I’m right.”

The couple met years ago in college, where both were pursuing degrees in English, but lost contact for many years. At present Martha works as an editor for graduates’ programs at the University of Utah (not as a teacher, as was mistakenly stated in this issue’s article on artist couples). Karl started out with an ad agency and now does market research. Both of them gradually made their way into the art world, so that when they met again they still had a common, though new, interest, art. They are sensible about it … “You’d better figure out how you’re going to support yourself if you’re not in the highest echelons of successful artists,” say Karl. Martha adds, “The only downs are financial, so as an artist couple you must sit down and reassess your goals often.” Excellent advice for all of us from folks who seem to have it all figured out.

Karl Pace and Martha Klein are exhibiting new works at Evolutionary Healthcare (461 East 200 South, Suite 100 - across from Phillips Gallery). The exhibit opens Friday, February 18, 6-9 pm and continues through April 13. The gallery is open to the public Monday to Friday, 8-5pm. You can view their artwork at www.kleinpaceart.com.

Have Enough Voyeurism in Your Life?

2011-02-17T07:41:03Z

In 1992 MTV broadcast the first installment of The Real World and Reality TV was born, ushering in a flood of voyeurism and narcissism that has so permeated our pop culture that we no longer even feel the humidity.

In Domesticated a group of Snow College art students are exploring voyeurism and the mundane in a performance that lasts until Friday. In the college's humanities building the artists have created a performance space that has the basic facets of a college apartment. They will be living in it this week, putting their lives on display to the casual passerby as well as a larger audience via a live internet feed.

Their press release situates the performance thus:

The piece is a statement on voyeurism, stereotypes, and the beauty of mundane life, putting the average (and often boring) daily acts of a college student on display to the public. Mirroring the ever-shifting nature of human life, the exhibit is continually changing and developing along with the artists. The audience is invited to interact with the inhabitants of the space, or to simply watch their lives unfold from behind the fence, creating disconnect between viewer and artist. This raises questions about our roles, as voyeurs and as the observed."

Here's what we've seen so far from the live feed: a group of newly minted adults sit around a small space talking about bodily functions while they check on the status of how many viewers are watching them check on the status of how many viewers are watching them . . . you get the idea.

If the first seasons of The Real World had redeeming moments it was when, amidst a barrage of immature behavior, they occasionally explored issues of contemporary young-adulthood. Whether this performance takes on some form of meaning or stays a tableau vivant of checking one's Facebook status remains to be seen. Will you be watching?

The live feed can be viewed here.

Domesticated
Amanda O’ Grady, Becky Phelan, Katelin Jensen, Kimberly Smith, Mark Burns, Matt Tervort, Stephen Boettcher, and Trishelle Jeffery
Snow College, ALTSPACE Gallery. Humanities Building, room 123B
February 14th-18th 2010
Event: February 17th at 5:30 P.M.

Nick and Erin Potter: Another Look

2011-02-16T10:38:20Z

In this 15 Bytes Extra Carol Fulton takes another look at Nick and Erin Potter, one of the couples featured in the Artist Couples article in this month's edition of 15 Bytes. The couple has work in two group shows that open this month.

Nick and Erin Potter: Another Look
by Carol Fulton | photos by Christine Baczek

Picture two young adults producing prints on a folding table in the kitchen, with one pulling the prints off the press and running into the living room to lay them on the couch to dry while the other attends to the next print – all the while dodging their two-year old boy, Atlas, and a barking, excited dog. That’s what Nick and Erin Potter do at home when not at his full-time or her part-time job. In 2007 they garnered attention for the “living room” they created at the original 337 Project in Salt Lake City. They loved the experience of collaborating with people other than each other, and for the shared enthusiasm and lack of ego displayed during that endeavor. They followed that up with an installation at the Salt Lake Art Center, and have shown their work at Salt Lake’s Blonde Grizzly. This coming November they will be showing at Kayo Gallery. It’s a good thing they’re young, and married just 5 years. It takes a lot of energy and commitment to accomplish all they have in such a short time and with family responsibilities.

Their philosophical approach to life helps them cope with the stressors in their world. Erin says that although they think very differently from each other, one of the things that initially drew them together was having completely similar tastes and interests. They love to read the same books and graphic novels,and go to Gallery Strolls. When they buy or trade art, they usually like the same things. Nick openly acknowledges that there can be friction and conflict, but it is resolved by reminding themselves of what they love about each other’s work. They find that collaboration is very gratifying. “It’s exciting to be able to create something with another person” says Nick. He recommends the experience for everyone, whether they’re an artist or not.

Nick is currently applying to schools for a graduate degree in writing, with the hope of incorporating fiction and images in their art. Erin is looking forward to that two-year period as an opportunity to be at home full-time making art.

Collaborations by Nick and Erin Potter are part of the Utah Jazz group exhibit at Blonde Grizzly that opens this work on Friday, February 18, 6-9 pm. They also have work in Kayo Gallery's Round 7 anniversary exhibit, which opens the same night.You can follow their work at the Potter Press blog.

Rounding Out Your Paideia: Musical Performances in Artistic Settings

2011-02-15T07:08:59Z

Rounding Out Your Paideia

by Laura Durham

In ancient Greece, the “paideia” was the aristocratic system of education. It wasn’t about learning a trade or an art; it was about training a person for liberty and nobility. Paideia was the process of educating humans into their true form.

You are probably familiar with the seven liberal arts: grammar, logic, rhetoric, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy.

The term "liberal education" emphasizes the fact that education was not available for the many people who were held in slavery, but only for those who were free. The idea is that the more education you gain, the more free you become.

If you read this blog, chances are you’re already well-versed in the visual arts, but perhaps you’d like to further exercise your freedom and cultivate your musical side. If so, a couple events this week might be just what you’re looking for.

Experience the harmonious convergence of music and art at the UMFA through a Chamber Music Series performance. This Wednesday, a clarinet duo will perform the following pieces in the UMFA’s 18th and 19th Century European Galleries:

Duo No.2 in D minor, Bernhard Crusell (1775-1839)
Allegro from Duo for violin and viola no.1 in G major, K. 423, W.A. Mozart (1756-1791), arranged by Reinier van der Wal
Six scenes from the Opera Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville), Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), arranged by Fehér László Gábor

Did the art of the time inspire the music or did the music inspire the art? Tap into that liberal arts education of yours and use your critical thinking skills to come up with your own theory.

The performances are free with paid admission or a student Ucard.

WHEN:
Wednesday, February 16 from 7-8 pm

WHERE:
UTAH MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS
Marcia and John Price Museum Building
Emma Eccles Jones Education Center
University of Utah campus
410 Campus Center Drive
SLC, UT 84112

Also, this Friday night, when you’re strolling the galleries, pop into the House Gallery a little early and hear some music wholly inspired by visual art.

Eric Hansen will perform Benjamin Taylor's FE26. The performance is in conjunction with the reception for Chris Dunker’s Truss (see image above). The photographic series pays homage to the vastness of industrial space and the importance of redundancy, a trope that enforces both the utility and sublimity of the structures featured in Dunker’s work. Taylor composed his experimental piece in 2008 when Dunker's exhibit of photographs chronicling the dismantling of Geneva Steel was at the BYU Museum of Art.

Read our 2008 interview with Dunker here.
You can listen to a sample of Benjamin Taylor's FE26 here.

WHEN:
Friday, February 18th from 5:30 – 6:30

WHERE:
House Gallery
29 East 400 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84121

WHY? Because you are free.

Legislative update from the Utah Cultural Alliance

2011-02-15T02:38:16Z

First, on the local level (text courtesy of UCA member organization Utah Heritage Foundation):

Preservation moratorium proposed

Senate Bill 243, Historic Areas or Sites Amendment, was released with text on Monday, February 7, 2011. In brief, the bill proposes a year-long moratorium on designations, expenditures, and development agreements that involve historic structures at the city and county level beginning on May 10, 2011.

Utah Heritage Foundation believes that this bill has the ability to stop or seriously curtail preservation activities statewide at the local level - just at the time when policies are needed that encourage economic development through historic preservation and boost our economy.

Senate Bill 243 - Historic Areas or Sites Amendment, read the bills text and status here: http://le.utah.gov/~2011/htmdoc/sbillhtm/sb0243.htm

Today's Senate Workforce and Services Committee meeting was canceled, however click here to contact members of the committee to express your support for Heritage and to encourage them to vote against the bill in committee.

Second, also on the State Level:

The revised budget numbers for the state of Utah should be announced next week or early the week following. Continue to keep up pressure on members of the Business, Economic Development, and Labor (BEDL) Appropriations Sub-committee to add back funds to a number of cuts that would impact the cultural community. A list of cuts and a sample email to send are located here. Contact information is located here.

POPS and iSee funding will remain at a static level. The Beverly Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program is receiving one-time funding at $658,000. If you would like to thank the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee for keepting POPS and iSee funding at current levels, as well as encourage them to fund the Arts Learning Program next year, click here for contact information.

Members of the Utah Cultural Alliance are meeting with a number of members of the BEDL sub-committee on Monday and throughout this week. If you would like us to personally share your messages, send us an email at staff@utahculturalalliance.org.

Third, on the Federal level, NEA, NEH, and Corp for Public Broadcasting Funding is at Risk as Early as next week. Additional cuts (some backed by the President) were announced this morning.

Next week, the U.S. House of Representatives will bring to the House floor, a Continuing Resolution (CR) appropriations package that proposes to cut dozens of federal agencies and programs for the balance of the current 2011 fiscal year (March 5 through September 30). Yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee revealed details of what some of the cuts will be in this CR package and they include cutting the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) budget to $155 million this year. UPDATE: this number has been cut an additional $10 Million bringing the total cut to $21.3 Million. This cut is apparently backed by the President. That's a substantial cut from its currently funded level of $167.5 million. This resolution would also zero out funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is currently looking at a $12.2 million cut making their budget go from $167 million (the FY 2010 enacted level) to $155 million. It is likely that additional NEH cuts will be announced this week. It is also possible that some legislators might propose zeroing out all cultural entities. Please note that both Representatives Bishop and Chaffetz belong to the Republican Study Committee that launched this initative.

More info about NEA cuts | Capwiz email to sent to Representatives about NEA

More info about Corp. for Public Broadcasting: 6th Bill Proposed to Cut CPR Funding | Public Broadcasting Zeroed Out (both links also include capwiz emails to send to your Representatives)

More info about NEH cuts | Capwiz email to send to Representative about NEH

Carol and Bill Fulton

2011-02-14T07:03:49Z

by Shawn Rossiter | photos by Christine Baczek

Though Valentine’s Day was a good excuse for running our special feature on artist couples in this month’s edition of 15 Bytes, the real drive behind the idea came from its author’s personal interest in how couples make a life together in art. When Carol Fulton met her husband Bill, who helped photograph the couples in the feature she wrote for us this month, their interest in art was relatively dormant: she owned a few works of art, and he had once gone through Betty Edwards’ Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Twenty-three years later, though, the couple says that art is the cement that holds their relationship together.

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Bill grew up moving around as well, living his first decade in the East and the next in California, Arizona and Mexico. He joined the Army, where he studied Russian and was stationed in Germany. At forty he opted for a career change, earning a degree in social work and moving his family to Utah to work as a therapist. It was in a stress management class that he heard about Betty Edwards book, though he mistakenly thought it was simply about making use of the right hemisphere. After he opened the book and realized his mistake, he set about to disprove the author’s assertion – that anyone who can hold a pencil and write their name can learn how to draw – by going through all the exercises. And like many others who attempted the same he was surprised by the results. Working through a divorce distracted him, however, and his drawing experiments were put aside for nearly a decade.

When Bill and Carol met in 1988 neither was making art, but Carol, who had some artist friends, noticed that Bill was interested in the paintings she owned, and they began to frequent exhibits together, occasionally buying a piece. Bill, Carol says, got addicted. He went back to Edwards’ book, “following the exercises religiously, to the point that he got dizzy and nauseated when he did the contour drawing exercises.” He began going to life drawing sessions and took workshops from Paul Davis, Steve Songer, Randall Lake, Susan Gallacher, Willamarie Huelskamp, and John Poon.

Carol says making art frightens her: “I tried reading Art and Fear at least twice, but it was too scary.” She has taken painting classes -- from Chase Leslie, Susan Gallacher and Randall Lake -- so when the couple is traveling, whether to visit friends in Torrey or their annual pilgrimage to Monhegan Island, she can paint alongside Bill; but her preferred medium is sculpture, mostly made with found objects. “I started collecting junk on my walks with the dogs – rusted metal, string, car parts that had dropped in the road, and finally sea glass and broken lobster traps and driftwood.”

Looking back the couple says art has been a great unifier. They talk about it all the time, and look forward to playing in the basement studio, where jockeying for space still goes on. Art has also helped their social life. “It’s harder to develop friendships as a couple,” Carol says, and it was only after they became active in the art world that they felt their social life was complete. They were part of the New Visions Gallery in Salt Lake and continue to exhibit (see below). Bill’s photo shoot of Francis Zimbeaux’s studio space in 2005, when the artist was still alive, launched what has become one of our magazine’s best-loved features. Carol is a trustee of the Francis H. Zimbeaux Trust, volunteers at the UMFA and produces content for 15 Bytes. In their house the Fultons are surrounded by art, so even when they are not making it they are absorbing it. Though he continues to work full-time as a therapist, Bill puts in time in the studio every day, and continues to go to weekly life-drawing sessions. Carol admires his discipline and dedication, and enjoys the connection their shared enthusiasm brings them. At least most of the time -- “Sometimes when I realize he’s not listening to me, I’ll say ‘Oh, you’ve got artbrain again, don’t you?’ and he’ll laughingly and sheepishly admit it.”

Carol and Bill Fulton are currently part of a group exhibit at Evolutionary Healthcare (461 East 200 South, Suite 100 - across from Phillips Gallery). Up through Wednesday, February 16th, the show also includes works by David Estes, Kathryn Lindquist, Mary Tull and Merritt Stites. Patrons are welcome to visit during regular business hours.

Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go

2011-02-13T18:57:09Z

In this month's edition of 15 Bytes our On the Spot feature, Jessica Weiss, mentions Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go as having been on her recent reading list, which gives us the excuse to run Geoff Wichert's review of the book below.

“Who’d make up stories as horrible as that?”
Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro
reviewed by Geoff Wichert

The late Latin American novelist Roberto Bolaño argues that there is no point in reading a novel once it’s been made into a movie. Perhaps he felt that way because there are so many books to read and he had few years left in which to read them. If so, one wonders what he would have made of “Never Let Me Go,” a novel published two years after his death, and the subsequent film released last year, whose principal characters only gradually learn their fates, much as Bolaño did in real life.

Never Let Me Go may be the saddest legitimate novel of our time. It is certainly one of the most wretchedly misunderstood. Many reviewers label it Science Fiction; all of them seem to focus on the perpetration that precedes the story and remains in the shadows behind it. Scientific ethics is named its theme, as though readers should be galvanized to expect and resist the implementation of some such unspecified social evil. But can the doctors, politicians, or whatever who remain invisible behind the book's action be its subject? Think about this: in science fiction, technological questions an author raises are presented in vivid detail. If it’s about robots, readers encounter robots and robot behavior in highly imagined detail. If it concerns the impact of everyday space travel, readers are treated to descriptions and examples of such effects. In Never Let Me Go, readers never so much as encounter the larger society that created Hailsham School or its students, nor do Kathy H. and her friends share any harsh judgments of the larger world. Rather, as in Ishiguro’s Booker Prize-winning The Remains of the Day, readers must discern the characters’—and in particular the narrator’s—illusions for themselves, grappling with the evidence presented in the inconsistencies and reversals of the story as told.]]>
In Never Let Me Go, those illusions are the very stuff of life and art. A reader can imagine the young Ishiguro, a immigrant in Britain, encountering a generation of aging spinsters, the widows and old maids left by the destruction of an entire generation of men in World War I. Perhaps his curiosity about his own background led him to look into the millenarian visions that powered Japan’s imperial, militaristic dreams. Or he might have had in mind the young men and women around the world today, who give their lives in the “sure and certain hope” that they will be rewarded in the paradise to come. But instead of telling any of their stories, Ishiguro tells the universal story of young people, who—fed by biology as much as by social reinforcements—look forward to falling in love, having babies, and having a long, mundane, not to say boring life. A visit to the bookstore—not to the novels, but to the “Self-help” section—will quickly reveal that everyone today believes he or she is somehow special, fated to be a great entertainer, a champion athlete, but in any event to be loved. In Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro strips those impulses to their lowest common denominator. Contemplating this small group of youths who are supposed to be exceptional—in a negative sense—but who turn out to be perfectly ordinary, can break your heart if you let it.

Ishiguro’s approach fractures his narratives, but saying that shouldn’t raise fears that the stories are difficult to read and follow. Anyone who’s ever listened to a friend tell a story, and gradually begun to feel that in some crucial way the teller misunderstood what was happening, is ready for Ishiguro. The novels are more complete and retain the layers into which the narrator’s whole experience has fissured, while filmmakers must necessarily foreground the more visual elements. The greatest loss to a viewer is the prose; Ishiguro’s transparent language allows readers to see deep into events. In the film of The Remains of the Day, Emma Thompson makes the realization that she is to be disappointed yet again a sharp, climactic moment. In Never Let Me Go,understanding and response are more diffused. As for Roberto Bolaño, no doubt he wanted us to watch the movies of Ishaguro’s novels, in order to have time to read his for ourselves. So far, Bolaño has yet to make it to Hollywood.

Mixed Media

2011-02-12T16:47:01Z

The AP reports that Maryland sculptor David Purcell has been chosen as the new artist-in-residence for Zion National Park by the National Parks service. The artist "will spend a month using topographical maps, observations, drawings and photographs to create a series of sculptures inspired by Zion's landforms." The artist will give a lecture at the Zion Lodge on February 25 and another at the University of Utah on March 3.

Other Mixed Media this week (collected by Terrece Beesley):

2/2 Utah Calligraphic Artists are trying to keep the art of penmanship alive through the exhibit “Eclectic Letters.”
Also ...A dozen-plus local artists, including newcomers qi peng, Nicholas Rodriguez and Derek Dyer, will be showing at the Gray Wall Gallery this month.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment/51159218-81/art-gallery-utah-info.html.csp

2/2 Carol Edison's national recognition points to Utah's strong folk-arts program.
http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/article-13194-at-the-forefront-of-folk.html

2/3 Folk artist sees race relations 'growing up
http://www.standard.net/topics/features/2011/02/03/folk-artist-sees-race-relations-growing

2/4 Latter-day lampooner helps Mormons laugh at themselves. His work elicits chuckles, but also challenges church members in how they view themselves.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/51169743-80/says-mormon-art-mormons.html.csp

2/7 Street Shooter: Photographer Ricky Powell brings New York hip-hop credibility to FICE
http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/article-13233-street-shooter.html

2/8 Kenvin Lyman found art in light shows and muddy fields. The wide range of Kenvin Lyman’s accomplishments is obvious in the diverse circle of artists and friends who were preparing for his memorial and wake at a local recording studio.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/51214294-76/lyman-art-kenvin-taylor.html.csp

2/10 The Salt Lake Acting Company's Green Room Gallery is offering the exhibition “Women Seeing Women” in conjunction with the premiere production of Kathleen Cahill's play “The Persian Quarter.”
Salt Lake City artist Anne Becker represents nature and urban landscapes in simplified colors and exaggerated shapes using collage and paint.
And ...Tom Ropelewski’s film “Child of Giants: My Journey with Maynard Dixon and Dorothea Lange” will be screened at the Salt Lake City Library
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment/51206958-81/lake-salt-art-feb.html.csp

Chuck Close at Salt Lake Art Center

2011-02-11T07:20:02Z

Tonight the Salt Lake City Film Center presents a free screening of a documentary on artist Chuck Close at the Salt Lake Art Center.

The screening of Chuck Close, a film by Marion Cajori, at 7 pm is part of the Film Center's Creativity in Focus film series. Cajori's last film (with editing completed by Ken Kobland), Chuck Close provides a well rounded portrait of contemporary art's most famous portraitist, from his middle-class upbringing, to his studies at Yale and entrance into the New York art world and finally the spinal-column blood clot that has forced him into a wheelchair and which makes it difficult to paint without help from assistants and mechanical aids. The film is filled out with interviews by Close's friends, peers and subjects, including Phillip Glass, Brice Marsden and Alex Katz.

The various components are held together by a series of interwoven scenes that follow Close's artistic process as he creates a self-portrait over an eighty-two day period -- from the film's opening scene, in which the artist chooses his subject from among a number of photographic self-portraits, to close ups of the artist's step-by-step process of filling in each cell of the canvas, to the astonishing final product.

Chuck Close -- Friday, February 11th, 7pm at the Salt Lake Art Center. A free screening presented by the Salt Lake City Film Center.

$15,000 Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting

2011-02-10T07:09:01Z

This week the Salt Lake Art Center and Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation announced the creation of the Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting, a new national painting prize that will recognize exceptional emerging and mid-career artists in the United States. The recipient of this bi-annual prize will receive a $15,000 cash award and a solo exhibition at Salt Lake Art Center, giving residents of Utah an unprecedented opportunity to view work by leading contemporary painters.

The Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation was established in 2004 in New York City. Two of the Foundation's trustees, sculptor Suzanne Larson and author Francois Camoin, live in Salt Lake City and were influential in bringing this prestigious prize to Utah. “Catherine Doctorow was a dedicated and hard-working contemporary painter in the 1950’s and 1960’s," Suzanne explains of her mother. "All of her family at the Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation are so proud to be part of the creation of the Catherine Doctorow Prize. We know she would be delighted that her love of painting is creating a place today for emerging and mid-career artists to flourish."

As the permanent home of the Catherine Doctorow Prize, Salt Lake Art Center will invite up to 200 nominators who are arts professionals in the United States to nominate painters of promise. Nominators will include: museum and gallery directors, curators, art and art history professors, artists, and art writers.

In speaking of how thrilled the Art Center is to be hosting the prize Executive Director Adam Price, "We expect the recipients of the Catherine Doctorow Prize to become the leaders of American art in the next decade. ”

Please see www.slartcenter.org for further details and eligibility requirements.

Kenvin Lyman 1942 - 2011

2011-02-09T23:08:33Z

(This posting by Frank McEntire is excerpted from his article, “Kenvin Lyman: Jammin’ Over the Rainbow,” coming in the March issue of 15 Bytes and on his website at www.frankmcentire.com)

Art is the honey of human experience
gathered on the wings of sacrifice and hard work.
~ Kenvin Lyman

When the Jerry Abrams Headlights light show came to Salt Lake City with Buffalo Springfield in 1968 the crew stayed in the home of junior high school teacher Kenvin Lyman. Their host subsequently came to view the light show as an alternative art form, one that ignited his “high creative metabolism,” he said of this dynamic media that could combine his interests in science and art.

Developing this alternative art form prompted Lyman to co-found two touring light shows, the Flash and Edison with Mikel Covey, and later, Rainbow Jam with Richard Taylor. His light show years included performances with The Grateful Dead, Santana, Ike and Tina Turner, Bo Diddley, and many others.

Rainbow Jam’s work with the light show led Lyman and Taylor into forefront development and use of computer graphics where they made “discoveries and systematic applications of optical effects and backlighting.” The “left-brain science” of computer graphics, Lyman said, came out of the university environment, with substantive contributions from the University of Utah and supporting software innovations at Evans & Sutherland. “These associations helped inform the technical aspects of our work and eventually became part of the molecular structure of computer graphics.”

Taylor moved to Los Angeles in 1971, eventually working with Robert Abel and Associates, one of the most influential studios in the visual effects industry. Many of Rainbow Jam’s innovations, especially those using primary light techniques (light sabers in the first Star Wars, for example), were quickly adopted by Abel and his team.

Lyman stayed in Utah and formed Dazzleland Studios, which served a prestigious international clientele producing a vast business portfolio of television commercials, feature films, posters, and covers for albums, compact discs, magazines, and books. He continued to produce commercial and independent work until his death at the age of 68 on February 6, 2011, the result of a fall at his home in Salt Lake City’s Avenues.

In the late 1980s, Lyman moved to Missouri to direct the Computer Graphics Center at the Kansas City Art Institute, where he taught advanced animation, illustration, and experimental imaging. He also collaborated with performance artist John Cage—on stage and in the kitchen as Cage’s personal chef.

Lyman was an expert chef, an innovator and a champion re-inventor of Utah family heritage dishes. Since 1998, Lyman has worked on a cookbook that was about ready for publication at his death. The manuscript features 200 manipulated photographic illustrations interwoven with family background and 120 kitchen-tested recipes (see www.theutahkid.com).

As a musician, Lyman was in the final phases of a CD by his UK2 Band, a work made “from scratch—original with deep American roots.” For more information about the band, click here.

Lyman, as noted in his obituary, “was a true renaissance man; a light show artist, commercial illustrator, singer/songwriter as The Utah Kid, commercial organic farmer and cookbook author. A man of many accomplishments he was, in the end, content to call himself a bohemian; a generous and free spirit who nevertheless gave much to his friends and the world.”

As we were preparing this post for publication we came across two profiles - here and here - of the deceased artist in the Salt Lake Tribune. Our March edition will contain a full profile of the artist.

Frank McEntire, former executive director of the Utah Arts Council, is a sculptor, independent curator, and arts administrator and was the art critic for The Salt Lake Tribune and Salt Lake City magazine.

Lee and Joe Bennion

2011-02-08T16:46:27Z

by Carol Fulton | images by Bill Fulton

Imagine the leap of faith (and determination) it would take for a young couple with three children to raise, to see if they could survive on income from their creativity. That’s what Lee and Joe Bennion did, supporting each other in their work as painter and potter. Their choice to live in rural Spring City made it more of a challenge, but they knew that was where they wanted to live – both were raised in the countryside and cherish their memories of that time. After many years of hard work their dream has just about come true.

They are empty-nesters now and relatively free to pursue artistic bents. Lee has a wonderful new studio near their house, and Joe has the well-known Horseshoe Mountain Pottery on Main Street. Although Lee is represented by Dave Ericson in Salt Lake City and does quite well, and Joe occasionally gets big commissions (like a set of 100 place settings for Sundance Resort), the couple doesn't take anything for granted. Lee’s mother (of the Udall political family) had a home-made remedy for dry, cracked skin, which Lee has turned into a product called “Mom’s Stuff” which is sold at the Pottery. Joe works as a river guide in the warmer months. Both of them love being outdoors. Right outside Lee’s studio is a corral with her horses. They are planning to do the next river trip together – she’s good at “reading the river” and attending to logistical details, and Joe asserts his right to be the chef for the guests as well as leading the expedition.

Supportive parents accepted their choices and helped occasionally. Lee says that she never needed to ask for help, and recalls a Saturday, years ago, when her father called and said, "I just had the feeling that I should call you – do you need anything?” to which she responded, ”a new refrigerator”. She had been making do for quite a while by keeping foods in her cellar, but warmer weather was coming. Joe volunteers at a prison, and in his conversations with inmates he emphasizes respect for parents, “even if they were stinkers.”

How compatible can you get? They love the country-side, love art, admire each other’s work , have good work ethics, and have stayed together for 35 years through times Lee describes as below poverty level, to the present where she can have a horse to ride in the country and he can have a tractor to “play in the dirt”.

Lee and Joe Bennion were part of our Artist Couples feature on page 5 of this month's edition of 15 Bytes.
Learn more about the couple, their work, "Mom's Stuff" and the 2011 trip along the Colorado at their website: www.horseshoemountainpottery.com

Joe Bennion's studio was our featured Studio Space in the September 2008 edition of 15 Bytes.

Lee Bennion will be part of an upcoming exhibit of Spring City artists presented at Pioneer Theatre Company's Loge Gallery by David Ericson Fine Art. People & Places runs February 18 – March 5, 2011, and features work by Lee Udall Bennion, Randall Lake, Michael Workman, Ron Richmond, M’Lisa Paulsen, Susan Gallacher, Lynn Farrar, Sophie Soprano and Rick Gate. The exhibit can be experienced on the mezzanine level of the Roy W. and Elizabeth E. Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre through the run of the world premiere drama In, by Bess Wohl. The gallery is open from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and before and after performances for ticket holders.