Before it became International Workers’ Day, before it became a bank holiday, May 1st was a festival of spring: dancing, drinking, flirtation, communal release. It was a ritual of renewal with pagan roots and Christian overlays, not wholly approved by the authorities, where villages gathered around a tall […]
Fifty is a big anniversary. Whether a golden anniversary for a couple, or a company marking half a century of endurance and adaptation. Any arts organization that reaches fifty years has something to crow about—a record of having weathered changing tastes, uncertain economies, and the thousand quiet challenges […]
There’s a wisecrack by Ad Reinhardt (or some say Barnett Newman) that a sculpture is something you bump into when you back up to get a better look at a painting. That notwithstanding, having the two media share a gallery can be an effective use of space. One […]
Each year since 1924, the Springville Museum of Art has hosted a contemporary art competition called the Spring Salon. Artists from around the country, including John Carlsen, Norman Rockwell, Emile Gruppe, and Maynard Dixon have participated. The contest still receives submissions from all over; but, the majority are […]
In celebration of National Poetry Month, 15 Bytes is pleased to present a conversation and reading with Utah poet Shawn Dallas Stradley, interviewed by 15 Bytes editor Shawn Rossiter. In their conversation, Stradley reflects on a life spent writing—beginning in adolescence and continuing through decades of artistic and […]
For years, the Springville Museum of Art’s Spring Salon has served as a place where we at 15 Bytes both discover new artists and take stock of what those we already know are doing.The 15 Bytes Discovery Award, inaugurated this year in partnership with the Springville Museum of […]
“My paintings stem from an innate desire to express something words cannot,” says Anne Wolfer in her artist statement. The challenge to those who write about visual art may never have been more succinctly stated. Then again, the unmistakable differences between the way she represents the visible world […]
Trent Call is such a protean inventor that anyone faced with the present task might be tempted to start by recalling any number of personal favorites: the facade facing the TRAX station at Ninth South that serves as an invitation to one of the most innovative urban enclaves […]
There is absolutely nothing wrong with painting from photographs. Even artists who never, ever work from them will tell you they have no quarrel with painters who do so. Photography was invented in the 19th century by painters seeking to shorten the arduous path that leads from three-dimensional […]
Salt Lake City legend and prolific painter Susan Kirby is showing both old and new works in There Is Nothing More Shocking Than Joy, a show that crosses timelines, from ethereal dreamscapes into realities that bend the narrative of history. Rendered in what Kirby herself admits is a […]
Several years ago, when so many of our artists and their galleries were devoted to sounding the alarm on behalf of the environment, and particularly the disappearing Great Salt Lake, Pamela Beach had her own perspective, literally, on the matter. From the front porch of the home where […]
Although I said nothing aloud at the time, I was disappointed in the recent Spirituality and Religion exhibition at the Springville Museum of Art. It seemed as though the show’s title had been reversed. While there were countless narrow images of specifically Christian traditions, and even more of […]
Reliquaries, a show by Hannah Vaughn, billowed on the air’s breath as viewers passed through the western-facing gallery at Finch Lane. The sunlight pouring in at golden hour during the Gallery Stroll opening cast shadows on the structures hanging by threads. Her pieces breathe, like I imagine Georgia […]
When F. Scott Fitzgerald famously remarked that “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function,” he might just have been referring to the everyday cognitive skill of any […]
Jana Parkin, an award-winning watercolorist who studied under V. Douglas Snow at the University of Utah, will mentor three Utah college students this August in the landscape that most inspired him—the Colorado Plateau around Torrey and Capitol Reef National Park. The third annual V. Douglas Snow Memorial Collegiate […]
When curator Jeff Lambson first arrived in Utah in 2007 to become the first curator of contemporary art at Brigham Young University’s Museum of Art, it felt like a moment. Contemporary art in the state was gaining momentum, and institutions that had not always been in conversation with […]
“Architecture is the way we commit to a political philosophy in a lot of ways.” Van Lewis says it almost in passing, but it carries weight. It suggests buildings aren’t neutral containers for life — they record what a city believes about itself, or at least what it’s […]
For all its cranes, new apartments, and redevelopment buzz, the Granary District has always been a place of odds and ends: empty lots the size of moonscapes, century-old warehouses slouching against cinderblock additions, and industrial streets that still bear the ghosts of rail lines. It’s a neighborhood defined […]
To be sure, some parts of the job of making art can be challenging. But there is much to admire and covet in the life of an artist. You get to largely invent yourself and have the freedom to choose your work each day. And where most bosses […]
Stewart Seidman creates expressive acrylic works on canvas and with recycled FedEx envelopes that once served as his paint palettes, transforming everyday materials into compelling contemporary art.
To discover more artists, visit our Utah Artists Directory
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