As a kid, Michael Beck already was inspired to be a maker. “My grandfather was a cabinet maker and he taught me woodworking; my dad and grandfather got me into the try everything mindset,” he says. “I love taking raw materials and making something, be it a model train layout, knitting a scarf, or making … Read more
Many artists at the Utah Arts Festival‘s Artist Marketplace have unique stories to relate not only about their art but also about the creative and educational path they took toward becoming artists. Also, many now work full-time as artists. Among the 68 newcomers to this year’s Artist Marketplace, the largest ever for the Utah Arts … Read more
In 2016, Regan Reichert, then a senior at Lone Peak High School won a juror’s choice award in the annual Utah All-State High School Art Show, which champions the work of juniors and seniors, as selected by a professional jury. He also received a scholarship for a classical style portrait of a young girl. Reichert … Read more
A newcomer to the Utah Arts Festival’s Artists Marketplace who recently left a full-time teaching job to focus on her art, Lauri Dunn (Booth 46) of Denver transforms images of insect wings into meditative, modern photographs and photo sculptures. Her work is inspired by the natural world, but also displays her love of the urban … Read more
Many of Utah Arts Festival’s special street theater attractions have been unforgettable. In 2014, Australia’s Strange Fruit using a soundtrack with excerpts from Mozart to swing, acted out a universally approachable timeless story of a boy and girl in romance, expressing love, loss, jealousy and joy. However, the quartet of performers danced, flirted and delighted … Read more
Rare is the sentiment that can be expressed simply and unequivocally as Peter Bromberg, the executive director of the Salt Lake City Public Library, describes the partnership which the downtown institution has enjoyed with the Utah Arts Festival. Bromberg has one word. “Fantastic.” Calling it one of the “best annual festivals in the Mountain West,” … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Utah Review begins its preview coverage today of the 43rd Utah Arts Festival, which will be held June 20-23, noon to 11 p.m. daily, on the Library Square in downtown Salt Lake City. As this is the state’s largest multidisciplinary arts and cultural gathering each year, The Utah Review considers the Utah … Read more
Setting an appropriate tone in a community gearing up for the upcoming Utah Pride Parade and Festival in downtown Salt Lake City, the inaugural Queer Spectra Arts Festival took place last weekend in the Commonwealth Studios in South Salt Lake. Artists and speakers addressed the impetus and inspirations for the queer creative aesthetic – or, … Read more
As a compelling testimony to the impact of three immensely successful artistic institutions coming together in the heart of Utah’s dance culture, the inaugural Dance West Summer Fest – hosted by Repertory Dance Theatre, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company and The University of Utah’s Salt Dance Fest – is poised to become the destination event in the … Read more
The Head and The Heart concert to close out NOVA Chamber Music Series’ 41st season was a kinetic, galvanizing and sensational barn-burner. The concert was a celebration from the first moments of J. S. Bach’s Chaconne, originally written for solo violin, in an arrangement for cello quartet by Laszlo Varga (1924-2014). Varga, a Hungarian émigré … Read more