EDITOR’S NOTE: For preview coverage of the 49th Utah Arts Festival, which runs June 19-22, The Utah Review is presenting individual or group profiles of artists, performers, entertainers and some newcomers to the event. Visitors will also see the first significant change of the last 15 years in the festival map. There are several new features this year: Voodoo Productions’ street theater will include roaming graffiti stilt walkers, contortionists and living master works of art. Salt Lake Acting Company will appear for the first time at the festival, offering a sample from its upcoming summer show, The Secret Lives of the Real Wives in the Salt Lake Hive. Urban Arts is offering its largest live graffiti mural installation, while a row of several other artists will be demonstrating their creative process in real time. For kids, as admission for those 12 and under will be free, there will be plenty of make-and-take art options in Frozen Spaces in the Art Yard. The City Library auditorium will be the home to the 22nd edition of the international Fear No Film program, with the strongest slate of narrative short films in the event’s history. Of course, dance, who wears the empress jewels in performing arts, will be represented by Repertory Dance Theatre, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Echoing Spirit Dancers and, of course, the ever-popular 1520 Arts, at The Round. For tickets and more information, see the Utah Arts Festival website.
BRIAN SCOTT
One of this year’s Emerging Artists, Brian Scott is an accomplished architect as well as a glass artist whose practice is marked by a relentless curiosity and playfulness. His love of color, texture and transparency combine to translate complex ideas of order and chaos into vibrant visual tapestries.
TUR: How have you used art media forms in helping to create an holistic body of artistic work that searches for a more complete expression of your own innermost and most powerful states of emotion, inspiration, contemplation, and self-identity?
BSCOTT: I am a consummate creative, so I am never content unless I am making something, and learning something new. I’ve worked with wood, watercolor, and as an architect, but glass, both in process and as a finished product, has always been my preferred media. It is the closest I’ve found to sculpting light and beautifully showcases the immense complexity and subtlety of making one simple move or intervention.
This past year I really dived into a study of color, and it has been a revelation. As an architect, I considered form, pattern, scale, material and a million other considerations, but color always seemed like a bit of a dark art. Working at this smaller scale, using lots of colors in a basically pointillist manner has freed me to experiment, and become the backbone of my expression.
TUR: What is your training as an artist? Who do you consider your most significant influences and inspirations? Do these influences shift as you progress both in your work and life?
BSCOTT: I was lucky to go to a high school with a mixed-media sculpture program that included fused glass as part of the curriculum and have been able to attend a handful of sessions at Pilchuck Glass School. But the majority of my training has either centered around architecture or been born out of my nature as a serial hobbyist.
My most significant inspiration in recent years is Richard Parrish, whose glass tapestry technique piqued my curiosity and reignited my passion for glass. I have found myself drawn toward fiber art, weaving, and the bold color contrast of modern-day Bauhaus artists like Ptolemy Mann. My inspiration is constantly shifting, particularly because a large part of my practice is driven by my curiosity when I see something that I don’t understand, or that strikes a chord with me, and my need to disassemble and put it back together. I believe that the greatest contribution artists make to their field and craft is in the things they bring in from outside of that discipline, so I am constantly looking for inspiration in other areas of my life.
TUR: Do you work full-time exclusively as an artist? Or, how do you augment your work as an artist?
BSCOTT: A little over a year ago, I left my job as an architect and began making glass art out of my home studio. I still love and practice architecture, but the shift to a smaller, handmade medium has been extremely rewarding. It is tremendously satisfying to take a piece from concept to finished product in a few short weeks, and to end up with a piece I can hold in my hand, and understand in its entirety. It is equally rewarding to add a bright spot of color and function into people’s everyday lives.
TUR: Do you find it easy or difficult to start new work? And, typically, how do you prepare yourself to handle both the creative and physical demands of creating your art?
BSCOTT: I don’t find it difficult to begin work so much as it is difficult for me to continue forward and commit to a piece. My training taught me about experimentation, rapid prototyping, not being too precious with a design, but the moment when I actually set a path and move forward is always scary because it prunes so many possibilities. As exciting as it is to find out where one path leads, I always mourn(and am occasionally overwhelmed) by the loss of that infinite potential.
To prepare myself for work, both creatively and physically, I make sure that all the other parts of my life aren’t starved and anemic. I do yoga, hike and dance; I read, write and meditate. And whenever possible, after 8 hours hunched over placing tiny pieces of glass, or grinding and polishing a piece on a wet belt sander, I go get a massage.
TUR: With regard to participating in the Utah Arts Festival, please share your feelings about being a part of this enterprise? Have you been in other festivals and do you plan to explore other festival venues?
BSCOTT: I am thrilled to be one of the emerging artists this year. I have been practicing for about a year full-time, so I have done one market and displayed my work at Red Butte Garden as part of the Glass Art Guild of Utah’s annual show.
So much of my process and daily work is done in isolation, that I look forward to the social and community aspect of this type of festival. As much as I make things for myself and because I find them interesting, I love to see my work bring other people joy.