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. There are several new features this year: Voodoo Productions’ street theater will include roaming graffiti stiltwalkers, 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.
LAURA JUNGE
Among the more than 170 artists in the Artist Marketplace this year is Laura Junge, recently named one of three Artists of the Year in Chicago by Choose Chicago, which promotes the city as a global tourist and business destination. The honor includes an art commission prize.
Junge, a 3-D artist, recently answered several questions by email, for The Utah Review.
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?
LJ: I have found that creating art for the past 30 years has been the most healing and emotionally rewarding way of spending time and making a living that I could have imagined. When I knew it was my destiny to be a visual artist, I had hope that my work would have a positive impact on those that view it. Some of my work can lean more to the side of beauty with color and movement. Hoping to add joy to those that see it and decide to have it in their own environment. They are also bodies of work that deal more with a psychological narrative with the hopes of not only entertaining but also provoking deeper thought and questioning.
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?
LJ: I obtained my BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago, followed by several individual courses both online and in person at smaller institutions. Throughout my career my biggest influence has always been the process itself. One idea always leads to another idea. It then becomes my goal to find a way to make that next idea a reality. Often that involves learning a new skill or a way of making art in a completely different manner.
TUR: Do you work full-time exclusively as an artist? Or, how do you augment your work as an artist?
LJ: I work full time as an artist. I also co-own the Jackson Junge Gallery in Chicago with Chris Jackson where I am very proud to say that we are able to employ several wonderful employees allowing them to earn an income.
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?
LJ: Not only is starting new work easy for me, it is what drives me and keeps me interested. I love learning new things and new ways of working. If it was demanded of me to create the same body of work over and over, I would have quit day one. I am a very physically active person and that translates into what I will take on in my work and the demands I put upon myself.
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?
LJ: I have participated in the Utah Art Festival on and off for the past 20 years. It is a show that I have loved doing and have found it to be always profitable for myself. It has to be to drive from Chicago (1,395 miles). I love the energy of the patrons that come to the show. There has always been a thirst and a desire to celebrate the arts. Not only are the visual arts celebrated but the performance and culinary arts get their chance to shine and bring in visitors that might otherwise not have attended. I do participate in several shows a year throughout the country, Usually around 10. Always delighted when I see that I have been accepted into the Utah Arts Festival.