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.
BUDDY SHAW
Based in Bloomfield, Missouri, Buddy Shaw is a sixth-generation woodworker, designer, and artist, who creates heirloom-quality furniture and art with a mid-century flair.
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?
Shaw: I am constantly caught in a state of perfection and wabisabi. I like to make art that has a flow that is pleasing to both the eye and the hands. Most of my work, when you take the time to look at it and touch it, people find comfort both physically and mentally. Exclusively working with wood, I have found that it doesn’t necessarily always like to be forced, so I often use the imperfections in the wood to form it into something that it tells me it wants to be.
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?
Shaw: I do not have any artistic training. I am a 6th generation woodworker, and learned to build functional items – namely cabinetry. I always had a desire to do more than simply building boxes, so I began sketching the ideas in my head and eventually making them. I am heavily influenced by classic mid-century design and architecture. To date my eye continues to be drawn to those mid-century lines and shapes.
TUR: Do you work full-time exclusively as an artist? Or, how do you augment your work as an artist?
Shaw: I do work full-time exclusively as an artist. When I first began my artistic journey a decade ago, it was in my free time when I was working as a park ranger.
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?
Shaw: New work is easy for me. Generally, when starting something new, I have been thinking about it for a while, and find that when I begin, all of those ideas just flow into the creation. I don’t really prepare to handle mental and physical demands, but I do generally have several pieces in the work at one time, so that if I feel any mental or physical blocks, I can move on to something else until I am rested or the creativity for that particular piece returns.
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?
Shaw: I am excited to be a part of the UAF this year. I have seen and heard great things about it from the internet and other artistis. And, I have never traveled so far west for a festival. I do travel the midwest and eastern states full-time throughout the year to participate in approximately twenty shows. I will continue to participate in festivals as long as I am able to create and people are interested in my work.