EDITOR’S NOTE: For preview coverage of the 50th Utah Arts Festival, which runs June 18-21, The Utah Review is presenting individual or group profiles of artists, performers, entertainers and some newcomers to the event. The curtain raiser highlights the history of the Festival which is marking its golden anniversary. BANDALOOP, among the most prominent pioneers of vertical dance, returns to UAF for the fourth time, having appeared in 2005, 2013 and 2018. Once again, the Oakland-based arts company will perform on the 240-foot-high curving glass façade of the City Library, as part of a June tour in four cities featuring a work with ecological roots that will resonate with collective concerns about the Great Salt Lake’s ecological crisis, as the dance artists perform FLOCK while integrating company repertoire pieces including Downstream and its new creation, life || lines, all with an original score featuring music by four composers. Salt Lake Acting Company will appear for the second time at the festival, offering a sample from its upcoming summer show, The Gaslight Zone. Make-and-take opportunities will be among the most extensive in history, with Make Salt Lake as well as Secondhand Salamander which is bringing back the classic Mad Hatter project, and, of course, the Kids’ Art Yard. Urban Arts is offering its largest live graffiti mural installation featuring eight artists in four Festival campus locations, while a row of several other artists will be demonstrating their creative process in real time. Holdman Studios, based in Lehi with an international portfolio of commissions to create stained glass in religious and civic buildings, including a recent update to the Utah State Capitol rotunda, is offering an unprecedented series of free workshops for participants to create their own stained glass artwork. The City Library auditorium will be the home to the 23rd edition of the international Fear No Film program, with 84 short films on a slate of 15 programs, the second largest 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, Sock Opera Dance, and, of course, the ever-popular 1520 Arts, which will feature Trash Panda Drum Group and competitions featuring Sol Tribe as part of the Salt Open Styles Battle along with the Red Bull Dance Your Style battle and a collaboration with Utah Valley University’s ESPRIT in Rep Your Set Choreo Competition, with choreographers who specialize variously in hip hop, contemporary, salsa, reggaeton, afro, popping. Headliners this year include Digable Planets, well known among jazz musicians as well as hip hop artists (June 18); Yola, six-time Grammy-nominated artist, songwriter, and actor (June 19); Austin-based musician Alejandro Rose-Garcia, better known as Shakey Graves, who has been cited for creating new musical experiences tailored to each fan, ranging from Bandcamp-exclusive releases to hosting interactive scavenger hunts while on tour (June 20) and Rubblebucket, a band well known for its hybrid genre blend of psychedelia and electronic dance music (June 21). For tickets and more information, see the Utah Arts Festival website.
LIZ RHODES
Based in Salt Lake City, Liz Rhodes immerses herself in visual, performing and literary arts, which includes music, writing, acting, drawing, cartooning, caricature, large-scale mural, painting, and collage. As a film actor, she is represented by the McCarty Talent Agency. She also plays double bass in the Ballet West Orchestra. As a 2-D mixed media artist, she is a newcomer to the Festival’s Artist Marketplace.
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?
I believe any and all creative work I do contributes to my life’s work as a whole: the Portfolio of Life or whatever you want to call it. All the art I create is in reaction to my human experiences and associated emotions. It’s the most telling evidence of my personality and life story. If you want to get to know me and my core values and intentions, look at my art, listen to my music, read my writings, watch my performances, and meet my children. I literally have little more to say than what I put forward through my creations.
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?
Oddly enough, as a visual artist I initially trained and practiced as a cartoonist. I studied Marvel-comic style cartooning, apprenticed with a caricature artist, and drew my own comic strips dreaming of becoming an animator someday. I’ve also studied watercolor, oil, and acrylic painting; violin lutherie; and fiber arts like felting, quilting, knitting, and needlepoint. I only started collaging just over two years ago and can’t seem to stop! The teenaged pre-Y2K scrapbooker in me really loves cutting and pasting pictures the analog way.
I began identifying as an artist by third grade, and still feel indebted to my Frontier Elementary teacher Ms. Wenninger in Colorado for introducing me to Leonardo da Vinci, Monet, Van Gogh, Mattisse, and Picasso. She inspired me to hold on to my creativity as both a core value and core personality trait.
As life goes on, I find myself more inspired by artists’ processes than their portfolios. I love to learn what motivates them and how their minds work. As they say, “The joy is in the journey”: the magical process of creativity that begins with nothing and ends with something that has never existed before.
TUR: Do you work full-time exclusively as an artist? Or, how do you augment your work as an artist?
I work full time as a creative, seasonally emphasizing a variety of artistic expressions. I perform as a string bassist for the Ballet West Orchestra from fall to spring, leaning into visual arts in the summertime, especially in preparation for markets and festivals like this. I also work in film as an actor represented by McCarty Talent. At home, I knit, cross-stitch, cook, paint, and (unbeknownst to many) most constantly and consistently write.
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?
When a new creative idea comes to me, it usually hits like a flash flood washing away every intention to do anything else but what has just come to me. As I’ve “grown up” (Do artists ever grow up?) I’ve become better — not perfect, but better — at managing my creative energy with more discipline to complete in-progress pieces before starting new ones (so as to avoid backlogs of unfinished work), and to prevent creative projects from taking priority over my health, relationships, and most crucial responsibilities.
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?
While I have participated in many festivals and art markets, this will be my first time sharing my work as part of Utah Art Festival’s Artist Marketplace — and I am nervous! I have never had a booth at an outdoor art market for this many days (and long days) with this many attendees. I’ve been working hard to create new pieces that I hope will resonate with UAF’s vast audience.
