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.
KAREN COBURN
A sculptor from Chatsworth, California who is making her first appearance in the Festival’s Artist Marketplace, Karen Coburn casts her bronze pieces in the lost wax method. Using heat, acid and dyes, the vivid patinas enhance the sense of rhythm and movement. A high gloss coating is applied to enrich the color and heighten my statement of joy and freedom.
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?
KC: I am a figurative sculptor and I love the process of creating. My initial sculptures start with wire and modeling compounds—just bits and pieces of clay, wax, wood, even fabric—and in the end there exists a three dimensional creation that wasn’t there before. And it has a life of its own. I may start out working on a piece that I want to go in a specific direction or say a specific thing. During the process the piece tells me the direction it wants to take and in the end it is often so far from my original idea and intention that I have to stand back in awe.
I am moved by the sensuality of the process–the feel and textures of the materials, the way everything smells, the music that plays in the background and in the end what I see. To me it’s magic.
For my series DANCE!, the rich acid and dye patinas of my bronzes heighten the rhythm, movement and passion of my creations. The enhanced colors not only accentuate the rising and heat of the dance, giving full expression to my vision, but also add an excitement and emotional energy that typical bronze finishes do not have. The color and movement together are a powerful combination that spark the imagination ofthe viewer and allows them to better connect with the emotion and passion of my work.
Works from my Nature series begin with an interesting piece of wood from which I conceptualize the sculpture. Sometime the wood is inspiration and sometimes I add to, manipulate and extend the wood elements so that the natural wood and sculpted portions are indistinguishable. I then sculpt the figurative elements that complete my statement of the connection between nature and humanity; expressions of growth and unity.
I love the human figure. As the outward manifestation of all our hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, our experiences and emotions it is the perfect vehicle for expressing life’s journey.
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?
KC: When I was 4, my mother sent me and my sister to the Art Institute in Chicago where we took art classes for kids. I used the dirty kneaded erasers and pretended to sculpt on the huge white marble horses that flanked the staircase. The guards scolded me for the marks I left behind. But I knew then that I wanted to be a sculptor. While in Toronto, Canada for a business meeting, I decided instead to visit the museum.
The entire top floor was filled with sculptures by Henry Moore and I wept, realizing that I was not living the life I had always wanted. I returned to the hotel, called the state university in my area and enrolled as an Art Major. I received a full second Bachelor’s Degree (my first was in Education) and a Master’s Degree in Art, taking any and every course in Art that was offered there.
My instructor and mentor, Dave Elder, believed in me and my abilities as an artist. He taught me everything I needed to know to express myself in my chosen media of bronze—welding, mold making, casting—and got me my first commission. The casting process is fascinating. To me, it is like watching a birth.
The influences that helped shape me as an artist are deep, personal and heartfelt. While my style may change to express a particular point of view, emotion or statement, those influences form the bedrock of all I do.
TUR: Do you work full-time exclusively as an artist? Or, how do you augment your work as an artist?
KC: I have been a working artist for 40 years. Over the years I have mostly worked in some aspect of the arts. As a teacher I have taught art for children and adults. In the retail field I have designed sales displays and have fabricated and installed holiday decor for the many malls in Southern California. I worked for a chocolate company creating original sculptures to reproduced in chocolate for a wide variety of clients. I have created and loaned artwork for the TV/Film industry. Today, I am a full time artist, working on one or two pieces at a time, listening to music as I create.
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?
KC: What I find difficult is finding the time to do all the sculptures I create in my mind!!
These days I don’t work quickly, and I have more ideas than I can get to. In addition, I have had a number of surgeries, with the results often interfering with what I can or want to do. At a number of times over the years I have experienced sculptor interruptus. But it never stops me and somehow, in some way I figure it out. I’m stubborn that way.
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?
KC: I am pleased and honored to have been included in this years Utah Arts Festival. It’s our first time showing here and we look forward to exhibiting in a new venue, meeting new people, and having new experiences. And now the thrill of the process is heightened by the joy of sharing my work and the energy that goes into each piece–of having people see it, touch it, and bring their own experiences and feelings to something I have created.
I do about 7 to 10 shows a year around the western states; California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Washington. I could not do this without the support of my husband who loads and unloads my heavy work, drives us where we need to be, and installs my work with the eye of a curator. And did I mention? He also does all the “business” work as well. I just sculpt.
The people with whom we have been in contact have been friendly and helpful. Can’t wait to meet everyone.