Salt Lake City Loses Its “Dirtiest City” Status, the West Side, Public Health, and the City’s Only Surviving Pioneer Square

Salt Lake West Side Stories: Post Fourteenby Brad Westwood It is no surprise that in terms of public health, sanitary reform, and civic improvements, local and state leaders neglected Salt Lake City’s ethnically diverse and industrial west side. The west side sits along the floodplain of the Jordan River and the southern end of City Creek’s alluvial deposit. At the …

Historian Leo Lyman’s Deep Dive into the “Sausage Making” of Utah’s Statehood

A SPECIAL TWO PART PODCAST SERIES to kick-off Utah’s 125th statehood anniversary celebration coming up on January 04, 2021. Recording Dates: 06.18.2020 and 06.22.2020 (Speak Your Piece podcast, Season 2, Episode 3, parts 1 & 2). Above Photograph Caption: Matilda “Tillie” Houtz, posing as a Utah’s Statehood Queen with her shield stating “Union For Ever [sic],” 1896; George E. Anderson …

The Creative Pivot

Artists and arts groups reinvent themselves as the economy stutters to reopen By Ellen Fagg Weist A musician performing on your sidewalk. Artists posting new works in their yards and radio DJs recording their shows at home, bird sounds included. Audiences and artists connected via computer screens.  This is the state of Utah arts in 2020. This season, musicians, artists …

“Pioneering the Vote: The Untold Story of Suffragists in Utah and the West”: A Conversation with Neylan McBaine

10.28.2020 (Season 2: Episode 5) Speak Your Piece podcast. Above illustration “The Awakening” by Hy Mayer, showing a torch-bearing female symbolizing the awakening of the nation’s women to the desire for suffrage, with the West in advance of the nation (New York : Puck Publishing, 1915 February 20). Courtesy of The Library of Congress. Part One: Part Two: Podcast Info: …

Black Benatar publicity photo

The Creative Pivot: UtahPresents

When UtahPresents shows were canceled in the spring, Executive Director Brooke Horejsi seized the opportunity. If an audience couldn’t be invited to Kingsbury Hall, she asked, could the space be used to help artists create new work?  She invited arts companies to consider campus residencies. First up was Kinetic Light, a disability arts company “with physically fearless performers,” as Horejsi …

Art chair in Sears Art Museum COVID-19 Popups Exhibition

The Creative Pivot: Sears Art Museum

Most exhibitions at St. George’s Sears Art Museum are months in the planning, with artworks that are meticulously hung and arranged. But instead immediacy was the inspiration for “COVID-19 Pops-Up in Art,” an exhibition in the Dixie State University museum’s foyer, says Kathy Cieslewicz, museum curator. Anchoring the show were artist Stewart Seidman’s series of eight large acrylic paintings about …

The Creative Pivot: Excellence in the Community

Jeff Whiteley says he started to grieve when the Excellence in the Community concert series was forced to pause in late March — until the nonprofit’s founder hit upon a new plan.  On April 16, even as Salt Lake County health restrictions tightened, the music series relaunched with weekly Wednesday and Saturday performances. The only thing missing was the in-person …

An actress poses in a pool of water in front of distant mountains

The Creative Pivot: Alone Together Film Fest

ALONE TOGETHER FILM FEST Film students graduating into a pandemic will face the most difficult job market in years, while many screenings of their works were canceled due to COVID-19, says Miriam Albert-Sobrino, an assistant professor in film and media arts at the University of Utah.  That’s why she and Sonia Albert-Sobrino, her filmmaking and U. teaching colleague — and …

The Creative Pivot: Moab’s KZMU

When Moab’s community radio station closed its building in mid-March, the station first turned to an automated system, which it usually relies on for overnight programming. After a week, KZMU volunteer DJs began taping their shows from home, complete with ambient sounds. Listeners heard familiar voices, and “you could hear the birds in the background, and you could hear the …

A woman lying in a grass field covered by a white sheet

The Creative Pivot: Granary Arts

Using front yards as an outdoor art gallery, like a progressive dinner, was the aim of “Lawn Gnomes 2020,” a partnership between Ephraim’s Granary Arts and Salt Lake City Utah Museum of Contemporary Arts. While both arts galleries were closed, curators invited local artists to plant new works in their yards, and visitors were invited to follow a map to …

Twentieth Century Changes to Salt Lake City’s Original West Side

Salt Lake West Side Stories: Post Thirty-Oneby Brad Westwood The above cropped photo is of The Crossroads Coffee Shop, which was located on North Temple adjacent to the Hotel Utah Motor Lodge, circa 1960s. Photograph courtesy of the Special Collections Department, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah. Over the years, the Pioneer Park neighborhood has undergone significant changes as …