Pete Grady Art and Ideas

And Finally...

2009-10-30T11:52:00.002-06:00

More New Work

2009-10-30T11:46:00.000-06:00

Recent Work From My Studio

2009-10-30T11:39:00.001-06:00

Heather Ferrell Resigns From Salt Lake Art Center

2009-10-30T07:07:00.001-06:00

Salt Lake Art Center director resigns

Culture » Ferrell's 16-month tenure ends for life in Qatar.

By Ben Fulton

The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 10/29/2009 08:04:04 AM MDT

Click photo to enlarge

Heather Ferrell has announced her resignation from the Salt Lake Art Center.

Heather Ferrell, executive director of the Salt Lake Art Center for the past 16 months, has announced her resignation. She is leaving to join her fiancé, an airline pilot, in Qatar.

Her tenure was marked by an innovative commission program linking artists and patrons outside the traditional gallery setting. She also broadened the center's community role with educational outreach programs. Ferrell also helped curate several of the center's large-scale exhibitions, including "All American: Defining Ourselves in a Time of Change."

Adam Price, president of the center's board of trustees, credited Ferrell with fortifying the center's connections with donors in tough economic times. "Heather got off to a great start, and she's leaving much too soon," Price said.

Ferrell's fiancé lived in the United States when she took the position, Price said, but then took a job overseas. "It was unexpected from Heather's end," he said.

Ferrell was attending the Western Museum Association conference in San Diego, and on Wednesday didn't return calls for comment. "After more than a year of commuting with a long-distance relationship, I've had to make the difficult choice to resign from the Art Center, and leave the wonderful community of Salt Lake City that has so warmly embraced me, so that I may be with my family," Ferrell said in the center's statement.

Ferrell served as associate curator of the Boise Art Museum and executive

director of the Salina Art Center in Kansas, before she was appointed in July 2008 to head Salt Lake Art Center. In 1994, Ferrell graduated with an art degree and French minor from Utah State University, and went on to earn a master's degree in arts history and museum studies from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1997.

Ferrell's resignation will become effective Dec. 4. The center's board of trustees will soon announce an interim director, and form a committee to find a successor.

"We're looking for someone who can bring a vision of what the center is and can be, is interested in community and dialogue, and in advancing its mission," Price said.

Similar to most arts organizations in Utah and nationally, the Salt Lake Art Center has experienced a drop in funds since fall of last year. In September, it received $25,000 for the retention of a full-time curator of eduction, a portion of $301,000 received by the Utah Arts Council through the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and distributed to 14 other Utah arts organizations.

Price said fundraising activities will come with the territory for any new executive director. "All things considered, though, the center is doing quite well," he said.

2009-10-29T14:53:00.001-06:00

Utah Arts Council and Salt Lake Art Center Exhibits

2009-10-21T16:05:00.001-06:00

I was in Salt Lake City last weekend to attend the Utah Arts Council Statewide Annual Exhibition. This is a competition for artists from Utah that has been going on for 115 years and has grown so large that it is now broken up into divisions. For 2009 two categories were selected; photography and fine craft, while other years cover painting and sculpture. I was selected as as juror for the photography section this year and performed those duties at the end of September. There was a lot of good work and my hosts were so gracious I decided to go back to Salt Lake for the opening reception. Laura Durham manages the Rio Gallery, the Utah Arts Council’s venue for visual arts in downtown Salt Lake. Her design and hanging of the show was first rate and left me confident that I had selected the right work for this show. Lila Abersold, Visual Arts Department Manager, oversaw the event in terms of promotion and that appeared to be a success as well considering the ample turnout. I’d like to mention two artists whose photographs were particularly satisfying. Mark Hedengren showed two environmental portraits that conveyed the essential qualities that made each subject an individual at a perfect moment in time. Executed with a mastery of the silver halide process, his work was very solid. Van Thieu Chu’s work involves fractal-like abstraction presented on a large scale. The piece in this show was the better of the two he submitted. The work I left out from this exhibit involved some realistic elements that, combined with other abstract elements, created a narrative I found difficult to resolve in this format. Part of Self Series-Print 2 on the other hand felt complete in terms of its scale, glossy surface finish and lyrical patterns of scrolls and soft pools of tone. The combination of presentation materials and subject matter creates an interesting work that, while solidly placed within Western postmodernism, references ancient Oriental imagery. The show closes November 25, 2009.

The UAC exhibit opening coincided with Salt Lake’s monthly art walk and I had an opportunity to get a look at a few other venues while there. Of note is the exhibit of platinum photographic prints by Maine photographer Tillman Crane at the Salt Lake Art Center. Offering the rich tonal range and soft rendering of its subjects for which the platinum printing process is known, the 30 pictures in this show document the landscape through which the Jordan River meanders on its journey from Utah Lake near Provo to its mouth at the Great Salt Lake near the Salt Lake City Airport. At its best, this collection of images reveals the dichotomy of nature and development as it exists in microcosm in this corner of Utah and is indicative of circumstances throughout the contemporary West. Crane handles his camera with competence and his prints are excellent examples of a process that was patented in the 1870s, yet continues to draw adherents because of its unique properties. As such, the marriage of nineteenth Century craft and contemporary subjects that are at once beautiful and provocative makes for a show worth seeing if you are in Salt Lake. It closes January 9, 2010.

2009-10-19T09:36:00.001-06:00

This a new piece I finished last week.

Welcome to my blog

2009-10-19T09:23:00.000-06:00