Category Archives: Salt Lake City

Behind the curtain: Women in the U’s Theatre Department discuss underrepresentation

Posted on by

Story by SOPHIA RONEY

After months of tireless work and endless rehearsals, the stage is finally set. A clamoring audience shuffles into their seats and anxiously waits for the lavish curtains to reveal a new world. Behind the curtains, a cast and crew swiftly apply finishing touches to the opening scene. The lights dim and so does the audiences’ chatter. For a moment, the theater is still until music awakes the stage. The performance begins. Everyone holds their breath.

In theater production, various elements take part in creating the world viewed on stage. Women are among the many who assist in the triumph of a production. From the University of Utah Theatre Department, Sarah Shippobotham, Brenda L. Van der Wiel and Savannah Hayes provide insight on how a successful performance is achieved and the importance of women in theater.

Sarah Shippobotham is an actor-training professor at the U. She is associated with the Pioneer Theatre Company at the Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre and is a voice and dialect coach. She has also trained as an actor at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama located in Cardiff, Wales. In an email exchange after a Zoom interview, Shippobotham revealed why women’s representation is significant in theater. She said, “What we are dealing with right now is an underrepresentation of women in theatre while we also deal with the historical underrepresentation of others.”

Sarah Shippobotham has worked as a voice and dialect coach on productions such as “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” and “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.” Photo by Melinda Pfundstein.

She added, “Women make up a huge part of society, so it is important that their stories are told – just as it is important that IBPOC (Indigenous, Black, People of Colour) stories are told too.”

Shippobotham has worked on projects with the playwright Jaclyn Backhaus, such as, “Men on Boats,” to aid in more representation. “Men on Boats” focuses on the discovery of the Grand Canyon and Colorado River with all the male characters portrayed by female and nonbinary actors.

Through a Zoom interview, she explained how actor training contributes to a successful theater production. “For me, when people are trained to be actors, they’re trained that acting is an actual skill.” Shippobotham said the voice and body of an actor convey a story that the audience can witness because theater is about telling a story. Without actor training as a core part in theater production, she said a play may not be as impactful for an audience.

In addition to actor training, costume design holds immense importance to the success of a theater production in creating a world in which a story is told. Brenda L. Van der Wiel is an associate professor and the head of the Performing Arts Design Program at the U. She designs for the theater department frequently and designs every year for the Pioneer Theatre Company. Van der Wiel has also designed for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Some of her own favorite work has been presented at the festival.

Brenda L. Van der Wiel said she admires the work of Robert Cuzuolla, who is a costume designer for ballet and opera. Photo courtesy of Van der Wiel. 

In a Zoom interview, Van der Wiel explained why costume design is an impactful part of theater and how a show is interpreted through costume design. “Every little detail is something that can aid in storytelling, even if it … isn’t something the audience can see, it might be something the actor can internalize [and help] them inhabit the character fully,” she said. Van der Wiel said “even something as simple as a wedding ring” is a decision one must make through the eyes of a character. Costume design in theater assists the audience in identifying a character’s personality. “Theater is all about collaboration,” Van der Wiel said. Constant collaboration is key to executing a director’s vision. In a production, she said, “I think it is amazing when all the elements come together.”

When all the departments come together in collaboration, stage management is an influential part that guides the operations of a theatrical performance. Savannah Hayes is a first-year student at the U. In addition to her studies, she is learning about stage management. Hayes managed theater productions throughout her junior and senior years of high school. She also decided to be a part of a show choir crew and was later offered the position as an assistant stage manager.

Savannah Hayes said her family introduced her to theater. She has been fond of the art form ever since. Photo courtesy of Savannah Hayes. 

Hayes suggested that stage management plays a crucial role in theater. “There just wouldn’t be as much communication,” she said in a Zoom interview. “We help rehearsals and then we run the show too [such as] telling when the lights to go [on].”

To her, stage managers are the “big communicators” who run the production meetings, make sure everyone pitches in their thoughts, and are “everyone’s friend.” Hayes said if anyone needs a Band-Aid or even a pencil, a stage manager would provide what is needed.

In a follow-up email interview, Hayes explained why women’s representation is important in theater. “We can kind of see things a little bit differently than men so we can suggest things they might not think of,” she said. “We can also help inspire young children”

The final scene concludes and the curtains close while a roaring audience applauds the collaborative efforts of the cast and crew. Everyone rejoices in the culmination of the show. For a successful theater production, a variety of people and departments work together to fulfill a director’s vision. Representation of IBPOC and women are historically underrepresented in theater. Savannah Hayes said, “We’re equally as big of a part in theatre as men no matter the area.”

Keeping the art of darkroom photography alive in a digital world

Posted on by

Story and photos by MAKENA KLINGE

The smell of chemicals, the sound of running water. The serenity emitting from the dim glow of the small light fixture hanging from the ceiling, coating the room in an amber ambiance. Mind and body follow a rhythm, movements become melody as the outside world dissolves into the darkness of the surrounding four walls. Magic becomes material as an image appears on the liquid-submerged paper, making ripples as it sways beneath the surface.

The darkroom at Photo Collective Studios is available for public renting.

Photography is a centuries-old art form that continues to affect and contribute to how we view the world we live in. The concept of photography has been around since the early 1800s and is constantly developing and evolving into what we know it to be today and what we will know it to be in the future.

Darkroom photography was the original – and only – form of photography available in the world until somewhat recently. Only within the last few decades has digital photography taken over, and almost completely pushed film photography out of the picture.

Rinsing the chemicals off of a developed photo in the darkroom at the University of Utah.

However, there are still artists and community members who appreciate film photography and acknowledge its history as an art form. Here in Salt Lake City, Dave Azul Brewer co-owns Photo Collective Studios. The experienced photographer started that business in 2011.

In 2016, he and his business partner Jessica Jude bought the Clubhouse on South Temple. The Ladies Literary Club had owned that building for 100 years and wanted to find a new owner who would keep it open to the public for art and expression. Brewer and Jude remodeled the building and made it wheelchair accessible with a historic grant that they won in the spring of 2021.

Photo Collective Studios was operating at its original location and the Clubhouse until 2019, when Brewer relocated that business to the Clubhouse. Brewer explained that they are separate businesses. The Clubhouse functions as more of an event space and the studio is a place for photographers to work out of.

  • View of the ballroom and stage from the upstairs balcony at the Clubhouse.
  • Old-fashioned barber room upstairs above the stage.

“There’s no other building like it in Salt Lake City,” Brewer said. Some of its main attractions include: a stage overlooking a ballroom floor, a front patio, a backstage barber shop and bride’s lounge used for hair and makeup, and a balcony upstairs that serves as a part of the photo studio. The building also includes the only functioning public dark room in the city, down in the basement.

The studio offers public access to professional photography equipment, backdrops, and lighting at an hourly rate. The studio even offers film developing classes that take place every Monday for those interested in learning how to work in the darkroom. It’s also open to those who are familiar with the art and just need a space to develop photos.

“My goal is to create an experience where people feel comfortable and encouraged to create on their own,” Brewer said. Photo Collective Studios not only offers the only public darkroom in the city – aside from the one at the University of Utah – but also provides a much-needed space for artists to pursue their creative goals.

Brewer said his favorite thing about Photo Collective Studios is “connecting with various photographers from various backgrounds and skill sets and recognizing that we can all learn something from each other.”

Brewer said it’s “more important now than ever to keep darkroom photography alive because it is such a timeless art form and with the introduction of digital photography it has quickly become almost obsolete.” He explained that in his career he went from knowing film photography as the standard to digital becoming the standard, “almost overnight.”

Yet the processes used in digital photography stem directly from techniques that are used in the darkroom. There are buttons in Photoshop that have been transferred over from steps of developing film. That alone shows just how important darkroom photography is, even in the digital world we live in.

Edward Bateman has been a professor of various photography classes – Art History of Photography and Digital Imaging for Visual Artists to name a few – at the University of Utah since 2008. He is very passionate about photography and how it impacts our world.

Prints hanging to dry in the darkroom at the University of Utah.

“Chemical has the ability for surprises to happen, things that you’d never imagine, things you couldn’t predict, it can be really exciting,” Bateman said.

Even though Bateman would say that he prefers digital photography – because that’s what he is known for – he likes darkroom photography because “it’s meditative, things go at its own speed, things have its own pace.”

Regarding the appeals of film photography, Bateman also said, “People like the tactile, the tangible quality of actually interacting with something as more and more things become virtual.”

John Moffitt, the president of the Photo Club at the U shares a similar view on photography.  

“I genuinely enjoy both digital and darkroom photography. I use both for different things. I honestly couldn’t imagine photography without a darkroom and a computer,” Moffitt said in an email interview.

Moffitt is a senior at the U and is studying operations and supply chain management and photography. He became the president of the club in the summer of 2021 and says that the purpose of the club is to provide a community on campus for students who are interested in photography.

“There is nothing that will transform the way a photographer sees and works faster than a darkroom. Working in a darkroom used to be the ‘norm’ and I think photographers were better off because of it. Even for photographers that don’t plan on using film indefinitely, working in a darkroom for even just a few months can be a transformative process,” Moffitt said

Despite the impact that the art of the past – film photography – has had on the art of the present – digital photography – it’s undeniable that darkroom photography has fallen into the shadows of the art world.

As Brewer said, “There are enough film lovers and film enthusiasts that recognize its uniqueness that I believe as creatives, as artists, we have enough desire to keep it alive.”

Photo rinsing in the water bath.
Completed prints by students on a drying rack outside of the darkroom at the U.
Negative print by Edward Bateman.
Canvas prints by students hanging on the wall of the Art building at the U.
David Brewer’s camera collection in the Clubhouse darkroom.
Tool used to focus an image in the darkroom.
David Brewer focusing an image for development in the darkroom.
David Brewer.
Photo of a performance by the Ladies Literary Club at the Clubhouse.
The Clubhouse motto, printed on a wall in the foyer.
Perspective from the top of the stairs leading to the photo studio space.
Photo of some members of the Ladies Literary Club, taken from the viewpoint of the previous photo.

The importance of student organizations at the University of Utah

Posted on by

Story by LUKE MAGEL

It was during a backpacking expedition that the University of Utah student, Emma Taylor, noticed how large the gender gap is in outdoor activities. The men moved quicker than the women in the group did. Therefore, the long-legged men navigated and led the group.

After resolving the issue within the group, Taylor and her friends discussed how to foster a safe and inclusive environment for women in the outdoors.

“So it’s kind of like on this trip and we’re thinking, how do we do this, how do we do this, and then the idea for a club came up,” Taylor said in a Zoom interview.

The Women’s Outdoor Leadership Initiative is one of over 550 Recognized Student Organizations at the University of Utah. Student organizations provide opportunities for students that they would otherwise have to find off-campus. The university contributes to the symbiotic relationship between it and the student organizations by providing resources and advising.

The Women’s Outdoor Leadership Initiative was established in August 2021, making it one of the newest student organizations at the university. The organization already has about 70 members. The primary goal of the initiative is to provide women with skills and confidence in the outdoors.

“The hope is that they can take that with them, be more independent, and then get more of their friends out there so we slowly start to kind of change that gender gap within the outdoor industry,” said Taylor, who is the president of the club.

To accomplish its goal, the organization hosts a monthly course on an outdoor skill and a monthly community bonding meeting. The courses have covered the set of ethics put forth by the Leave No Trace organization, wilderness medicine certification, and backcountry navigation.

A Women’s Outdoor Leadership Initiative community bonding event. Photo courtesy of Emma Taylor.

As winter approaches, the organization is planning an avalanche certification course, ski trips, and volunteer opportunities at the National Ability Center.

The outdoor setting of the club provides students with learning opportunities outside of the classroom. “You’re constantly just kind of having to manage risk, manage your group, manage all these different settings around you,” Taylor said.

The club is classified as a Registered Student Organization. This means that the organization is not affiliated with a department at the university. RSOs are the most autonomous classification.

Student organizations can also be classified as affiliated or sponsored. Affiliated clubs are still separate from the university; however, they are tied to a department and have access to some university resources and an advisor.

Sponsored student organizations are part of a department and must follow its rules. This classification also receives an advisor and the most support from the university.

The University of Utah Beekeepers Association is a Sponsored Student Organization. The club is sponsored by the Bennion Center, the university’s community engagement center.

The U’s Beekeepers Association was started about 10 years ago and boasts hundreds of members. Amalia Friess has been president for two years and was an active member for two years before assuming that role.

The organization has nine honeybee hives in continuously changing locations on campus. The hives are inspected by the organization at least monthly. The inspections can be attended by anyone.

A beekeeper tending to a university hive. Photo courtesy of Amalia Friess.

Friess said taking care of the bees was like having pets. “These are live animals that you’re working with.”

Educational presentations are given to the club by the members themselves. They also give presentations to elementary schools, Boy Scouts, and others. The talks focus on the importance of honeybees and native pollinators.

“If the pollinators are gone, that means that our plants are going to be gone. And that’s the foundation of our whole ecosystem,” Friess said in a Zoom interview.

The beekeepers harvest honey and wax from their hives once a year. The wax, which is made into candles and lip balm, is then given away to those who participate in events or sold along with the honey.

Friess estimates that 40% of the organization’s funds come from honey, wax product, and merchandise sales. The rest of the funds come from the Associated Students of the University of Utah, a perk of being a Sponsored Student Organization.

The Beekeepers Association provides students with an easy way to start beekeeping, an otherwise difficult field to join. The university also benefits from the community engagement.

The student organizations coordinator, Josh Olszewski. He oversees all clubs at the U. Photo courtesy of Josh Olszewski.

“From research, we know that students who get involved tend to have higher GPAs, they tend to feel a stronger sense of belonging on campus, and students who feel like they belong on campus tend to stay,” said Josh Olszewski, the student organizations coordinator for the university.

The broad selection of clubs is an incentive for prospective students to enroll at the U.

Olszewski said having student organizations helps students find community, support groups, and opportunities to build skills outside of the classroom. Students benefit from clubs regardless of the focus of the entity.

Student organizations have raised awareness for immigration laws, mental health, and COVID-19, Olszewski said in a Zoom interview. “These are student-led initiatives that I think raise awareness to the broader community and to the institution as a whole.”

Community oasis in a busy city

Posted on by

Story and photos by LEAH BEEHLER

The Wasatch Community Gardens prove that healthy living, eating, and growing in a city is not impossible.

A wide view from the new wood deck behind the walkway to the plant beds. The many beds provide the space for diverse seeds and plants.

“You don’t need to speak the same language as someone else, you don’t need to look the same or have the same background to be able to get your hands in the dirt and create something together,” said Georgina Griffith-Yates, the current executive director. Located at 600 E. 800 South in the central hub of Salt Lake City, the living oasis is focused on bringing the community together and growing local food, while also striving to educate.

The mission of the Gardens is to empower people to grow and eat healthy, organic, local food.

The Community Garden Program, Community Education Program, Youth and School Program, and the Job Training Program are the ways in which the Gardens accomplish that mission.

According to its website, the Community Garden Program is a way for the people in the community to “come and gain hands-on skills through [the] series of organic gardening workshops.” There are a total of 16 gardens throughout the county to apply what you learn during the workshops.

The Community Education Program targets not only real-life experience but also shares real knowledge of the food and how to grow it with the members of the community. It additionally focuses on hosting workshops and events that show people how to translate what they learn during classes to their home and how to make use of what they grow. “It is not just a get together — there is a lot of information provided to you and resources,” said Kerrie Toner, a member of the community and volunteer.

After the informative sessions and workshops, the Gardens provide many recipes to try yourself, how to perform a soil analysis with ingredients you have at home, and natural remedies that can help with colds and sickness.

“Another thing they offer is how to properly compost and get rid of pests naturally and organically,” Toner said.

Events and workshops are beneficial to the community because they are a chance to bring people together and build relationships. “Having in-person connection points, there is no substitute for that,” said Amber Nichols in a phone interview. Nichols is the outreach and volunteer director. Volunteering is a big part of the Wasatch Community Gardens and how it includes the community. If you are interested in volunteering, you can sign up by filling out the online form.

The goal for volunteers is to learn while also making sure they have fun. They are able to be there for a couple hours and offer services while learning about the plants, seeds, and soil.

Volunteers are able to plant seeds that will grow and later be available for purchase at the plant sale. They also work to beautify the gardens and harvest fruit.

Plants growing and becoming accustomed to the soil at Wasatch Community Gardens on 800 South.

The Youth and School Program is designed to teach kids about food and where food comes from. According to its website, “kids ages 4-12, are invited to learn in the [the] productive school garden program.”

Kids are encouraged to see that food is more than fast food. They have the power to take a small seed and grow something that is healthy and safe.

The Job Training Program is available to help women who are experiencing homelessness be reintegrated into a job setting and be hired once the program is over.

The program is a one-year-long process and is very beneficial for the participants and their futures. As well as helping the women get jobs, the Gardens also has a free pick zone for the community.

The free pick zone provides a source of clean fruits and vegetables, such as strawberries and tomatoes, to people passing by and those who can’t afford organic produce from the grocery store, and kids in the community who are learning what they like.

The tomato easement at Wasatch Community Gardens. The gardens and plots are essential for food growth.

On the Gardens campus is a fully functioning kitchen that is used to cook meals and prepare food for the guests and volunteers. The food used and eaten is all grown at the campus.

Community outreach and happiness is a big importance for the Gardens. “They want to work with the community and are very community driven,” said Toner, a member of the community and volunteer.

There are many cultures and people in a large city. The gardens focus on the diverse histories of people, food, and agriculture. They do this by offering a different variety of plants and different land plots to adhere to history and culture.

The Wasatch Community Gardens is a great green, open space in a city and is a huge learning outlet. It is also a large benefit to the community by bringing them together, getting them out of the house, meeting new people, and learning new things that they can implement in their own homes and at-home gardens.

UDOT’s plans for transit in Little Cottonwood will affect climbing along with traffic

Posted on by

Story and photos by JACOB FREEMAN

If you’ve driven in Little Cottonwood Canyon in the past few years, the problems it faces are hard to miss. The narrow road creates traffic backups that can stretch far out of the mouth of the canyon in winter months, when snowy conditions compound its problems. Add to this the hundreds of thousands of annual visitors, and it’s clear to see why people are calling for an update to transportation up and down Little Cottonwood.

A gondola would transport passengers here from the mouth of the Little Cottonwood Canyon.

The Utah Department of Transportation has two updates in mind. One is an added shoulder for busses to travel on. The other is a gondola stretching from the mouth of the canyon to the ski resorts Alta and Snowbird.

Both proposed solutions aim to improve traffic flow in Little Cottonwood, near Salt Lake City. But both of UDOT’s proposals will also have an irreversible impact on rock climbing in the canyon, and that has activists and community members worried.

“That is potentially the biggest threat to loss of climbing resources and climbing access that we’ve seen on the Wasatch Front in a couple decades,” David Carter said in an interview over Zoom. Carter works on the board of directors for the Salt Lake Climbers Alliance, an advocacy group that aims to protect access to rock climbing in the Wasatch mountain range. He also serves as the chair of the SLCA’s policy and conservation committee.

Carter said the potential road widening and gondola construction come with their own unique impacts to climbing in the canyon. 

“Widening of the road is certainly the greatest of potential impact,” Carter said. “There we’re looking at dozens of boulders that could potentially be destroyed, and hundreds of bouldering problems.”

Climbers in Little Cottonwood park and climb on boulders less than 15 feet from the road.

Destruction of boulders isn’t the only impact that SLCA is worried about. Carter said that changes to the overall climbing experience will inevitably be a pitfall of the proposals. 

“It basically impacts any climbing that happens in that main canyon corridor, because if you’re climbing at the Gate Buttress you’re going to look over and be level with gondolas running by,” Carter said. Gate Buttress is one of the most popular rock climbing walls in Little Cottonwood.

However, destruction of climbing resources remains Carter’s main concern. “The roadway widening — it’s hard to see how that would not result in permanent loss of iconic, world-class bouldering.”

These are concerns that UDOT has heard from SLCA on numerous occasions, said Josh Van Jura, project manager at UDOT.

“They’re obviously very concerned with boulders being removed, as well as the viewshed,” Van Jura said in a phone interview. Viewshed refers to an impact on scenery by structures or pollution.

Van Jura explained that UDOT plans to eliminate roadside parking in Little Cottonwood, a move that aims to address safety concerns created by people walking up and down the busy, narrow street. This would also help to prevent road erosion and environmental strain caused by “spider trails,” paths created by many people walking to a similar destination from different starting points, Van Jura said. To make up for lost parking, UDOT plans to build four new parking areas, which he said would keep the total number of parking spots about the same.

Carter disagrees that the number of spaces is all that matters. He said SLCA understands the safety concerns created by roadside parking in the canyon, but these changes to parking will inevitably lead to a loss of access to climbing resources.

“We’ve been working in good faith to help improve the safety of the situation and we feel like the needs of climbers and other dispersed recreators haven’t been taken into account,” Carter said.

UDOT created an environmental impact statement, or EIS, to analyze the potential effects of the proposed projects. These projects have been narrowed down to an added shoulder lane or gondola. However, “a no-action alternative is always considered as an alternative,” Van Jura said. UDOT also collected public comments about the impact statement in order to make sure its analysis was complete.

“One of the preferred alternatives comes from the last comment summary,” John Gleason said in a phone interview. He is the public information officer at UDOT. “We have received over 13,000 comments on the EIS. We will undoubtedly have a better EIS because of it.”

The goal of obtaining these comments was to make sure UDOT had conducted a complete analysis. “The goal is not a vote,” Van Jura said about the public comment period.

SLCA has submitted its own public comments to UDOT, in conjunction with its meetings with UDOT officials. While SLCA agrees that something has to be done to mitigate traffic in Little Cottonwood, Carter says UDOT’s two preferred alternatives are going too far, when cheaper and less impactful alternatives have yet to be explored.

“Our No. 1 message is, let’s not start with very costly, very impactful, permanent infrastructure changes. It’s irreversible, it’s irresponsible from a policy perspective,” Carter said.

Carter said SLCA is in favor of more flexible, less impactful traffic mitigation solutions, such as increased busses and tolling.

“Why not try those measures to see if you can get that many folks off the road before we go build a gondola or widen the road,” Carter said.

Utah Humanities aims to bridge political polarization across the state

Posted on by

Story by ALEJANDRO LUCERO

A month before the 2020 election, roughly 8 in 10 registered voters on both sides of the aisle said their differences with the other side were about core American values such as the economy, racial justice and climate change, according to a 2020 study done by the Pew Research Center.

“I feel like we sort of lost that ability to have a conversation without feeling like we have to convince each other of our side,” Caitlin McDonald said in a Zoom call.

Utah Humanities, a Salt Lake City-based nonprofit, created the Community Conversations as a space for respectful dialogue. But is it enough to help alleviate the political polarization plaguing Utahns across the state? McDonald, the program manager in charge of the Conversations, knows that bridging the gap is not a painless task for participants.

“It’s not an easy thing. It’s not all puppies and rainbows. It’s not all hugging each other. It’s hard, and it’s emotional, and we’ve had people cry,” McDonald said.

Participants attend a Community Conversation in person pre-pandemic. Utah Humanities, a Salt Lake City nonprofit, has been hosting hard and uncomfortable conversations about relevant and polarizing topics to create meaningful dialogue in the Salt Lake Valley. Photo provided by Utah Humanities.

Utah Humanities has been hosting hard and uncomfortable conversations about relevant and polarizing topics such as racial justice, climate change and civic participation since its inception in 2015. Pre-pandemic, these conversations were held in person. Currently they reside within the virtual walls of Zoom. Regardless of the meeting space, McDonald said she believes the process of creating meaningful and productive dialogue is more successful than regular town halls or other forums where people come ready to argue and yell at one another.

Part of the Utah Humanities’ success can be attributed to its Conversation Agreements that serve as a code of conduct for these monthly meetings. The agreements outline expectations for how the conversations will be held and how participants are expected to conduct themselves. The guidelines include “respecting all participants, … thoughtfully considering perspectives which are contrary to their own and behaving courteously should a disagreement and/or non-closure occur.”

McDonald said all participants must sign the agreement before any dialogue can begin. This weeds out anyone who is looking to come with pitchforks in hand.

The Conversation Agreements are meant to serve as a guideline that all participants must agree to before attending a Conversation. The Agreements help weed out agitators and trolls looking for an argument, not constructive dialogue. Photo provided by Utah Humanities.

“Because as we’ve seen, people’s rules for behavior seem to have changed recently. What’s acceptable in public and what’s acceptable in how we treat each other? I’ve seen it change in the past few years,” McDonald said.

She also said that weeding out the agitators who are looking to throw gasoline onto the political fire has proven to be beneficial, as they have never kicked out a participant. The agreement also helps alleviate some concerns of first-time participants, while also providing them with a space to be vulnerable and listen openly to perspectives that they might disagree with.

“These conversations just give them a chance to come somewhere where you don’t have to come with your guard up,” McDonald said. “You can come knowing that you’re in a space where you can express yourself, but also hear somebody else express themselves without fear of being yelled at.”

One participant is openly looking for this challenge of ideas and values. Steven Olsen is a senior history curator for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He said he embraces aspects of the humanities such as diverse thinking and the civil interchange of sharing ideas. Olsen said he is especially interested in the perspectives that differ from those around him. 

“I really am interested in sharing that perspective with others in a kind of an academic setting or from an academic perspective, but also gaining other insights that I might not get from my own tribe, as it were,” Olsen said in a Zoom interview.

It might seem as if Olsen has found his happy place within the virtual walls of the Zoom Conversations, but the problem is, he has had a hard time garnering a new perspective from these sessions.

“Unfortunately, there hasn’t been the kind of diversity of perspectives that I had kind of hoped [for] going forward, I would say it’s mostly centered left of center,” Olsen said.

The lack of contrasting opinions interests Kevin Coe, a professor with an emphasis in political communication at the University of Utah. But he believes the problem is bigger than a conversation.

“It’s useful to think in terms of some of those interpersonal solutions [Community Conversations] as small-scale acts of goodness, that are useful. They won’t ultimately be enough to solve the problem, right? Because the problem is structural,” Coe said in a Zoom interview.

The structural problem Coe is referring to involves the amount of information and misinformation that can be found on social media, and how that changing information environment is shaped and influenced by political structures and those in power. Social media and news outlets could be to blame due to the number of opinions that are now in the marketplace of ideas. But Coe said he thinks the real problem lies within the curators who are controlling the release of questionable content being cultivated for public consumption.

“The deeper problem is that people are toxic because people are creating that information environment, and particularly people in power, who often have an incentive to put out misinformation, for example,” Coe said.

Power isn’t the only incentive to deceive the public.

“To get that misinformation to circulate and that might be a monetary incentive as a way for them to just increase their own personal wealth, say, unscrupulous journalists … an unscrupulous participant in the media environment who benefits financially from having their message, which … they know is factually inaccurate, circulate widely, because it builds attention for them,” Coe said.  

This could be applied as well to politicians who use misinformation or inflammatory remarks to influence their following and maintain power. Coe also said it would take a broader reform of the political and information system to reach the overarching goal that those interpersonal acts of communication like the Conversations are seeking.

It might seem like the deck has been stacked against the participants of the Conversations like Steven Olsen, who look through the lens of the humanities to navigate these uncomfortable conversations and polarizing topics. But there is consensus and hope among those who attend, that the Conversations will continue to provide participants with the opportunity to not see a political enemy on the other side of the aisle, but a vulnerable person who also wants what is best for the country.

“Those conversations can rise above the particulars of our contention, you know, the differences of our points of view,” Olsen said. “To see the human underpinnings of even the necessity of having differences of opinion, in other words, it’s not about who’s right and who’s wrong, but it’s about the meaning of the truth that we’re seeking from the conversation.”

The Utah Humanities building, located at 202 300 N. in Salt Lake City, was once the home of the Community Conversations. The Conversations are currently taking place on Zoom and have allowed people from across the state and nation to participate. Photo provided by Utah Humanities.

Urban Flea Market creates community for locals

Posted on by

Story and photos by KATEY KOLESKY

The crisp autumn air fills the wind as the end of summer approaches. Shoppers stroll down the brick paving in downtown Salt Lake City in hopes of finding something special. Music and chatter swells as shoppers dig around local booths looking for their own piece of treasure. 

The Urban Flea Market is home to a variety of local vendors, who are able to come together, grow their business and create a sense of community for local businesses and shoppers. The Urban Flea Market’s Instagram describes the event as “the biggest SLC flea market! Eclectic vintage, yard sale style, and crafted items — clothing, records, furniture, art, and more.”

An article published in SLUG Magazine says that Kate Wheaton and Michael Sanders founded the market in 2011 after they were influenced by New York and L.A. style of inner-city parking lot markets.

After realizing that Utah was missing its own flea market, Wheaton and Sanders decided to bring this market style to Salt Lake City. 

Over the last 11 years this event has grown into a downtown Salt Lake City staple for locals and visitors. 

According to the Urban Flea Market’s website, this is a year-round market that is thrown every second Sunday of each month located at The Gateway, in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City. 

The Gateway’s website states that the market features 80-plus vendors selling the best vintage clothing, antique decor, original artworks, handcrafted jewelry, collectables and much more.

This market also includes a special guest DJ playing music with local food trucks feeding patrons as they shop. 

The market runs 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and has a $2 entrance fee for adults, with free admission for children under the ages of 12.

A variety of unique vendors are involved with the Urban Flea Market such as Wild Future, a booth that grabs people’s attention with its unique handcrafted colorful jewelry and accessories. 

These beaded bracelets and necklaces by Tiffany Hwang are handmade with freshwater pearls, natural crystals, millefiori glass beads and 18k gold-plated clasps. Also featured are hand-crocheted earrings that resemble fruits and flowers with hypoallergenic gold-plated earring bodies. 

Tiffany Hwang, the owner of Wild Future, said when she started her business in 2020 she sought out many markets around Utah before attending the Urban Flea Market as a customer first. 

After visiting the Urban Flea Market, Hwang said she loved the community, and knew it was the perfect place to grow her business. 

“Best market of all,” Hwang said.

The location, variety of vendors and customers makes it a great space for Hwang to attract shoppers as she is in the process of building her online store. 

Due to its popularity, Wild Future has seen its sales increase thanks to the Urban Flea Market helping to grow its fanbase. 

On the flip side, Brittney Lee, who co-founded Earth and Ether with Haley Millet, had never attended the Urban Flea Market until her first time as a vendor.

Haley Millet, left, and Brittney Lee of Earth and Ether. They are pictured standing behind UniTea’s sun and moon herbal tea blends Ghouls, Moonlight and Divinitea, all sustainably sourced and infused with healing frequencies. 

Earth and Ether, an energy work healing service, has been a vendor at the Urban Flea Market since summer 2020. The business is centered around stones and energy-infused liquid that Lee described as “all about the soul, spirit, mind, [and] body.”

UniTea is a branch of Earth and Ether founded by Millet. The tea is brewed from mountain rose herbs that are sustainably harvested into sun and moon tea blends infused with healing frequencies. 

The Earth and Ether website states, “Earth and Ether was created for a soul experience. We have combined and made available multiple avenues in how you choose your path to unlocking your higher self and inner wisdom. From reiki infused crystals, private healing sessions, skin treatments, and community healings, you can embark on your path to inner healing and embrace your ascension.”

Stones and crystals such as amethyst and red quartz for sale at the Earth and Ether booth with information cards stating the healing properties of each item.

Lee and Millet participate in local markets throughout the greater Salt Lake City area, but this is the one they attend most frequently. 

“One of the best markets for sure,” Lee said, standing behind the booth filled with stones, crystals and homemade herbal teas. 

When asked to describe the community at the Urban Flea Market, Lee said, “It’s amazing!

Lee said older patrons tend to shop first. She called them “a little more reserved,” but added that “they know what they want.” Later, younger shoppers “dig through vintage stuff.”

Millet added, “Also the conscious community comes in strong. A lot of people want to support people who are doing it (creating products) sustainably.”

Lee said in a subsequent text interview, “The Urban Flea Market is always beneficial to meet and talk with wonderful souls.”

Chelsey Cummings, owner of Vintage by Chelsey, had attended the Urban Flea Market for years before becoming a vendor. 

“I attended the flea, shopped the flea, and then I was like ‘I think I need to do it,’ so that’s how I started this,” Cummings said.

Vintage by Chelsey or VBC for short, is a mix of eclectic, modern vintage clothing pieces and accessories sourced by its owner. The Vintage by Chelsey website describes her business as “curated vintage clothing for modern trends & timeless style.” 

After becoming obsessed with the hunt for vintage clothing, Cummings began selling her collection at local markets and pop-ups. 

You can find VBC at other local stores such as The Hive Market, Salt and Honey and the Outlets Park City. 

Her vintage shop began to thrive when she started selling her treasured finds at the Urban Flea Market in October 2020.  

The Vintage by Chelsey booth features Chelsey Cummings’ curated vintage finds ranging from luggage to leather booths and coats. Most items date between the 1960s to 1990s. 

“The Urban Flea has allowed my business to grow within the local community. I was primarily selling on Etsy and now I have shifted to local stores and customers. The flea has also given me so many lifelong friends and connections,” Cummings said in a follow-up text interview.  

The Urban Flea Market has created a space and community for local vendors to connect and grow with their shoppers. 

Want to attend the Urban Flea Market, but missed the summer market? No worries — you can find Vintage by Chelsey, Earth and Ether, and Wild Future and many other local vendors at the indoor winter Urban Flea Market starting Dec. 12, 2021.

How the Know Your Neighbor program helps refugees and volunteers in SLC

Posted on by

Story by KRISTINE WELLER

When refugees arrive in the U.S. they are matched with one of nine nonprofit organizations. There are two such organizations in Utah, the International Rescue Committee and Catholic Community Services. The problem is, however, these organizations only help refugees for their first two months in the U.S. and these asylum seekers often need sustained assistance. 

This is why Utah has the Know Your Neighbor program. The Know Your Neighbor program recruits volunteers to fulfill needs and create connections between refugees and community members. 

Megan McLaws is the program’s volunteer coordinator. She matches volunteers with newcomers who require assistance. The main categories volunteers assist with are tutoring and mentorship, programs and classes, Refugee Community Based Organizations (RCBOs), and the goat farm which is a special category of RCBO.  

McLaws said that when the pandemic started, the program had an influx of volunteers, more than they had a need for. The program wasn’t matching people unless it was virtually, which made it difficult to give every volunteer an opportunity. However, now that people are going back to work, they don’t have as much time to volunteer. 

“We’re having the opposite problem where we have a lot of opportunities, and we have a lot of volunteers, but they are getting back to work and have busy schedules again,” McLaws said. 

Lexie Hanks is one of those volunteers who has a busy schedule but fits different volunteer opportunities into her day-to-day life. She said it’s best to fit opportunities in where you can, even if it’s just for an hour or two a week, since there is no shortage of needs for the refugees. 

“Volunteering can be tiring work, but it’s worth it,” Hanks said. 

Lexie Hanks and her four children get up early to help out at the goat farm. Photo courtesy of Lexie Hanks.

One of the volunteer opportunities that Hanks takes advantage of is the goat farm. The goat farm is an RCBO within the program, but it is unique because it relies heavily on volunteer support. Hanks said when volunteers go to the farm, they usually feed and water the goats as well as do health checks. However, Hanks has also vaccinated the herd and re-tagged them.

The farm is run by Somali Bantu, Burundi and Bajuni communities right outside Salt Lake City. Hanks explained that this farm is very important in preserving and passing on cultural practices related to goat farming. 

“Through helping and volunteering in that way, it gives refugees a piece of their home,” Hanks said. 

Hanks started working with the Know Your Neighbor program during the pandemic, in the summer of 2020, so for her first volunteer opportunity she was paired with a Burundi family. She helped their kids with homework virtually. 

The children in this family were in the same grades as two of Hanks’ own children, one in kindergarten and the other in third grade. Hanks’ kids came to like the children across the screen and on Fridays when she was helping them with virtual learning, she said they would often ask, “are our friends on?”

Three of Lexie Hanks’ children help feed the goats at the goat farm. Photo courtesy of Lexie Hanks.

Hanks would then tell her boys that they would have to wait until the other kids are done with their learning before they can say hello. 

Virtual learning, however, wasn’t easy. Hanks said the kids would often hold up their homework to the camera, and she would have to quickly write information down so she could help them. The language barrier also made things more difficult. 

“Kind eyes meeting kind eyes,” Hanks said, was basically the only communication she had with the parents. This is because they had recently arrived in the U.S. and hadn’t learned much English. 

Kim Langton, another volunteer, has more experience with helping refugees learn English and teaching in general. Langton has a degree in education and has been teaching and working with children since 1975. 

In fact, after retiring, Langton said he lost his fulfillment. He said he missed helping children and that’s why he began volunteering. 

Langton, more specifically, volunteers for the Umoja Generation. The Umoja Generation is an RCBO under the Know Your Neighbor program. Langton is also on the board of this RCBO and has been volunteering there for nearly three years.

Part of what Langton does is help refugee children learn conversational English. English learning is important, he said, because if students don’t understand English they won’t do well in other subjects. 

Further, Langton said it’s critical for refugee students to do something that interests them when learning English, and that they do it with others in the Utah community. It’s an easier and more fun way to learn, plus they can make new friends. 

That’s why Langton first finds something that the kids are interested in and bases a lesson around an activity. He said a lot of kids like soccer, so one of his lessons involved writing up English words that are related to the sport, talking about each word, using the words in a sentence and going out and playing some soccer.  

Langton’s grandkids also love soccer. He described them as “soccer fanatics” since they have been in competitive leagues and traveled in Utah from St. George to Ogden for tournaments and games. 

Refugees at a sewing class taught at the Utah Refugee Center. Photo courtesy of Megan McLaws.

Since Langton knew his grandkids loved soccer, he invited them to the English lesson based around it. He said his grandchildren didn’t expect the refugees to be as skilled as they are, because of their background with the sport, but they were humbled.

“They said, ‘Wow, we didn’t know they were gonna be so good. Those kids are fantastic.’ And they were, so it was a good way to start teaching them English around something they’re intrinsically interested in,” Langton said in a Zoom interview. 

Langton also is a mentor for a refugee named Didier. Didier and Langton have been working together for about a year. Langton helps with anything he needs, including homework, finding scholarships and getting his food handler’s permit. 

They communicate virtually over Zoom and text since Didier lives in West Jordan and Langton lives in Glenwood, a three-hour distance. Despite the distance, however, Langton said his mentee feels like one of his grandkids. He said they are close, and that he’s learned so much from their relationship as well.

Langton said he has learned a lot about Didier’s culture. Didier is from the Congo and Langton has heard his family play their traditional music. Langton said he also was able to better understand the refugee experience after talking about it with Didier when helping him apply to a college scholarship.

“I think he’s taught me a lot more than I’ve taught him,” Langton said. 

This is one of the main goals for the Know Your Neighbor program, for refugees to make connections with local community members. Further, Langton explained that it’s not just the volunteers who should become friends with the refugees. 

He said it’s the responsibility of everyone to make these new arrivals feel welcome and appreciated, adding that refugees are deserving of all kinds of love.

“They’re wonderful students, wonderful people,” Langton said, “hearts as big as any I’ve ever known.”

Lexie Hanks’ kids are always excited to see and feed the goats. Photo courtesy of Lexie Hanks.
Lexie Hanks is up early to feed the goats. Photo courtesy of Lexie Hanks.
Lexie Hanks and her little helper on the goat farm. Photo courtesy of Lexie Hanks.
Lexie Hanks on the goat farm. Photo courtesy of Lexie Hanks.
A tutor helping refugee students. Photo courtesy of Megan McLaws.
Tutoring session with refugees. Photo courtesy of Megan McLaws.

James Pehkonen and Kevin Thole’s mission to strengthen and empower people in their sobriety 

Posted on by
The podcast, “Sobriety Elevated,” can be found on platforms such as Spotify.

Story by MASON ORR

The Introductions

Kevin Thole was in St. Louis in April 2019, about to get onto the plane that would bring him to Salt Lake City. From Salt Lake, he was then supposed to go to Cirque Lodge, an exclusive drug and alcohol recovery retreat in Sundance, Utah.

As he walked down the aisle to his seat, he saw a woman, most likely in her 20s or early 30s, sitting in the seat next to his. 

Thole sat down, sweating and shaking uncontrollably, and looked over at the woman who was opening up what appeared to be a bible of sorts. “I’m like, oh my god, I don’t want to hear any of this crap, here I am going to Utah, she’s probably Mormon, God knows what she’s going to try and tell me,” Thole said in a phone interview.

Thole said his thoughts were interrupted as the young woman looked over at him and said, “Are you OK?” Thole said he told the woman, “No, I’m not. I ruined my entire life and I am about to lose everything.” The woman simply responded by asking, “Can I pray for you real quick?”

The woman prayed for him, and then Thole said she did something pretty incredible. “There was a 50-50 chance that I was actually going to go to treatment. There was still very much the possibility that I would get off of that plane, go somewhere else, and ruin my life completely,” he said.

At this point, the flight attendant was making her way down the aisle with the refreshment cart, which Thole said he was aware had alcohol. “All I needed was three drinks to feel better,” he said. The flight attendant stopped and asked, “What can I get for you?” Before Thole could respond, the young woman said, “He doesn’t need anything, just water.” That was the story Thole told about the woman who saved his life.

Thole started abusing drugs and alcohol at a relatively young age. “It started as medicine to numb my anxiety and uncomfortable feelings I had,” Thole said. However, it quickly escalated to a point where he was gambling, drinking and using drugs every day.

Thole said it finally got to a point where one day three people who loved him — his wife, a business partner and a former pastor — had an intervention for him. In short, they gave him an ultimatum: Get sober or risk losing these people who loved him forever. He chose to get sober. 

James Pehkonen works as a life architect in Salt Lake City for his primary income. This job requires him to talk to his clients as a therapist would and act as their coach through life. He said he is a life architect in the way he helps people rebuild their lives after experiencing trauma or hardship. 

Pehkonen has dealt with trauma as well. “Life happens to everybody,” he said. He has experienced the deaths of loved ones and sexual assault, which led to his own struggles with drug and alcohol abuse. “I have lived a life that has not always been easy,” Pehkonen said. However, he said it is this trauma that has best prepared him to coach others through difficult times now. 

Pehkonen also works for Cirque Lodge, where he does workshops and meditations in group and one-on-one sessions. 

The Meeting

Thole had a roommate at Cirque Lodge for a short time, who told him, “Hey, you’re really going to like this Jim guy. He’s kind of new age and has an unusual approach, but give him a chance.” 

With that in mind, Thole said he went to a couple of workshops with Jim Pehkonen and then decided he wanted to do some one-on-one sessions with him. “I had some pretty major trauma in my childhood, sexual trauma, that I had never dealt with, but when I met with him, I threw it all out there, telling Jim things I had never told anyone in my life,” Thole said.

Thole pretty quickly had what he called a “radical acceptance moment.” He didn’t know if it was the things Pehkonen was saying to him, but he said there was a moment where he was able to accept his life for where and what it was. “At that moment I realized this is not God’s fault, not my fault, it just is. It happened and now I have the choice to feel relief and accept my life for what it is,” Thole said.

Since Thole and Pehkonen met through the recovery retreat, there were very strict rules about when they could be in contact afterward. 

It wasn’t until leaving the recovery retreat that Thole said he decided to look up Pehkonen and reach out. Once the time was appropriate, they began working with each other. Pehkonen acted as Thole’s life coach and friend, which led them to start their podcast, “Sobriety Elevated.”

The Podcast

James Pehkonen, left, and Kevin Thole working on their podcast over a Zoom meeting. Courtesy of James Pehkonen

Pehkonen initially proposed the idea of a podcast. However, Thole said at first he felt that people wouldn’t want to hear what he had to say because he isn’t an expert. However, he said he quickly realized it would be a waste of his recovery to stay silent. Both he and Pehkonen said the most significant goal behind this podcast is to give people hope and empower them in their sobriety.

One of the perks of making a podcast from home is James Pehkonen gets to hang out with his dog Sola. Courtesy of James Pehkonen

The podcast is a way for Pehkonen and Thole to tackle different topics related to sobriety and the recovery process in a way that is easily accessible for people. This podcast was ultimately created in the hopes that it could act as a support system for others going through the same thing, Pehkonen said. 

In October 2021, the podcast had 802 downloads, averaging 200 downloads a week. The men said they hope the podcast will only continue to grow and reach the people who need it. The podcast can be found on a multitude of platforms, including Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic and Reason.

The Conclusions

Both Pehkonen and Thole said they feel empowered due to their own recovery and sobriety. Their recovery from past trauma has freed them from any shame or guilt they once felt. 

They have both found ways to move on with their lives. Pehkonen has created his own business centered around helping others and Thole is a successful businessman who owns five Servpro franchises, a company that cleans up after disasters. Now they said they hope to help others feel this same empowerment in their lives. This is what “Sobriety Elevated” is all about. 

Just as the woman on the plane saved Thole, he and Pehkonen hope to save many other people as well.

Three local women entrepreneurs share their success stories

Posted on by

Online sales boosted their profits and sustained their brick and mortars

Story and photos by RAEGAN ZITTING

Throughout the devastating and isolating year, the pandemic has suppressed companies worldwide. Numerous articles have discussed the tragedies and downfalls of multimillion-dollar corporations. However, these three local companies proved otherwise.

Prominent consumers wandering around downtown Salt Lake City relish incredible women and their successful business stories throughout the pandemic. They represent the triumphs rather than the trials of the unknown era.

Abbey Muse, owner of Animalia in downtown Salt Lake City, shared how her positive outlook and creativity ultimately fueled her small shop and promoted greater success than she could’ve imagined.

Abbey Muse, owner of Animalia and sustainability enthusiast. She graduated with a degree in communication from the University of Utah in 2017.

Muse created Animalia, located at 280 E. 900 South, in 2018 with sustainability and connections in mind.

After the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, Muse was forced to let her employees go and worked alone supporting her shop for six months. She turned her brick-and-mortar store into an online-only presence.

Implementing social media practices was a crucial asset in the marketing of the newly online shop. Promoting self-deliveries, pick-ups, and bidets for the customers who were condemned to their houses as well.

Self-deliveries done throughout the months of March through April 2020 sustained the business and kept it going. Allowing personal connection through an online presence restored loyal customers’ faith and boosted sales when buying non-essential goods was not a high priority.

Muse said bidets were a popular item on Animalia’s online presence.

Due to the shortage of toilet paper, not only loyal customers but also people seeking an alternative to their habitual cotton square leapt to Muse’s site.

With habits changing throughout the population, sustainability became a very popularized new way of living.

The mission statement of Abbey Muse’s small business in Salt Lake City features hand-painted local artistry.
 

Getting back to nature and healing our planet was a big growth factor for Animalia. Muse said that throughout the pandemic her community grew largely in part due to fear but also due to loyal patrons.

Speaking of our local communities The Lady Bag had much success creating an online presence along with Animalia.

Anna Madsen, co-owner of The Lady Bag, said, “Small business had to work even smarter and harder to survive.”

Text messaging campaigns and email chains promoted used goods to women in need of an escape, Madsen said in a phone interview. Finance plans and purchasing of individual luxury items allowed relief for the community along with impactful business growth.

Informational facts to support Animalia and its drive for sustainability, including the process of recycling glass bottles and pictures from the National Geographic.
 

In a time where human connection was sought after, The Lady Bag created live video streams and personal meetings to provide the utmost support for its loyal customers.

The customer base grew significantly throughout the pandemic after the interactive and personal relation allowing for even more growth today, Madsen said.

With more than 100 new customers and a booming social media platform, The Lady Bag has never been more successful.

Production costs and manufacturing issues created hardships. However, rather than focusing on those unpredictable moments, these businesses are proving that challenges can lead to the utmost success.

“My dad always taught me that if you follow your passion the money will follow,” Madsen said when asked about the personal stressors the pandemic had on herself.

Jennifer Johnson, founder of Pro Do Blow-dry bar, had to shift her customer service practices completely to accommodate her business’s new virtual presence.

Creating environment through hands-free communication consisted of drones delivering gift cards to loyal customers. The cameras recorded joyful reactions, which were uploaded to social media and uplifted others by promoting the company’s efforts.

Pro Do Blow dry bar pairs the desires of entrepreneurship with the passion of making women in the community feel beautiful in their own skin.

For Johnson, customer service has always been the top priority for her clients. “It’s not about money or hair, it’s about creating an experience for the customer.”

During the pandemic customer service has grown far more than Johnson could have imagined. Employees stuck by her side and implemented the new practices to create an even better environment.

The efforts of Johnson’s employees and marketing paid off. Customers of Pro Do Blow-dry bar requested a continuance of their monthly memberships just to support the business through its hard time, even though they couldn’t reap the benefits of the program.

Community becomes the entire business model in a time of uncertainty such as the pandemic companies went through last year.

Even in such an unknown time we still manage to pull through, Muse said. There’s a 1% chance that we will ever know what happens or comes our way, she said, but we still have optimism and make it work no matter what.

With busier days, mass markets, and elevated numbers these three shops are now more than ever thanking the pandemic for a new perspective and booming business.

UMFA’s directors talk about the institution’s educational philosophy

Posted on by

Story and photos by SOPHIA JEON

Art museums in general not only perform the basic functions of collecting, exhibiting, researching, and preserving artworks, but also open them up to the public through active educational programs, thus playing an important role as a cultural institution.

As art education in modern society has become an essential component to develop human sensibility and thinking ability, the communication of artistic language within the society is ultimately reaching the educational goal pursued by the museums.

“Walking the Unknown Path” by University of Utah professor Beth Krensky, describing the current pandemic.

Several staff members with the Utah Museum of Fine Arts confidently spoke about the educational outreach they have done to help UMFA become a beneficial leader in shaping the place of artistic communication in the local society.

According to the website, UMFA’s mission is “to inspire critical dialogue and illuminate the role of art in our lives.”

To fulfill the mission, staff have conducted a variety of educational activities for members of different age groups. Annie Burbidge Ream, the co-director of K-12 and family programs, first introduced the institution’s historical programs for the younger generation.

“Two of our longest running programs here at the museum in K-12 and family programs are ‘pARTners’ and ‘Third Saturday,’” Ream said.

pARTners is a program for all fourth-grade students in the Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City school districts. They visit the museum twice a year and participate in a variety of integrated art works.

Despite the pandemic, UMFA has continued the program as a virtual tour, and this is the 38th year to run it.

Third Saturday is a family-based program held on the third Saturday of each month, where everyone can enter the museum for free, browse the galleries and participate in different projects. “It’s meant to be for not just kids making art but the whole family and whatever you see as a family whether it’s your friends or others,” Ream said.

“Our goal is for students to know that they are creative,” Ream said. “It’s important for people to know their creativity as a life skill. We also hope that our programs make students be good critical thinkers so that they can look at the work of art and ask questions.”

Because UMFA is not only the state’s fine arts museum, but is also an institution affiliated with and located on the University of Utah campus, it offers a variety of educational projects to engage with the students and faculty at the U.

Ashley Farmer, the co-director of adult and university programs, described a visual art project she is working on with medical and nursing students at the U. “It is a program where students in small groups look at the same piece of art for about 20 minutes or more for just one painting,” Farmer said in a Zoom interview. “That is for encouraging slow and close looking when they read medical imagery like diagnostic images, EKGs, X-rays, and such.”

In many fields, the visual arts play an important role in conducting research and work. Among them, this program, which tries to relate the medical professions’ process of analyzing the visual evidence to the arts, is a unique way of artistic communication.

UMFA has also focused on different wellness programs that apply the visual arts to everyday life. “We have a yoga program partnering with PEAK Health and Fitness on our campus. … The instructor Jendar Marie Morales incorporates art into a practice and discussion about yoga, which is amazing to connect yoga practice to art images,” Farmer said.

Another wellness program is the mindfulness class by Charlotte Bell, the author and instructor of meditation. “She uses art images as a method of contemplation and conversation, which connect mindfulness practice to art,” Farmer said.

This is the entrance to “Space Maker,” which features art by faculty members.

Art is also linked to music. Mindy Wilson, the director of marketing and communications, said about UMFA’s Sight & Sound that “it’s always been about bringing live music into the galleries to enhance the viewer’s experience on looking at art. … The idea is not that you sit, listen, and watch the musicians, but you walk around to look at the art while you are listening to the music.”

Among the exhibitions currently ongoing at the UMFA is “Space Maker,” a show of works by faculty artists from the Department of Art and Art History at the U. “That’s a wonderful example of our creative shows that recognize the specific talent of the artists who teach on our campus,” Wilson said in a Zoom interview.

This is the UMFA’s Great Hall, which is now exhibiting “2020: Here on Out.”

“2020: From Here on Out” is another ongoing exhibition, featuring murals by artists responding to the global pandemic and racial injustice. “Murals are so good in conveying messages. That’s been really important especially over the past year and a half,” Wilson said.

Virginia Catherall, the curator of education, family programs, visitor experience, and community outreach, expressed her anticipation for the upcoming project called UMFA in the Wild, which will start again in person in the summer of 2022.

“It’s a really fun community program to link nature in art. … I collaborate with state parks in the area and do art with people who are in there. We draw, watercolor, or print anything around us. … Giving the idea of how nature and art intertwined, you can get inspiration from nature to create art,” Catherall said in a Zoom interview.

“There will be an exhibit called ‘Confluence’ that explores water and all the different perspectives of water,” Catherall said. “We work with the natural history museum on campus to give scientific environmental perspective to that project. We also work with a professor on campus who is recording and documenting indigenous lands, waterways, and mountains.”

This is part of the exhibition “Confluence.”

The UMFA’s way of educational communication, which introduces the value of art integrated with various fields to the public in an intimate way, makes it grow into a successful institution.

UMFA hopes to connect with more people in the community and bring them to the museum.

“Our hope is that someone comes into the museum as a small child. I hope that they keep coming. Maybe the small children will grow up as students at the U, those who are in arts creative fields, or their families. We hope that by working with lots of different ages, we can get them into the museum,” Ream said.

Wilson, who handles communication for UMFA, said, “Bringing people in is also about hearing from them what they want. It is important to be more aware of what our visitors want and to be more open to shaping ourselves to fit into it.”

Even the pandemic cannot stop their enthusiasm as educators.

“Seeing something in person is really important. However, we can’t sacrifice people’s opportunities to learn just because we can’t get them into the museum,” Catherall said. “Being able to do this online or virtually has freed us from that constraint of only doing things in person.”

George S. Eccles Student Life Center’s COVID-19 regulations and trends

Posted on by

Story and photos by CHANDLER HOLT     

The George S. Eccles Student Life Center, on the University of Utah campus, is a four-story building complete with a gym, basketball courts, an Olympic size swimming pool, a rock-climbing wall and many other features. Students, staff and Utahns alike are all welcome to use the gym and its facilities. The 180,000-square-foot gym can have hundreds of people inside at once. With the COVID-19 virus still running rampant in 2021, one could think that there should be concerns raised about the safety or practicality of gym usage at the Student Life Center. The U had these concerns in mind while setting the regulations regarding coronavirus, but do gym-goers follow these regulations as tightly as the U would have hoped?

The George S. Eccles Student Life Center located on the east side of the University of Utah campus.

According to the Campus Recreation Services website, the U has been “following state health guidelines and other federal directives” to keep those who use the gym safe. In regard to mask use, the same page reads that masks are not required in the facilities, but the U encourages gym-goers to follow the guidelines established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when deciding whether they will wear a face covering at the Student Life Center.

Sebastian Myers, a U student and avid gym-goer, loves spending his time at the gym playing court sports and lifting weights. Myers said he feels safe in the gym, but he doesn’t like to get caught up thinking about others’ coronavirus safety steps since he can only control himself. Myers also said that he thinks only about 10% or 15% of people in the Student Life Center wear a mask regularly. Since only a little over half of Utah residents are vaccinated, it is hard to believe that everyone not vaccinated is also wearing a mask.

The high courts in the Student Life Center where basketball, badminton and volleyball are played.

Jackson Knaphus, a U student and weightlifting enthusiast, also said that he feels safe in the gym. He then quickly admitted that if a sickness came about, he would suspect he got it from the gym at some point. He also estimated that around 10% of people wear masks in the gym. Knaphus was unsure how much confidence he held in his peers’ ability to stay safe with coronavirus in 2021-22, he added that there is a potential “stalemate” between vaccine rates and case numbers.

Slater Mead, a U student and rock-climbing advocate, agreed with Myers and Knaphus in saying he felt safe in the gym environment. Mead also guessed that around 10% to 20% of people wear a mask at the gym. Despite being vaccinated, he said that he still feels more comfortable wearing a mask, so he continues to wear his face covering at the gym. Mead admitted that he had little to no confidence in his peers’ ability to stay safe with the coronavirus in 2021-22. He said that people are reckless and tend to value entertainment over safety.

Even though all three students agreed on the fact that there are coronavirus-related and mask-encouraging signs everywhere throughout the gym, only Myers and Mead agreed they felt encouraged to wear a mask. Mead said it was hard not to be encouraged just due to the sheer number of signs that give the reasons one should practice COVID safety. Knaphus, after pointing out the fact that the COVID safety signs were plentiful, still admitted to feeling discouraged from wearing a mask due to the small percentage of others who wear masks.

The three students all declared that they had never and would never go to the gym while sick. They also all agreed that if masks were to become mandatory again, they would comply for the good and safety of themselves and also those around them. Mead said he thinks mask use should be much higher than it currently is considering that Salt Lake County is in a period of high transmission. Knaphus added that he doesn’t think another mask mandate would be received well by Utahns.

The Olympic size swimming pool located on the very bottom floor in the Student Life Center.

The Campus Recreation Services website also has a list of guidelines that it encourages all gym users to adhere to. Some of these guidelines are, “Follow all posted COVID-19 signage and policies, please stay home if you have any flu-like symptoms (no matter how mild), please wash and sanitize your hands often, avoid touching your face, and wipe down your equipment before and after use with provided sanitizing spray.”

All these guidelines, if followed correctly, would greatly increase one’s odds of staying safe from COVID-19 while also being able to enjoy the Student Life Center and its facilities. With all the coronavirus safety information a person could ever want available online, people who go to the Student Life Center have the necessary information available to keep themselves and others safe. If everyone does their part, the coronavirus can become a worry from the past. Steps can be taken in the right direction, and it isn’t completely dependent on if an individual wears a face covering or gets a vaccination. Even though those two things may help the most, every small step matters.

The impact of COVID-19 on animal shelters in Salt Lake County

Posted on by

Story by SORINA TRAUNTVEIN

“When push comes to shove, if there’s a major emergency, the community is willing to step up, especially here in Salt Lake,” Guinnevere Shuster said.

But what do you do with homeless animals in a pandemic?

Shuster is the associate director of marketing and communications at the Utah Humane Society located at 4242 S. 300 West in Murray, Utah. In an interview over Zoom, she described its experience during the pandemic.

“We put a call out for foster families to just come take all of our animals, and we had a great response to that,” Shuster said. “We were able to place many of our animals into foster homes.”

According to Shelter Animal Counts, there was a downtrend of adoptions in Utah during March and April 2020, followed by a large spike during the subsequent months. Shuster was able to explain this.

After fostering, many families “did end up keeping the dogs or the cats and a big part of that was, you know, it gave them an opportunity to kind of foster to adopt,” Shuster said. “They got to know the animal.”

Temma Martin, the public relations specialist at Best Friends Animal Society Utah, located at 2005 S. 1100 East in Salt Lake City, shared its experience placing animals in foster homes as well.

“In 2020, through Dec. 24, nearly 5,000 animals were placed in foster homes, and 3,050 were adopted, compared to 2,740 foster placements and 2,514 adoptions in 2019,” Martin said in an email interview.

There was not a large amount of surrenders during the pandemic, which may come as a surprise. This was in part due to the Utah Humane Society’s Pet Retention Program and Best Friends Animal Society Utah’s donations.

The outdoor clinic check-in at the Utah Humane Society in Murray, Utah. Photo by Sorina Trauntvein.

The Utah Humane Society asked those considering surrender to consider other options. Its program offered “resources to keep the pet, whether that be food or some basic vet care,” Shuster explained.

Both the Utah Humane Society and Best Friends Animal Society Utah offer adoption clinics, spay and neuter and a pet food pantry. These programs promote pet retention and helped Salt Lake County citizens during the pandemic.

Best Friends Animal Society Utah requested donations during March 2020 in order to keep up with the high demand for animal necessities.

“We receive a lot of our animals through transfer programs from other organizations. Some of them are local, some of them are in rural parts of Utah. And then we also receive animals from states that are just overburdened with their homeless pet population problem,” Shuster said.

Transfers from other shelters had been temporarily suspended during part of 2020, which meant “it was a little tough for some people to find, you know, the animals they wanted to adopt during the pandemic,” Shuster said.

Abby Buttars with their cat, Henry; he loves cuddling and reminding people to wear their masks. Photo courtesy of Abby Buttars.

Abby Buttars adopted their cat, Henry, from the Utah Humane Society in June 2020. The process had changed, but shelters were still doing everything in their power to put the right pets with the right people.

“I decided to just look on the humane society website and I saw his picture and had to have him,” Buttars said in an interview over Instagram. “So they had me do a phone interview to kinda see if I would be a responsible owner, and then they had me do a Zoom with him and his foster family. Then they set me up with a time for me to come pick him up!”

Appointment-based adoptions were an early change after March 2020, and they’re still in effect now. If you’re interested in adoption, you can make an appointment for Best Friends Animal Society Utah here or Utah Humane Society here.

“Making appointments for certain things has really worked out for the better for our staff and the flow of the animals as they come in through our shelter,” Shuster said.

During quarantine, many people adopted pets because they were home more often and needed to combat loneliness.

The check-in table at the Utah Humane Society, requesting visitors to wear a mask and sanitize their hands before interacting with any animals. Photo by Sorina Trauntvein.

“He definitely changed my life for the better. He’s helped me feel less alone during the pandemic,” Buttars said.

Adoption and fostering went somewhat smoothly during the pandemic, but it was not shelters’ only concerns.

The majority of publicly available purchases were donated to the shelters, such as food, bowls and beds. Necessary items for the clinics were in short supply, such as personal protective equipment (PPE), medication and pet-specialized first aid supplies.

“Especially we saw this in our clinic, where PPE, and that kind of stuff was all going to the hospitals, making sure that our hospitals had enough to take care of their human population, which is just as important,” Shuster said. “So we did have to slow some of our services that we offer to the community, which in our clinic is spay and neuter and vaccinations.”

Those services are running again now, but the supply chain shortage was difficult at the beginning. Utah Humane Society expects that to continue in the foreseeable future.

“There’s also things that we don’t receive as donations, like drugs that we use in our clinic. And we’ve seen supply shortages on those too, in some of these drugs. While there’s other options that we can use, there’s a big cost difference between some of them,” Shuster explained.

As coronavirus continues to wind down, there are still needs that can be filled by those living in Salt Lake County.

“Individuals can help by choosing to adopt pets from shelters or rescue groups,” said Martin, with Best Friends Animal Society Utah. “Other important ways to help are by fostering, choosing to spay/neuter pets, donating, volunteering and spreading the word about animal welfare needs.

Young Utah artists turn to their craft to find relief from the mental health crisis

Posted on by

Story by CHRISTIAN LOFTUS

The state faces mounting rates of mental illness following the pandemic caused by the coronavirus. The CDC reported a jump of 15-19% to 31% in Utah adults reporting anxiety and depression from 2019. A 2021 study performed by the Huntsman Mental Health Institute Occupational Trauma Clinic showed more than half of respondents were at risk of developing depression, PTSD, substance abuse and insomnia.

People under 24 are even more severely affected. Dr. Kristin Francis of the University of Utah said in an interview with ABC4 Utah, “Young people are reporting twice as high of rates in substance abuse disorders and recent suicidal thoughts when compared to adults. We also know from the CDC that emergency room visits for mental health concerns for young people has increased almost 50%.”

To combat the growing feelings of uncertainty, many young Utahns are turning to the arts. Three Salt Lake City-based artists under 30 have used their craft to work through social issues and share their experiences.

Brooklynn Meldrum uses paints to tell stories she couldn’t otherwise say. Although she painted regularly when she was younger, she took a long hiatus until the pressures of quarantine brought her back to it. “I started painting again as a way to express my depression non-verbally,” she said. “I just needed to get it out.”

Artist Brooklynn Meldrum paints symbolic representations of the fight against mental illness, like this piece titled “Depression.” Photo by Chris Loftus.

Her abstract paintings are drawn in bold strokes with bright colors, and each one can be read like an allegory. About a work titled “Depression,” she said, “The bright colors are my true self, and the black over it is the depression I was feeling at the time. See how they spear out? It’s a sunset. Or a sunrise. I’m not sure.”

Kaysville-based artist Madison Stenquist uses Japanese crochet techniques to create tiny figures she shares as gifts. Photo courtesy of Madison Stenquist.

Madison Stenquist makes figures out of yarn to strengthen her relationships. She specializes in “amigurumi,” a style of crochet from Japan that creates miniature creatures. “It’s usually pretty random what I make,” she said in a phone interview. “But usually it’s for other people in my life so I look for favorite animals, characters, etc. Or anything that is cute.”

Stenquist first learned crochet from her grandmother, and uses it to maintain her mental wellness. “Crocheting for me is really helpful to calm my mind down from anxiety,” she said. A crucial part of that calm comes from gifting her art when it’s finished. “It’s always fun seeing people’s reactions to the things I make for them.” Her work can be found on her Etsy page under the name YarnQueenByMadie.

Amelia Epperson started making stickers out of economic necessity. “It was quarantine, and I was broke,” she said in a text interview. “Who wasn’t broke?” She used her experience with vinyl to start selling funny designs online. But her growing interest in the Black Lives Matter movement soon led her into creating protest wear. Her digital shop, Millie Vinylli Custom Tees and Vinyl Creations, churned out designs with intentionally provocative imagery with the intention of attacking racist ideology.

Local artist Amelia Epperson engages her community by creating politically charged protest wear. Photo courtesy of Amelia Epperson.

Epperson considers her work as an activist key to maintaining her mental health in the current political climate. “The only way I can be healthy,” she said, “is if I know that I’m not making things worse for other people. So, I attack the problem where I live.” She encourages others to consider promoting equality through her art. “The goal is to help people. I have to believe that if we get enough people talking, we can change some minds.”

Dreamscapes is the first sustainable art exhibition in Salt Lake City

Posted on by

Story and images by LORNA GAGE

The “Moonman” by Jake Butjier guards the entrance of the exhibit and hints at a larger story created by RJ Walker and Fish Burton.

Immersive art has been sweeping the nation, as illustrated by the 2021 award-winning spaces Area 15 in Las Vegas and Prismajic in Denver. Within Salt Lake City, Dreamscapes serves as no better example.

Under the Utah Arts Alliance (UAA), Dreamscapes is Utah’s first permanent environmentally sustainable art exhibition.

After moving locations and rebuilding, Dreamscapes reopened its doors on Feb. 6, 2021, at the Gateway, 111 S. Rio Grande St. It is an immersive art attraction that utilizes a blend of physical and digital art, creating a unique experience for the observer as they wander through the labyrinth.

Suzanne Raia, the manager of Dreamscapes, described the exhibition as an opportunity for artists who were used to working in two-dimensional mediums to pull their work off the canvas. She said the goal was to create something that people could walk through, experience, and transport themselves in.

Greg Smith kisses the fish in the “Sunken Temple of Atlantis” by Ashley Brown (lead artist), Chelsea Harbert, Darren Gonzol, Tara Mlyenek, and Natalie Bird.

As visitors weave through the network of curiosities, mushrooms and reimagined woodland creatures, they are transported to the ultimate dreamland.

“I am of the mentality that everyone is an artist,” Raia said. “We all have opportunities to create new experiences, from the clothes we put on our back, to the words that come out of our mouth.”

Raia was connected to Dreamscapes through UAA. She said UAA is a nonprofit arts organization that has been around for 15 years. Its mission is to foster the arts in all forms to create an aware, empowered and connected community.

Dreamscapes was initially supposed to be a three-month pop-up in 2017. Raia jokingly said that it was constructed out of cardboard, hopes and dreams. But she said the installation was such a great model and attracted so many people to the Gateway, that Dreamscapes was able to establish a permanent presence and rebuild in 2021.  

Raia said while developing the concept of Dreamscapes, UAA reached out to its network. One of its biggest donors is the Salt Palace Convention Center. Its green initiative coordinator, Nick Zaccheo, saw the considerable waste generated by numerous temporary arts installations. Raia explained that Zaccheo collaborated with the UAA to create a green art exhibit.

Raia said this exhibition has met its sustainability goals by creating a niche way in which it creates art; it accepts as many donations and usable materials as possible.

Not only that, but Raia said the space is able to utilize projection mapping and digital art to make physical pieces come alive. This is a process in which multiple projectors reflect on a surface to enhance an art experience using light and movement over previously static objects.

Lorna Gage investigates a flower to see “Fairy Houses” by Derek Green.

As Ashley Brown, an assistant manager and creative lead at Dreamscapes, watched patrons filter in and out of the exhibit, she said, “I hope they see the way we take everyday items and turn them into something new. It doesn’t cost a million dollars to make cool art.”

Since 2017, Dreamscapes has been dedicated to diverting material away from the landfill for the purpose of creating new installations. In that time, it has helped the Salt Palace Convention Center divert over 50,000 pounds of event materials from going to a landfill.

It has also been able to reduce its carbon footprint by almost 180,000 pounds of carbon dioxide — which is equivalent to 200,000 car miles coming off Salt Lake City roads.

“We’re trying to save the world through art,” Brown said. “That’s really important to us. Hopefully they get that feeling when they’re leaving.”

While being the first environmentally sustainable art exhibition in Utah, Dreamscapes is constantly changing and creating new, interactive experiences for the observer. Bo Dean, a builder at Dreamscapes and member of UAA, said, “We have an ongoing joke that the space is never really finished.”

Dean added that in the process of reusing and upcycling materials, it’s important to free up areas in the exhibit for new artists.

A couch waits for guests in the “Flower Room,” decorated by Katia Racine (lead artist), Andrea Racine, Cami Chatterton, and Kezia Nakagawa.

This wouldn’t be possible without volunteers.

Kaycee Lane is the volunteer coordinator at Dreamscapes. Anyone can get involved through the Dreamscapes website.

Raia said many of the artists started out as volunteers and have created a collaborative atmosphere that inspires creativity.

Furthermore, volunteering leads to other opportunities, connections, and experiences. Raia said Dreamscapes volunteers get the unique opportunity to see and practice the ins and outs of production. This includes stage managing, working with performers, stocking greenrooms, painting, and working with an extensive range of materials. 

Volunteers were especially important in November, when people helped pack Dreamscapes to rebuild in a new location in 2022.

Dreamscapes began the process of packing on Nov. 14. Dreamscapes will be moving to an undecided location in 2022 and still needs help unpacking, reimagining and rebuilding the installation after the new year.

Brown, the assistant manager, said the future of Dreamscapes is to reconstruct the installation in a space that allows it to incorporate more immersive elements, to create a bigger network of artists and to work in tandem with the community. Brown invites the public to discover the secrets of the labyrinth as either a patron or as a volunteer. She said, “It’s a running joke that at the center of the dream universe is a candy covered core.”

How will you die? Preparing for the end of life with a death doula

Posted on by

Story and photos by ALFONSO BELLOSO

A view of the Salt Lake Valley from the historic Salt Lake City Cemetery.

The only certainty in life is death. Before a person’s essence returns to the source, some may choose to leave their final moments in the care of a death doula.

“A death doula is similar to a midwife,” said Katrina Klinge, a volunteer at Hudson Valley Hospital in New York, and a certified death doula. “The birth midwife and the birth doula get everything set up, help prepare, and can be there to bring life into the world. Well, a death doula is doing the same thing on the other end.”

Klinge works with those nearing the end of their life. She said she starts with an open dialogue between her clients discussing particulars such as: What do you want to leave behind? What do you want to be remembered for? When it comes to dying, what do you want it to look like? Do you want to be outside? Do you want to be alone? Windows opened or closed? “It sounds like little things,” Klinge said in a phone interview. “But if you’re lying in a bed and you’re dying, and you can have whatever you want, then you should be able to have it.”

Working with families of the dying has made Klinge passionate about promoting a society in which we can be open to discussing death and dying with one another. She hosts a Death Café through Zoom which differs from a grief support group because it is primarily a space for people all around the world to meet and talk about death in a safe space. “If we have a healthier relationship with our impending death, then we can probably have a better relationship with our life,” Klinge said.

The transition from life to death is an inevitability everyone will eventually have to confront. “It is one of the toughest, if not the toughest thing people will face,” Klinge said. With the support of a certified death doula, these challenges do not have to be faced alone.

To be present and hold the space with someone who is passing on can be a difficult yet fulfilling experience. The path of becoming a doula for the dying is no different.

Jude Higgins’ journey to becoming a death doula began as she was pursuing a doctorate in education at the University of Utah.

Jude Higgins, a death doula and founder of HELD, discusses her meaningful work at a local coffee shop.

Higgins, a first-generation college student, at the time taught anthropology as a tenured professor for 12 years at Salt Lake Community College. During her time as a professor, her father became ill and went to live with Higgins. She cared for her father for three years. “That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.” Higgins said at a local coffee shop. “Afterwards, it was such a transformational experience.”

After witnessing how helpful the people were who came to assist her father, Higgins volunteered at a hospice thereafter. Once her work began, the hospice volunteer coordinator suggested Higgins take a class in death doula work.

Higgins then began training under the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy. She completed a Spiritual Care Residency at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Vallejo and Vacaville, California.

She hadn’t imagined that her life would lead in this direction. “My first career was in dance,” she said. “A very dear mentor of mine reached out to me. I started with her when I was 17. I ended up dancing in her company and teaching at her studio. She called me and said, ‘I want you to be my death doula.’”

She had just completed the training and her only prior experience was with her own father. “So, I worked with her. I worked with her every day for six months,” Higgins said as tears began to collect in her eyes. “She taught me. She was amazing.”

Higgins would go on to work with more families and become the founder of HELD, a death doula training program located in Salt Lake City. In addition to teaching, she also works in hospice, is a spiritual care provider at Primary Children’s Hospital, and continues to assist families through the end-of-life process.

She worked with Sarah J. Jackson when Jackson’s mother received an unexpected terminal diagnosis. “Choosing to be so present and practicing ritual to help my mom transition peacefully helped me to really understand the profound magic of the work death doulas do,” said Jackson, who is a presidential associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

“I knew death was not something to fear but experiencing it in the context of hospice in particular and with the loving support of Jude and others who offer end of life care drove this home,” Jackson said in an email interview. “Death certainly is not something to fear, even when it is surrounded by terrible feelings of loss and grief, it is a part of our humanity, and it makes us more human to bear witness to it.”

The Salt Lake City Cemetery, the largest municipally-owned cemetery in the country.

Higgins, along with many others around the world, is making a profound impact on how people experience the end of their life by making the end of life a meaningful and transformative experience. “It’s grieving, and it’s difficult. It’s hard,” Higgins said. “Birth is hard. I think it’s a cycle. We need death doulas, like we need birth doulas.”

All that begins will inevitably end. Planning for death does not need to be a formidable task. This universal truth can be confronted in spaces of comfort.

“People can run away from it as much as they want. But she’ll get ya!” Higgins said with a laugh. “She’ll get all of us in the end.”

The diversity and importance of Black-owned businesses in Salt Lake City

Posted on by

Story by KAYLA LIEN

It is 5:45 a.m. and Timothy Horton Jr. has just started his day. He wakes up his daughters, 2 and 4, and gets them ready for school. After dropping the 4-year-old off, he then heads back home, toddler in tow, and starts to create.

A Chicago native and University of Utah alumnus, this father of two is the CEO and founder of Koda’Fe, a luxury streetwear brand based in Salt Lake City. 

An assortment of new products from Koda’Fe. Photo courtesy of Timothy Horton Jr.

Horton came up with the name Koda’Fe back in 2009, but didn’t really start putting his ideas down on paper until 2016, when he legalized it as a limited liability company (LLC). Koda’Fe is actually an acronym for “Keeping Our Dreams Alive For Eternity,” and with “fe” being the Latin word for “faith.”  Horton notes that “a lot of positive energy went into creating this name.”

This idea of positivity and growth is the base of Koda’Fe. It’s all about “bringing everyone together,” Horton said over Zoom. “Koda’Fe is a brand for every culture. …  Koda’Fe will be focused on uniting everybody and ending racism in general. … I say it every time, Koda’Fe is bigger than a fashion brand and I stand on that.” 

Koda’Fe boasts a substantial Instagram following, with big names such as Rayjon Tucker of the Philadelphia 76ers and Derrick Rose of the New York Knicks being seen wearing the brand’s clothing. 

However, the support hasn’t always been there.  

Growing up, Horton said his mom “didn’t really understand.” Having been in and out of fashion since he was eighteen, Horton always knew what he wanted. His mom, however, was strict about having a stable job that paid well. He has since earned a degree in economics. While certainly useful in the long run, Horton repeatedly pushes the concept of listening to “nobody but yourself.”

Koda’Fe is part of a growing number of Black-owned businesses in Salt Lake City. Minorities make up 22.3% of Utah’s population, yet a little under 7% of Utah startups are minority-owned. While that statistic looks bleak, as of 2013, three areas in Utah (Ogden-Clearfield, Salt Lake City, and Provo-Orem) experienced a growth of at least 40% in minority-owned businesses.

Mikell (far right) and Stephanie Brown (left) and their kids wearing T-shirts from Edify Collective. Mikell is the vice chairman and events committee lead for the Utah Black Chamber. Photo courtesy of Tabarri Hamilton.

Across the city, Tariq Staton puts in a nine-hour work day before going into his garage to get started on orders. Staton, the founder and co-owner of Utah-based clothing brand Edify Collective, juggles a full-time job to support his family on top of running a company that isn’t yet profitable. 

“We haven’t taken any money out of the company. Everything that we make is either donated or put back into marketing or apparel or new designs and things like that,” Staton said in a Zoom interview. “Our goal is to just put out good product and put money back into the community and things we believe in.” 

Edify Collective donates 15% of its profits back to the community through providing youth therapy sessions and supporting nonviolent movements fighting social inequality. Incorporating this message of positivity and unity was something the brand had wanted to do from the beginning. 

Within the first trial week, the company raised $1,000 for the NAACP. Six months after that, Edify Collective donated over $2,000 to the Utah Black Chamber.  

Moving his toddler out of view of the screen, Staton said, “When I was a minority youth, it was hard for me to express anything I was going through at that time to either my family or my friends. … Just speaking for the Black community, I know that it’s taken as a sign of weakness if you talk about … struggling with depression or talking about suicide and things like that … they’re shown as weak. So a lot of people don’t talk about it, but we want to bring that forward and say that it is OK.”

Edify Collective got its start in June 2020 after George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were thrust into the limelight, having been killed by police. Staton’s wife wanted to do a photoshoot wearing shirts that were meaningful, with graphics depicting themes of unity and togetherness. After that initial photoshoot, Staton said, “We got a lot of people asking, you know, like where do we get the shirts and where can they get them.”  So, the Statons turned it into a business. Since then, Edify Collective has put out numerous T-shirts and hoodies, as well as beanies, the latter with a little help from a company called Embrogo.

The Embrogo trailer camper at Ironsmith Coffee in Encinitas, California. Quinell Dixon (left) hands an item to a customer. Photo courtesy of Jenna McKay.

It’s a snowy evening in Salt Lake City and Quinnel Dixon has logged onto Zoom from his phone. “Can you hear me? My son busted my phone,” he says. Dixon sports a dark blue cap with the words “EMBROGO BRAND” stitched in bold lettering.

Quinell and Adrienne Dixon are the owners of Embrogo, a business founded in 2017 that curates  “personal embroidery on the go.” Embrogo boasts small batches of personalized baseball caps, beanies, tees, patches, and even shoe tongues. It was an idea for a “side hustle,” Quinell said, not intending to be much of anything. However, the Dixons realized there was a market for this type of embroidery, whether it be for a small business or an individual wanting items for themselves. 

Adrienne is the one sitting behind the embroidery machine, while Quinell is out in the community promoting the business. Their company saw a really positive impact once the Black Lives Matter movement took the spotlight, both in sales and customer support.

“People wanted to speak about what was going on, right, and they put it on their apparel,” Quinell says. “Another thing that happened, too, is people started to realize that, hey, we may not be able to do things right now when it comes to police brutality, when it comes to unfairness and injustice. But what we can do is support the people who are still around, who are people of color.”

The community has really embraced Embrogo, says Quinell, who adds, “We’re also glad that people are starting to really realize that small Black businesses is very far and few in between.”

Buying from small businesses has become a trend since the pandemic hit, one with gratifying results for many company owners.

Within the United States, there has been a tangible shift toward supporting local businesses, especially those owned by people of color and women. The U.S. Small Business Administration reports in 2020, the number of small businesses in the U.S. reached 31.7 million, which is 99.9% of all U.S. businesses. However minority-owned businesses make up only 18% of that, according to the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.  

Supporting small businesses is essential, Quinell says. “You put the money back into your own economy and your ecosystem thrives. Not necessarily with revenue, but thrive in areas of being able to take care of their families. … Small business is bigger than just another ticket or another dollar or another revenue. [The owners] support their families on it.”

Salt Lake City is determined to take charge of curbing homelessness: Who is putting in the work?

Posted on by

Story and photos by PAIGE NELSON

As the weather warms up, tents are beginning to line the downtown streets of Salt Lake City.

Tents lining streets, garbage in flower beds, needles scattered across public parks. This is the picture that is painted in most individuals’ minds when thinking about homeless people. 

Stripping down any perception of a human living in these conditions, all the public sees is unshaven men sleeping on sidewalks and drug addicts pushing stolen shopping carts full of personal belongings. 

While this stigma surrounds low income Utahns, there is work happening behind the scenes actively trying to help individuals get off the streets and back into the community. 

Kat Kahn, director of development at The Road Home, has had ample experience helping the homeless population of Salt Lake City. 

“Our No. one goal is to move people out of emergency shelter and into housing as quick as possible,” Kahn said in a Zoom interview. “The majority of the people we serve stay under six months.”

The Road Home is one of the oldest homeless centers in Salt Lake City, established in 1923. It has grown to having three emergency shelters across the Salt Lake area, not including overflow shelters used during the winter. 

The Road Home stresses housing first. Each emergency shelter is tailored to the individual in need, and there are three options to choose from:

The Men’s Resource Center in South Salt Lake is located at 3380 S. 1000 West and houses 300 single men. 

In Midvale, another shelter is located at 529 W. 9th Ave.,where 300 beds are provided for families. 

Finally, the Gail Miller Resource Center is located at 242 W. Paramount Ave.and is a 200-bed split shelter for both men and women.

The public perception of the homeless community is one of the most challenging factors that Kahn deals with on a daily basis. Upward of 100 children facing homelessness at a time may have to jump through extra hoops to not feel the embarrassment that comes from lack of housing. School buses in Salt Lake City pick up the children at the shelters first on their way to school, and drop them off last so that their peers don’t see their living conditions. 

The Road Home helps families and individuals pay their first months’ rent so that they can get their feet under them and start providing for themselves again. Kahn explained, however, that for about 13% of homeless people that won’t work. Those who face disabilities, have substance abuse disorders, or who are chronically homeless might not make it out of the shelters in that six-month period. 

Homeless shelters in Salt Lake City work with each other, as well as apartment companies, food banks, and mental health facilities to create a healthy environment for those who come to seek help.

Volunteers of America, Utah, is a nonprofit that works with homeless shelters in the area, including The Road Home.

Andrew Johnston, chief strategy leader at Volunteers of America, said in a Zoom interview, “We’ve been doing street outreach for a number of years … there are a lot of folks who are outside all year round who don’t have housing, and we are just offering basic needs and services to them … and trying to get them housing.”

These basic needs are things like getting homeless people IDs so that they can get medical help and subsidized housing. Volunteers of America also helps people get into detox centers and off substances they might be abusing.

While lots of work is happening out in the city, there is another, smaller, community that is making great strides in helping people experiencing homelessness as well.

The basement of the student union at the University of Utah is in the process of building a new basic needs office to help students facing financial hardship and homelessness.

The University of Utah, home to 25,000 undergraduates, works daily to help find affordable housing for its students. The Student Affairs Division acts as an umbrella to multiple departments and centers on campus, including those focused on student diversity and inclusion.

Kimberly Hall, an associate director of development for Student Development and Inclusion, explained in a Zoom interview that the U helps students facing food scarcity and financial problems, and experiencing homelessness. 

“We want to take that concept and ideally help students learn to negotiate the university system as well as community resources to address their needs,” Hall said.

Student Affairs is creating a new office in the student union basement. It will be located next to the Feed U Pantry with the goal that more students will start to utilize the resources that they are paying for.  

The renovated area will be child friendly for parenting students, and will contain a financial wellness office to help with issues ranging from rent assistance to domestic violence situations. Because of its close proximity to the Feed U Pantry, students will also have access to food if they don’t have the money to cover that extra expense.

All across Salt Lake Valley the community is getting involved and making a difference in curbing homelessness.

Kat Kahn, director of development at the Road Home, is one of those individuals who is working hard every day to help people experiencing homelessness. Kahn believes that, “Anyone that wants to be housed should be able to be housed without it being really problematic.”

The world’s greatest snow is melting, and it might not come back

Posted on by

Story and photos by HOUSTON FULLER

A smoke plume is emitted from a Rocky Mountain Power smokestack.

For Evan Robison, the air quality index wasn’t always something he thought about when he wanted to step outside to water his plants. With summer inversions getting worse every year, Robison’s doctors now suggest staying inside if possible. For many older adults living in Utah, this may seem all too familiar a struggle.

“I think it’s gotten worse because it’s causing health problems for elderly people. When I was first living up here there were no problems, but it’s gotten worse,” Robison says when comparing the air quality in the Salt Lake Valley to what it once was. Born in 1942, he has had a firsthand experience of these changes taking place right in front of his eyes.

Utah is placed in a geographical location that exacerbates typical climate issues that other states in the U.S. might be able to handle easier. 

Logan Klingler is a resident of California who moved to Utah to attend college. Living in California gave he a different understanding of how climate change affects our daily lives. “I’ve visited and driven through the valley here many summers when I was younger, and I always remember stepping out of the car to stretch my legs and the wind itself being hot — that was a new experience for me, coming from the coast,” Klingler says in a Zoom interview.

Even with a limited knowledge of the climate in Utah, certain events in Utah made headlines across the nation, putting Utah’s climate issues in the spotlight. Klingler recalls a particular inversion from 2019 where “a giant smog cloud” was looming over the Salt Lake Valley. He was largely unaware of some of the issues Utah’s climate faces, however. “I didn’t think it was worse than it should be,” he said. “Anywhere in a valley with no coast or something to let the smog escape is going to have air quality problems.”

Factories and industry are significant contributors to Utah’s high emissions.

One of the most pressing issues Utah’s climate faces is accelerated warming caused by a higher altitude, drier weather, and most importantly, high emissions.

Emissions are temporarily trapped by surrounding mountains in northern Utah. Storms typically carry out the bad air and smog, but these emissions are still warming Utah’s climate. According to the Utah Climate Action Network, Utah is actually warming at twice the global rate, which could have devastating impacts on not only our environment, but also our economy.

Logan Mitchell, a University of Utah research assistant professor with a doctorate in atmospheric sciences, says, “We would have really devastating heatwaves in the summertime. There is a model of springtime snowpack under a high emissions scenario, and the springtime snowpack disappears in 50 years from now.”

In a Zoom interview, Mitchell says he attended a panel discussion a few years ago where one of the panelists was a sustainability manager for Alta, a world-class ski resort located in Utah. “Another [presenter] showed … in 70 or 80 years the springtime snowpack is going to be gone.” The panelist said that in another 80 years — the same amount of time Alta had been in business — “Utah could have no springtime snowpack if we were in a high emissions scenario, and the ski area would then cease to exist.”

Mitchell adds, “We wouldn’t have the greatest snow on Earth.”

The accelerating warming would melt springtime snowpack and make summers even hotter. This warming could cause droughts that last decades. “As climate change continues to unfold, drought conditions in the Southwest will get worse,” Mitchell says. “There is a very high risk of a severe drought extending over not just years, but potentially decades. A decade-long severe drought would absolutely cripple Utah’s economy and our ability to live because we need water.”

These issues present very real threats for Utahns and the Southwest as a whole, but Mitchell suggests that the future might not be as bleak as these projections make it out to be. Many of the models and scenarios he presents are under the assumption that we do nothing to combat this climate crisis. Yes, climate change will bring about catastrophic and devastating effects, but Mitchell doesn’t want to downplay all of the strides we are taking toward a cleaner and cooler climate.

“But, I don’t think any of that’s going to happen,” Mitchell optimistically states regarding the devastating effects of climate change, “and the reason why is because there have been huge advances in research and development, and deployment of new technologies that are zero emission technologies to the point where they are cost competitive with fossil fuel energy. … Today, producing energy from solar is cheaper than coal.”

Mitchell points out that many Utah politicians are working together to find bipartisan solutions to the climate issues that are unique to Utah. He believes that the existing climate issues Utahns face provide a unique advantage for promoting systemic change at a political level. These issues pose real health risks to many Utahns, making it hard to deny that the climate is changing drastically. Despite that, Mitchell says he believes that “Utah is going to change the national conversation on addressing environmental challenges and being good stewards of the environment.”

Community during COVID: How University of Utah student groups are staying connected

Posted on by

Story by MIRANDA LAMB

Students at the University of Utah, much like the rest of the world, were sent home in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic forced classes and extracurriculars online. In the fall of 2020, students were partially brought back to campus with classes offered in a hybrid-style. This largely consisted of online teaching, and classes that were able to meet in person had spaced-out seating and mandated masks.

A return to in-person academics was made a priority, but the lack of in-person community was a persisting challenge. Campus organizations, which rely on student engagement, have worked hard to stay connected to undergraduates during the past year.

The Panhellenic community, made up of seven sororities, has found success in not only staying connected, but also in growing its community. The Panhellenic President Erin Doyle said in a Zoom interview that rather than decreasing their sisterhood events or weekly chapter meetings, sororities have worked hard to adapt these events to be online.

In August 2020, Panhellenic hosted its yearly recruitment completely virtually (although they were able to have a partially in-person bid day). Despite this unprecedented challenge, it had more women register than in 2019, and several houses saw the largest member classes that they had seen in years.

Part of Delta Gamma’s fall 2020 new member class at their bid day, wrapping up a fully-virtual recruitment. Photo courtesy of Anna Henderson.

In February 2021, several sororities participated in a successful spring recruitment. Notably, Doyle said Delta Gamma was able to welcome a spring member class of 15 women, the first spring member class that it’s had since 2015.

Members of the community miss being in person. However, Doyle said that through social media the “supportive aura of the community has been making everyone feeling more connected.” Doyle also praised the houses for their creativity. Rather than just meeting up in the park for a picnic, women have hosted virtual Jeopardy games and Zoom “speed dating” events for new members of the house to meet everyone.

The LGBT Resource Center is another resource that is “making sure there are still opportunities to be in community,” said Shelby Hearn, the coordinator of education and outreach, in a Zoom interview. Its members had to think more creatively. Similar to the Panhellenic community, one of its biggest challenges has been the loss of its in-person offices and its student lounge.

Hearn said that pre-pandemic, “my door was open and students could come through. I definitely saw a lot more casual conversations — they see a picture of a cat on my desk, and talk about that, then eventually are talking about a coming-out strategy.”

The center has responded to this challenge by offering drop-in hours, Zoom appointments, and a virtual student lounge hosted via Discord. Discord will likely continue as a resource post-pandemic, Hearn said. “It remains really relevant to our students. They can dip their toe into the community while still remaining anonymous.”

Discord also allows students to find a more a relevant community. “Students can sign up for more specific channels, i.e., queer students of color, or a channel just for grad students,” Hearn said.

Although the center has seen a decrease in participation in its one-time events like its movie screenings and panel events, it has still seen consistent participation in some of its other events like its “fab Friday” hangouts (now over Zoom). It has also seen an increase in its one-on-one scheduled meetings along with the successes from the Discord channel.

Another community that has seen successful connection despite the pandemic is the Bennion Center.  BobbiJo Kanter, the associate director of student programs, said in a Zoom interview that several of its programs have had more student involvement than they did pre-pandemic.

A wall in the student union building (where the Bennion Center is located) dedicated to the Public Service Professor Award given by the center. Photo by Miranda Lamb.

The service corner located in the new freshman residence hall, Kahlert Village, has been heavily used by students. She said in an email interview that “students (and anyone from the campus community) have the opportunity to participate in projects that do not require any previous training or a significant time commitment.”

Bryce Williams, the student programs manager at the Bennion Center, said in an email interview that students have taken advantage of “ʻgrab and go’ opportunities” while still being safe. He said that they will “participate in some of our projects while watching a movie in their residence hall rooms or while they’re in a virtual class to keep their hands busy.”

Kanter said in a Zoom interview the center has also involved more students with its Alternative Breaks programs. These used to be offered at various locations across the world. However, due to travel restrictions, it has shifted to “hyper-local breaks” taking place in Salt Lake City. These are offered at no cost, which has allowed them to be accessible to more students. Kanter said this option may remain post-pandemic.

Despite its current success, getting up and moving after the initial shutdown was a challenge for the Bennion Center. Kanter said at first, “everything stopped, there were groups of students who were ready to help, but didn’t know how to.”

The Bennion Center emphasizes serving its community partners, focusing on listening to and serving their needs. Kanter said for those partners, “their priority has to be their community and their staff, so those people take priority then volunteers come after that.” It took some adjustments on both the part of the Bennion Center and its partners to navigate how to allow volunteers to help in the way they want to, but also in a way that is safe for and serves those in need.

The center has had to shift the way that it hosts its larger service projects as well. For example, the Legacy of Lowell service project typically brings in 800 to 1,000 people. However, this year participation was capped closer to 200 people, with volunteers broken into groups of 10 at each site.

Kanter said because of the smaller sizes, “we don’t get that same sense of community. People were still interested, we reached capacity. There is a demand, but for safety, we have to keep things smaller.”

Beyond just pandemic-related changes, Kanter said that the murder of George Floyd and the surrounding protests in May 2020 “mobilized students to show up — whether physically or mentally and internally,” and brought attention to “some of our systemic issues.” She said “this year had brought people together around activism. I’m not really sure we saw that with our students before.”

To serve this increased interest in activism, Kanter said in interviews that every two weeks, the Bennion Center has been virtually hosting monthly “community conversations” with other on-campus partners, namely the American Indian Resource Center, the Black Cultural Center and the Peace and Conflict Studies program in the College of Humanities. They are focusing on dialogues about “about what is happening and what they can do to change it.” She said these talks have been received well by the campus community.

Dean McGovern, the executive director of the Bennion Center, said in an email interview that “the topics vary and sessions have attracted more than 825 faculty, students, staff, and community members over the course of the dialogue series.”

Despite the changes and challenges from the pandemic, these communities were able to stay connected. The creativity and resilience of their members even resulted in solutions that will continue to serve students when in-person life continues. As Kanter said, “This year gave us an opportunity.”

How COVID-19 has impacted Utah’s live music industry

Posted on by

Story by SKY NELSON

You’re in a crowded room, bopping your head to the beat of the music as you weave your way through other dancing, sweaty bodies. Maybe you have a drink in your hand, and you are on your way to your friend’s table. Everyone around you is laughing and talking over the music, but all you care about is one of your favorite songs blasting through the speakers, being played live right in front of you.

You’re at a concert and you feel amazing as the energy around you surges through your veins. You feel the drums in your feet and the bass in your chest. You finally see your group of friends and make your way over to them, smiling as you exclaim, “What a fun night!”

George Kelly, founder of Keys on Main, during a live performance. Photo by Rita Mangum.

Except, you probably haven’t been to a concert in months. You are more likely to be in your pajamas right now, reading this from the comfort of your couch.

Since March 2020, the live music industry in Utah, as well as across the globe, has been struggling. Unlike other industries that keep the economy going, the live music industry’s hardships are unique because the product it’s selling isn’t a tangible thing, but rather an experience.

“Live performance puts an emphasis on people coming together and enjoying something that is spontaneous and is an experience and an event,” said Jordan Saucier, a Utah musician. He was speaking by Skype while he was driving to Elko, Nevada, with a colleague to do a paying gig.

Saucier is the definition of a working musician, meaning all of his income comes from performing live with his array of different bands he participates in, working in studio recording sessions, and teaching private guitar lessons.

Despite having a bachelor’s degree in commercial music from Snow College and a master’s in music technology from Southern Utah University, Saucier said his income took a hit “big time” when everything shut down March 14, 2020.

In 2019, Saucier was playing three to seven gigs a week, every week, totaling 135 performances. One of his groups — No Limits, a party band — traveled all around the country for paying gigs. He said the money he made from those live performances accounted for about two-thirds of his income that year.

Now, Saucier only performs locally once or twice a week, which is much better than how he was doing last spring. Because of the pandemic, all his gigs scheduled throughout 2020 got cancelled, and he didn’t get booked anywhere for over 10 weeks. Teaching guitar lessons brought in some money for him, but a lot of his students quit lessons during the first stages of the lockdown.

In one month, he lost an estimated $5,000 and calculated a loss of about $30,000 for the remainder of 2020. Saucier said he realized he needed to “diversify” his income in order to stay on his feet as a working musician. He was able to start his own business called Casino Entertainment Group in which he produces, manages, and books bands for casinos.

Keys on Main, a dueling piano bar franchise founded by local musician George Kelly, has seen hardships as well. Kelly’s two locations in Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, have been completely shut down for a year. The Keys on Main in California was forced out of business in the spring of 2020.

Thanks to government assistance and the fact that Utah has been “looser” regarding COVID-19, as Kelly said, Keys on Main in Salt Lake City, 242 S. Main St., was able to re-open in May 2020. Due to the new capacity restrictions, sales went down about 30 percent, and the company had to hire more staff because it had lost 23 employees while Keys on Main was closed.

The Salt Lake City Keys on Main has reopened to patrons for live performances on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Photo by Rita Mangum.

The local dueling piano bar managed to stay afloat throughout the summer and into fall, but on Nov. 9, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert issued a mandate banning alcohol sales after 10 p.m. Keys on Main was able to get through those four weeks of the alcohol ban, but sales were down 50 percent, Kelly said.

This decline in sales isn’t just tough for the business, but for its musicians as well. One of Kelly’s friends, David Holloway, is in a popular Mardi Gras jazz band that played for high-paying, huge events before the pandemic. For Mardi Gras this year, the band performed in Salt Lake City’s Keys on Main for free because the musicians were itching to perform on stage and had no other gigs lined up, Kelly explained.

Of course, it’s not all about money. It’s about the music!

Excellence in The Community is a nonprofit organization that has been showcasing Utah musicians since 2005. “We’re trying to help Utah musicians, and we believe that by helping Utah musicians have better performance opportunities and more performance opportunities, and by having these concerts be offered to the public at no charge, we’re helping Utah communities,” said Jeff Whiteley, founder of Excellence in The Community and a musician himself. “The potential contribution of these fabulous musicians of all genres has generally been overlooked, so that’s where we come in.”

On a recent Friday night, Whiteley was at the Gallivan Center, 239 S. Main St., Salt Lake City, setting up for a livestream concert featuring the Xiné String Quartet. The performers and volunteering staff had their temperatures taken when they entered the building and then they filled out forms about COVID-19 symptoms. It showed the organization’s dedication to safety and health as it worked to put on a quality livestream performance.

A behind-the-scenes photo of Excellence in The Community producing a livestream featuring the Xiné String Quartet. Photo by Sky Nelson.

According to Whiteley, the organization has produced over 910 shows in total since it was founded in 2005. The Gallivan Center is the headquarters of Excellence in The Community and has hosted most of its concerts since 2006.

Before COVID-19, the nonprofit put on big band dance events every Tuesday night, where everyone could go to have a music and dance-filled night with their loved ones. Better yet, the local musicians got more exposure, a top-tier stage to perform on, and a regular paid gig to look forward to.

Excellence in The Community’s big band dance event. Photo by Lex Anderson, official photographer for Excellence in The Community.

Since March 2020, Excellence in The Community has had to adjust in order to continue helping local musicians. That support is needed even more now than it was before. Instead of cancelling concerts, Whiteley said the organization has doubled its shows and has put all efforts into producing livestream concerts.

The nonprofit produces a livestream concert every Wednesday and Saturday night, showcasing some of Utah’s best musicians in a variety of genres. Despite a huge loss of funding in spring 2020, the livestreams have proved to be a success. Since that March, the organization has reached over 7 million views in total, according to the website.

“Music is a spiritual experience. Music is a recharging experience,” Whiteley said. That’s why the volunteering staff with Excellence in The Community do what they do. Livestreams are a great way to keep local musicians in business during this pandemic, but they are not equal to live performances.

As musician Jordan Saucier said about live performances, “The musicians are reacting to each other, reacting to the audience, and the energy exchange between all these people is a unique thing at each event.”

Utah’s thriving religious communities exist right under our noses

Posted on by

Story by ABRAM BERRY

Utah is unique in a lot of ways. Compared to most communities, where talking about religion is regarded as a taboo, it is often the primary subject of conversation. Salt Lake City famously is the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — widely known as the Mormon church — and is a cultural hotspot for members of the faith.

However, despite a majority of Utahns belonging to that church, it is not the only faith that exists here along the Wasatch Front. In fact, a number of thriving religious communities are hiding in plain sight.

Rev. Martin Diaz is a pastor at the Cathedral of the Madeleine, the mother church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City.

There are many reasons as to why someone might join the clergy. But for Diaz, the source of his calling was simple. “The short answer is God,” Diaz said.

The beautiful Cathedral of the Madeleine is the most famous of Salt Lake City’s Catholic churches, but there are a number of other parishes throughout the valley.

The Cathedral of the Madeline in Salt Lake City was completed in 1909. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

“Each parish is involved in its local community,” Diaz said. The parish in West Jordan has a food pantry, the Cathedral has a sandwich program, and some other parishes do clothing drives.

“The people in the parish obviously live in the neighborhood, so for the most part, they’re engaged in the things that are going on in the area,” Diaz said. “Formally, Catholic Community Services is the outreach for the whole church that we do in the state of Utah.” This organization provides a variety of services, including refugee resettlement. According to Diaz, approximately half of the refugees settled in Utah go through Catholic Community Services.

Muslim refugees play a unique role in Utah’s Islamic community. According to Shuaib Din, the imam of the Utah Islamic Center, approximately 80% of the 30,000-60,000 Muslims living between Ogden and Provo are refugees. The Utah Islamic Center, being the largest mosque in the state, is critical in terms of supporting these individuals and their families.

One issue with having the majority of a congregation being made up of displaced people, is that there is not a significant influx of cash coming in from them.

“You can’t expect them to donate,” Din said in a recent phone interview.

But what’s more important than paying their dues, Din said, is getting congregants to become involved in the local Muslim community. However, he is hopeful that the recently completed mosque in West Jordan will serve as a draw. The beautiful new building, which was finished in 2020, is a classy gray and blue and features an impressive spire called a minaret.

The mosque holds four Friday services each week in order to respect social distancing practices, while also allowing as many people as possible to come worship.

“I think that’s pretty unique,” Din said. “I don’t know of too many mosques in America that hold four Friday services.”

Utah’s Jewish population is even smaller than the local Catholic or Islamic communities, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t just as passionate. A number of synagogues exist across the Wasatch Front, including Congregation Kol Ami and Chabad Lubavitch of Utah, both located in Salt Lake City, as well as Temple Har Shalom in Park City.

Elana Fauth is an employee of Hillel for Utah, an organization for Jewish students on Utah’s college campuses. Fauth said that being Jewish in Utah provides some unique challenges.

Hillel for Utah participants posing for a photo at a 2020 event. Photo courtesy of Elana Fauth.

“The feeling of otherness in a place where there is such an established and cohesive culture can be difficult to navigate. I will say that this immediate ‘othering’ makes for a tight-knit Jewish community that is loving and accepting of everyone around them,” Fauth said.

There are a number of denominations in Judaism, with varying levels of observance, that are all part of the larger Jewish community.

“Depending on your levels of observance, the road blocks are even more difficult to navigate: finding kosher food, keeping Shabbat, or plucking up the courage to ask for the day off for Yom Kippur. The list goes on,” Fauth said.

Shabbat, or the Sabbath, is the weekly rest day that Jews observe every Saturday. Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year in Judaism, and is traditionally observed through fasting, intensive prayer, and a day spent in the synagogue.

Fauth said that there are definitely things that all Utahns can do to make the Beehive State a more inclusive place for Jews.

“Make yourself aware of Jewish holidays, specifically our High Holy Days. As a recent college graduate, I myself am now currently working with college students, and my heart aches for students who feel that they have to choose between their academics and their religious observance,” she said. “The one thing I always tell people is that, to a Jew, expecting us to come to class, take tests, etc., on Yom Kippur is as outlandish as asking us to come in on Christmas.”

Awareness of holidays and other celebrations was something that Father Diaz stressed as well. “I think [Utahns] need to have an awareness of feast days,” he said, adding that he expects people to have some knowledge about the celebrations of the various communities. “For us,” he added, “Easter is the big one coming up. On Easter Sunday, we go to church. A lot of people come. The singing is beautiful, and the prayer is great.”

Throughout all the conversations, the overwhelming theme was that Utahns ought to be more educated about these communities, since they are, in fact, part of our community. Go out and learn about them. Visit a mosque, go to Mass, or attend a Shabbat service. Donate to organizations supporting Muslim refugees or volunteer at a local synagogue.

Most importantly, open up a dialogue. Imam Shuaib Din from the Utah Islamic Center thinks that Utahns are going to be up to the task. He said, “People don’t mind talking about religion in Utah.”

An inside look at the University of Utah’s baseball program

Posted on by

Story by DANNY BAEZA

Photos by BRAD LAPP

Everyone knows that being a student-athlete is extremely difficult. But, does anyone ever think to ask, “What goes into the day-to-day process of being a Division I baseball player?”

The University of Utah has an outstanding athletic department with nationally ranked teams such as football and gymnastics. However, other sports such as baseball seem to go unnoticed.

One such example is Utah baseball — another outstanding program belonging to the Pac-12 conference in the NCAA.

So, what does go into getting the ball moving on a day-to-day basis, and what does it take to be a baseball player?

“In the fall, it usually starts with a lift in the morning around 7 am. Then, I get some breakfast to refuel after the lift. Next up is class from 10 a.m. to1 pm. From class, I head over to practice which usually starts at 1:30 p.m. Once we finish up there at around 5 p.m., I head up to get some dinner, then head home to get done with all my homework and hopefully in bed by 11 p.m.,” says Justin Kelly, a redshirt junior on the pitching staff.

Justin Kelly gets set to deliver to home plate.

Kelly is the Friday night starter for the Utes, considered by many to be the leader of not only the pitching staff, but also the team itself.

When it comes to what it takes mentally, Christoper Rowan Jr., a redshirt junior on the team says, “It takes a mature mental approach because baseball is a game of failure and if you get down on yourself you can continue to spiral downward.”

Rowan enters his fourth year with the team listed as a catcher/utility player.

Concerning the academic aspect of being a student-athlete, Kelly notes, “If you can put forth the energy to be successful on the field, you’ve got to be putting that same energy in the classroom.”

First-year athletes are expected to complete two hours of study hall a week. Along with the study hall, players are given tutors when needed and are counseled by the athletic academic advisor.

Behind the scenes, Logan Nehls manages all the logistics of getting a Division I baseball program rolling. Recently, he was awarded the position of director of operations for the program after working as an equipment manager within the Utah Athletic Department.

“I’m responsible for a lot of the logistics of the program, whether it’s coordinating meals, buses, or travel accommodations,” Nehls says.

Nehls has had his hands full. As the season gets underway, he not only has to focus on how to travel, feed, and house 35 people, but also do it while juggling COVID-19 precautions.

Athletics come with a toll, especially in a sport as mechanical as baseball. Justin Kelly suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his freshman year, forcing him to sit out for 22 months. “I had never been through any sort of injury before, let alone something as serious as Tommy John Surgery. I leaned heavily on my teammates, friends, family, and training staff to keep my head in a good place while I was getting back to good health,” Kelly says. Tommy John Surgery being the process of repairing a torn ulnar collateral ligament in the elbow.

Christopher Rowan Jr. throws down to second.

Rowan, on the other hand, has had to go under the knife twice to repair an injured shoulder. “The second surgery crushed my spirit,” Rowan says. “I lost my love for the game for a while and if it wasn’t for my little brother pushing me and being there for me when I needed him I would have given up.”

Baseball is a game of failure. A player with a .300 batting average fails 7 out of 10 times, yet he is still considered an all-star. Managing those seven failures thus additionally makes baseball a mental game.

Rowan admits, “It’s inspiring to see little kids who want to be just like you. Kids who look up to you because you have made it this far.” That is what motivates him to keep pushing forward.

For Justin Kelly, his family motivates him. “I want to get to the point where my family is financially taken care of and I can say I’ve gotten to the point where I belong where I should be.”

Remembering to focus on what motivates them is what helps these athletes continue on, and to push through the demanding lifestyle of a student-athlete.

Not only is college baseball a difficult business, but it is another social outlet for these young men.

“I’ve created relationships that will last the rest of my life here. Some I may even consider family, that’s how close we have become,” Rowan says.

When it comes to relationships with coaches, Justin Kelly says, “I consider them sort of father figures where if I’m having any life issues or problems, I know they will take the time to listen to me and help me out the best they can.”

Kelly has advise for the next generation of ballplayers. “Don’t be discouraged when things don’t go your way, just put your head down and get back to work.”

Rowan says, “I would say that if you dream it you can achieve it. But, dreaming is only part of what needs to be done.”

Division I baseball is a difficult lifestyle, but when it comes down to it, it is nothing but young men playing a game they love.

Experts urge water conservation to protect the Great Salt Lake

Posted on by

Story and photos by BROOKE WILLIAMS

As Utah emerges from another dry winter, the snowpacks are at a fraction of where they should be. This raises concerns for Utah that go beyond yearly water supply.

Weber Basin Water Chief Operating Officer Darren Hess says “every day that we don’t receive snow we get further and further behind the normal years.” 

One of Utah’s many reservoirs in Farmington, storing leftover water from snowpack runoff.

The primary source of Utah’s water supply comes from the snowpack runoff, which is expected to shrink as it replenishes the lack of soil moisture from the recent years of drought. 

Hess said in a Zoom interview that he anticipates water restrictions to be in place this summer. He emphasizes that people should stay educated on how to water their yards because they “don’t realize how much water is used when they run their sprinkler system.” 

He estimates that on average 3,500 gallons of water are used each sprinkler cycle, accounting for up to six weeks of household water use. 

Paul Brooks is director of the Hydrology and Water Resources Interdisciplinary Program at the University of Utah. “Even if there aren’t any restrictions active,” he said, “people should think about how they are using their water.”

The water saved from one sprinkler cycle could go toward other concerns posed by the lack of snowfall, like the agriculture industry, economy, and even the future of local ecosystems. 

Conservation includes little things like turning off the water while brushing teeth. Brooks said these efforts can really add up and help preserve our drinking water supply.

“The more water we use the less goes to the Great Salt Lake. It’s about 10 feet lower than its long-term historical average right now,” Brooks said. 

The lake not only provides a home for brine shrimp and a food source for millions of migratory birds, it also acts as an air purifier to the surrounding Salt Lake Valley.

Great Salt Lake Institute Coordinator Jaimi Butler has studied the Great Salt Lake since 1999. She compares it to a California salt lake, Lake Owens, which was dried up by water use in the growing days of Los Angeles.

“When the lake dried up it essentially turned into a ghost town because the dust was pretty inhabitable. It’s not just dust, it’s salt and particles and stuff that we don’t want in our lungs,” Butler said in a Zoom interview. 

Lake Owens’ bed was covered with 2 inches of gravel to prevent dust from blowing, and has since cost over $2 billion in Los Angeles tax revenue in an ongoing effort to reclaim the lake. Butler puts this in perspective, stating that while Lake Owens’ bed covers 110 square miles, the Great Salt Lake has a much bigger area with 1,700 square miles of lake bed. 

She fears the impact and complications the lake could face after repeated years of drought and overuse of water. Utah’s culturally historic lake is at serious risk of being dried up, which Butler expresses goes beyond air quality. The local economy and wildlife depend on the lake, and she said it’s impossible to truly predict and see the future of Utah with a dried up lake.

“It’s worth over $1.3 billion every year, it’s over 600 jobs that contribute to the local economy,” she said. 

As for the hundreds of bird species that visit the lake each year, this could have a serious impact on their migration and survival, Butler said, as the Great Salt Lake is one of their only places to go.

“It’s this very incredible place that people come from all over the world to study and watch our birds,” Butler said. “There’s not other places for the birds to go. This is one of those last places, so any change in the ecosystem is gonna affect the entire system.”

Jaimi Butler studies with Sarah Null, a professor at Utah State University, who found that streamflow and precipitation, while highly variable, are not showing any overall long-term change. In her Salty Seminar, Null says the suffering state of the lake is due to humans’ overuse of water. 

While agriculture accounts for 63% of water use in Utah, compared to 11% municipal and industrial, much of that water used for agriculture disperses back into rivers going straight to the Great Salt Lake. 

Great Salt Lake flats on the southwest side of the lake. This is where Jaimi Butler described finding the first of many pickled birds. This preservation happens due to the high salinity of the lake.

The lake becomes more saline as less water is saved for it because the only way water leaves the lake is by evaporation, and the only way it receives water is from what residents do not use. This makes human impact on the lake’s health much bigger than it seems on the surface, Null said, because the water never makes its way to the lake. 

“Trying to understand all the crazy nuances of how the system works is what it’s going to take to save the lake,” Butler said. 

Utah experts, including Butler, Brooks from the U, and Weber Basin Water COO Hess, promote programs like Slow The Flow and use of resource websites like SnoTel.

These programs provide a simple way to educate people about what they can do to help, which ultimately comes down to water conservation.

“It’s incredibly important that we use it as efficiently and thoughtfully as we can,” Brooks said. “It’s essential to everything that we value yet we take it for granted.”

Project Homeless Connect: COVID-19 changed its plans, but not its commitment

Posted on by

Story and photos by JANE KREMER

Oct. 9: This would have been the day where service providers, volunteers, and the majority of those experiencing homelessness in Salt Lake County would meet at the Salt Palace for services to be rendered and received. But, the COVID-19 pandemic changed the plans.  

Project Homeless Connect, a nonprofit organization run by its committee and volunteers, holds a service event for those experiencing homelessness in Salt Lake County annually in the fall. 

According to the organization, among the most popular services provided by this event are medical, dental, vision, and haircuts. In 2019, 125 service providers and 900 volunteers aided over 1,000 people currently experiencing homelessness, with over 3,000 services provided. 

Project Homeless Connect’s fall 2019 service event at the Salt Palace in downtown Salt Lake City.

Mike Akerlow, executive director for Project Homeless Connect in Salt Lake City, started the organization here in 2017 after attending a panel discussing homelessness and PHC in other cities across the U.S. 

Akerlow, who worked for the mayor of Salt Lake City at the time, gained traction for PHC through resources and press coverage from the mayor and support from the community. 

The Salt Lake City Library and a Veterans Administration program, Project Stand Down, had held events similar to those previously conducted by PHC. As Akerlow assembled a team for PHC, he incorporated those programs into the event. 

After running the Salt Lake organization for three years, Akerlow said the organization has been able to improve each year by making its steering committee stronger and refining services provided to people experiencing homelessness. 

“Every year we look at how do we make this the best experience for everyone coming,” Akerlow said during a phone interview. “I think the point of it is to make sure people [experiencing homelessness] are getting connected to the right things.”

In 2020, however, Project Homeless Connect has had to change its events due to the health and safety restrictions of COVID-19. 

Originally, PHC planned to hold events every Friday in October at different homeless resource centers where service providers and volunteers would meet to aid the population. Then, with the surge in cases of COVID-19 in late September, the events fell through.

“Once cases started going up, some of our service providers also got a little bit nervous, so they decided to pull out,” Akerlow said. “And it made sense, we didn’t want to expose people who are experiencing homelessness.”

One of the biggest challenges for the committee this year was reducing the number of 900 committed volunteers down to 20 volunteers due to health and safety restrictions.

Volunteers, from left, Nate Kremer, Robyn Kremer, and Mandy Allen collect donations from community members at a donation drive in October 2020.

“People in our community want to help. I think there’s a lot of people out there who don’t have organizations that they already go to or belong to, and they’re looking for ways that are more meaningful than the traditional service opportunities,” Akerlow said. “And Project Homeless Connect provides that for a lot of people.”

Rethinking how PHC will continue to serve in 2020 and 2021 has been challenging with new information daily surrounding COVID-19. Committee member Natalie Clawson, one of the logistics coordinators for PHC, said the centers that the team planned to visit went the whole summer without a positive COVID-19 test result. 

But as the rise in numbers of COVID-19 in Salt Lake City became more prevalent, PHC had to postpone bringing the services to the centers. 

“The executive directors at all the centers totally understood why we needed to postpone the events,” Clawson said during a phone interview. 

Clawson, who’s been a part of PHC since the first year as a volunteer, said her job description this year is far different than a normal year. 

“At first it was very scary,” Clawson said. “But then as you dig into it, you’re like, you know what this is an opportunity to create and to get everything on its head and rethink what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.” 

Reinvention, as Nicole Handy, the other logistics coordinator for PHC, said, is what this year is all about. 

“As we know, nothing is easy about 2020,” Handy said in a phone interview.  

Handy said the committee knew it wanted to keep the same values and goals while delivering the services this population needs. 

“There is something really rewarding of going in and organizing this event that overall has a really positive outcome,” Handy said. “We are excited when we are able to get back into the centers to really bring some of those high priority [services] in.”

The Project Homeless Connect team held donation drives throughout October, accepting donations such as clothing, hygiene items, and pet care products. It also had a donation link on its website, and had an Amazon wish list that members of the community donated to. 

Bags of donations waiting to be distributed to homeless resource centers across Salt Lake County.

For spring of 2021, PHC plans to return to the original idea of visiting the homeless resource centers weekly to provide services, meals, and donations. Members of the community can learn more about volunteer opportunities for PHC in 2021 and sign up through the website.

The committee for Project Homeless Connect, according to its website, has committed to the idea that “COVID-19 has changed the plan but not our commitment to serving our homeless friends.” 

As Mike Akerlow, executive director for PHC in Salt Lake County, said about the first year, “We did it, somehow we did it.” Little did he know, the very same thing could be said about Project Homeless Connect in 2020 and 2021.