









Just after dark on Wed the 27th an email came in from a fellow SLC artist, informing me that his neighbor had just recovered a pair of my trout that were lying in the street/median after an apparent hit and run by a car. This is the same group that was hit by a car previously, and I headed up to see how the triple group faired. The triple group was hit as well, but the ground was soft from our recent weeks of rain and they were just pushed to a 35 degree tilt- all the welds held and they weren’t dented this time. There was still a stream hoop from the missing pair topping one of two shoved-over poles, the hoop was in good shape save for the missing everything else. There was a lot of car debris: headlight, grill bits, trim, etc. It must have been a newer car with the updated pedestrian safety standards, saving the sculptures from the beating they had taken a few years ago. I headed over to the rescuer’s house, she met me at the door telling me a pair of young fellows had helped her lift the sculpture into her SUV. Her husband helped me move the pair of trout and their remaining hoop into the truck- and easy shift across.
While still up in MT Jann had thought maybe I could create a big version of my rough tri-color Collie, Nora. When I returned to SLC Jann told me she had put Nora on the mural list, so to really make her. I liked the collage process, so after I finished Beckanne I drew up Nora to scale and banged out the collage. At this point I thought I was done. I had been working flat and this was the first time I’d hung it on the wall. I reworked her eyes, delineating the orbits which helped clarify her personality- not pictured.
Both Nora and Beckanne will be digitally photographed and the entire mural of more than 200 people. They will be oddballs, as most are done in a “street art” method of 2-toning a photograph and making stencils to spray paint. All figures and portraits are then arranged as digital tiles, then it will all be printed out as an enormous banner and affixed to a building exterior here in SLC. The theme is a celebration of SLC women through history.
My friend Jann Haworth is leading a group-made mural (over 200 people involved). Years ago I helped get another group mural of hers in SLC started (when I was director of SLC’s youth arts programming), and did 5 figures on it: SLC Pepper. It was a re-imagination/update of her grammy award winning album cover for The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Jann asked me to make one of the large figures for the front row of the new mural. I drew it out while in Montana at 2/3 life size, then had Kinko’s enlarge it to the mural jumbo scale.
I just realized I did more work on her after this shoot, but anyway…Jann tells me it is “pure witchcraft”.
Sunday morning re-installation of Bonneville Upstream.
The rest of the morning was up at the intersection of 2100 S 1300 E, with the long turn lane still closed for street construction. This gave us a nice safe space to park and work from. The City’s public art coordinator, Kat Nix, brought hardhats and safety jackets for the guys, and pitched in with the work. The director of Salt Lake City’s Arts Council, Felicia Baca, also stopped in, joking around at how I used to be her boss back when I ran Global Artways for the City. After Jed and I had dug out the holes and installed the paired group into concrete footings, Chris made a quick trip up to help us lift the triple group into position and slurry in the concrete. Everything went swimmingly, and the trout are happily in the current again.
Yesterday the pair received stainless poles, today the triple got theirs.
This morning’s email had a message from the City; the shattered poles have been removed from the sculpture site and re-installation is game-on. Time to get the Trout on their new poles!
All welds, road rash & dings, car paint & rubber bumper transfer have been turned back to fish skin and stream stones with grasses.