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SALT LAKE CITY — Although admiring and purchasing art from local creators and invited guests from around the country is a large part of it, the Utah Arts Festival aims to make each attendee a creator.
Wandering through the booths of paintings, jewelry, sculpture and repurposed found objects, one might find themselves with the itch to put together a little art project of his or her own — and the fest has made it easy to do just that.
Make Salt Lake, a “makerspace” for people to explore their creativity, has a number of arts and crafts projects for the whole family, including lanterns with LED lights inside, duct tape roses, finger knitting, tile painting, crocheting and magic wands.
“People sit down and they’re intimidated by a blank canvas, and we try to encourage them to just start,” Lisa Haskell, a volunteer with Make Salt Lake, said. “Just sit down and go for it, and if it doesn’t work, do it again.”
The volunteers from Make Salt Lake brought some of the impressive technology from their space, including a drawing robot that doodles right before your eyes. Their space also includes sumo robots that festivalgoers can program to fight each other.
“We made this app, so it gives you choices,” Ali Asgar Kutiyanawala, one of the brains behind the robots, said. “You can make your choices in the software and then have your robot fight.”
The whole project was dreamt up and created by makers from Make Salt Lake in less than a month.
“The best moments of learning are when you fail,” Henry Haskell, who sits on the board of Make Salt Lake, said. “And then you say, 'why did that not work?' — that’s really the breakthrough moment. So we try to get people to realize that failure is not a bad thing.”
Elsewhere at the festival, sponsors of the Kids Art Yard have put together an Egyptian themed “art playground” to encourage children to make things that teach them about the ancient civilization. From painting hieroglyphics on mummies and real papyrus paper, to make a custom crown, to designing a cat mask (because the Egyptians worshiped cats), the Art Yard has it all.
Summerhays Music Center is even sponsoring an “Instrument Petting Zoo,” where children can take turns playing violins, flutes, cellos, trumpets and more. The whole thing is supervised by volunteers, who walk children through each process. In fact, a sign in the Art Yard encourages you to let your children run free.
The Leonardo is open with no additional charge to festivalgoers, and includes artists creating murals and pieces right before your eyes, and a chance to make stop-motion and animated films.
Step up and create word art with the Community Writing Center with its gigantic magnetic poetry board and workshops on how to make your own comic books.
There are stages featuring live music and dance performances from artists like Fictionist, Wiseguys Comedy and the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, for those more inclined to be art spectators than participants. In all, there’s something for everyone at the Utah Arts Festival.
The festival runs through Sunday, from noon to 11 p.m. at Library and Washington squares.
Michael Morrell
Amanda is a writer and pop culture fanatic who studied journalism at BYU. She has written for a candy store, a US Senator, Deseret News, an art museum, Entertainment Weekly magazine, a beauty company, KSL and several artists and musicians. Find her on Twitter @amandataylor88.
