Utah Trip

Utah sunset through a dirty front window.

I got back from my Utah trip yesterday afternoon. I exhibited at the inaugural Salt Lake Art Fair at the Mountain America Expo Center, sharing a booth once again with my friend Steve Stoops from Phoenix.

The drive to Sandy, Utah was pretty uneventful. My van, with its new coolant reservoir installed, made it with no issues. Always so beautiful driving through the Virgin River gorge, been so long since I had been up there.

It has been a long while, since my last trip with photo buddy Ken. I stopped in Beaver, Utah, trying to buy a t-shirt. Last time we were in Beaver, I was driving him to the hospital after he had a bad spider bite.

I had seen a Beaver Liquor t-shirt before and thought I would get one. 

There is only one state owned liquor store and I guess they had enough of the juvenile tomfoolery and changed the name to Beaver Spirits. No more salacious t-shirts.

Damn, I mean darn. I was in Utah. I get it. Time to grow up, I suppose.

It was hard to drive so close to Zion and Escalante and not stop.

I stayed in St. George the first night, had a four or five hour drive to my destination the next day. 

The Wasatch mountains still had a good amount of snow for mid May.

I checked into my hotel and ordered DoorDash for the first time in my life.

I had incredibly good Neapolitan pizza from a place called Pizza Limone, a mushroom that I added prosciutto to.

So good, I was quite surprised. 

Incredible flavor.

But it turns out we ate a lot of great food in Utah.

Steve showed up a few hours later and ate his slices.

Next day we started setting up our booth up in the massive hall.

The set up crew was at least a day behind and were still setting up lighting trusses and fixing electrical.

Did not seem like it would be finished. 

The promoter was painting wall panels.

Anyway, this is sort of how our booth turned out.

I had called the promoter earlier and told her I was bringing extra paintings and she gifted me another free wall up front, by the half a million dollar Aston Martin the local dealer had brought over to display.

They brought a beautiful Bentley convertible and a Lamborghini too.

There is obviously a lot of new tech money in the area and in Park City over the hill.

The show was interesting. Lots of buzz, lots of music a real celebration of all kinds of art. Dance, what have you. In terms of art the great majority was contemporary. I had not done such a contemporary show since FADA in Los Angeles and that was a while back. There were maybe five vintage dealers total.

I think most of us did rather well.

Unfortunately the modern people did not or at least most of the ones I talked to. Three dealers packed up and left in the middle of the show, something you almost never see.

It was tough on a lot of these artists who incurred considerable expense traveling to the show and setting up beautiful booths. Dreams got crushed. I thought about a new name for my business, tested by time, much easier than being a new flavor.

Much of the work was not exactly to my taste but that is beside the point, they were trying.  And reaffirms my position that I can't do living artists and contemporary.

Too emotionally debilitating. For all concerned.

Not too sure about neo-emotionalism, honey, you are getting neo emotional again...

They had craft people and painting people, Utah artists, sculpture artists and a Native American wing.

A cool guy from Minneapolis named Bruce Shapiro had some very cool kinetic sculptures, Medusa and Sisyphus.

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I sold fairly well, considering, had major interest in things that people thought long and hard on and then passed. 

I think the economy and gas prices are hurting expendable purchases greatly. 

Steve did well too and sold a big collection of Utah paintings that he owned with John and Nat to a local dealer.

I had a cool idea for a bumper sticker that I will probably just forget.

Please remember I came up with it first.

So what else?

My odometer turned 100k miles on the van this trip. Great vehicle.

We ate great, Chinese, Nepali and Italian. 

Found a joint in Midvale with xiao long bao, rock sugar roasted duck, dungpo pork, bok choi and more. 

Delicious. Next day we had delicious hot pot.

Incredible.

We used some pull from a local merchant and managed to get a reservation at Valter's Osteria, one of the finest Italian meals I have had in years.

I had a veal scaloppine with wild mushroom ragu, Steve had a fruta de mare. Phenomenal trio appetizer, homemade biscotti and chocolate for dessert. If you are ever in Salt Lake City and want an expensive but great meal, this is the place!

What else?

Met some fun people. This guy was handcuffed to his briefcase.

Steve is part Pawnee. 

An older native fellow from his native area of Oklahoma recognized that he was tribal, that was cool.

I got a no caller id phone call from somebody named Billy Bob that I almost didn't answer. 

I did.

Guy asked if I still had the shop and told me to go fuck myself. Older gent.

I think I know who it was but I am not sure. 

Started going through my enemies list.

Won't be taking any more calls from cowards like this, hopefully.

Anyhow, another successful trip. I like Utah, people could not have been any nicer. The Wasatch range is the most pretty backdrop any city could ever desire short of maybe Ouray or somewhere in Switzerland.

Would I do the show again?

Sure I would. I hope the promoters feel good and proud regarding their efforts. Just needs a few tweaks and a collector base that hopefully will be getting more educated every show.

We went into an antique mall on a setup day and they had tape over the nipples of a nude painting. I enquired regarding their motivations and they said that they were merely guarding against temptation. 

Funny.

A cold front came in hard our last day. It just started to sprinkle on us at the end of packout.

Steve hit the road early and ran into major snow and rain.

In May.

I left the next morning, rain and remnants of the night's snow all the way to Cedar City.

 Here is another picture through my van window.

I actually didn't mind, forced some of the speeders down to my normal sluggish traveling speed and I enjoyed the scenery.

I had to pick up a painting in Los Angeles yesterday morning and spent the night in a dump in Barstow. 

Got home yesterday afternoon, the yucca rostrata in my front yard is just starting to bloom, not full strength yet but gorgeous still.

I'm a travelin man, 'nother show next week.