THE NEW BEEHIVE
October 6, 2021 – January 21, 2022
The New Beehive is a contemporary approach to The Grand Beehive, a 1980 exhibition that explored representations of the beehive symbol in various aspects of Utah culture. The New Beehive exhibition, presented by the Utah Division of Arts & Museums, is a collaboration between the Folk Arts and Visual Arts programs—it brings together the work of 30 Utah-based artists who exemplify the diversity of artistic expression in visual media and craft found statewide. The artists were invited to create a unique artwork employing the beehive and associated imagery as a concept, motif, or metaphor. The resulting pieces are a collection of deeply personal interpretations of what it means to be a resident of the Beehive State in the 21st century.
Header image: Industry, Daniel George
The New Beehive (La Nueva Colmena) es una aproximación contemporánea a The Grand Beehive (La Gran Colmena), una exposición de 1980 que exploraba las representaciones del símbolo de la colmena en diversos aspectos de la cultura de Utah. La exhibición The New Beehive (La Nueva Colmena), presentada por la División de Artes y Museos de Utah, es una colaboración entre los programas de Artes Populares y Artes Visuales, y reúne las obras de 30 artistas afincados en Utah que ejemplifican la diversidad de expresiones artísticas en medios visuales y artesanales que existen en todo el estado. Se invitó a los artistas a crear una obra de arte única empleando la colmena y las imágenes asociadas como concepto, motivo o metáfora. Las piezas resultantes son una colección de interpretaciones profundamente personales de lo que significa ser un residente del Estado de la Colmena en el siglo XXI.
About the Artists
Abe Kimball currently resides with his wife and children in the rural township of Indianola, Utah. Much of his free time is absorbed in either printmaking or making things from found objects. He obsesses about people and their cultural symbols. He tasks himself with incorporating material culture into his art because he says, “Better than anything else, our belongings reveal our beliefs about the physical world.”
Kimball is also dedicated to teaching in public schools and Snow College. He has been entrenched in the arts since he was a small child, watching his artist father and learning how to represent his ideas visually. He received classical training in visual art, as well as in socio-cultural anthropology at Brigham Young University. Ultimately, Abe has a satirical eye for archaic subjects.
Adam Larsen is a passionate artist and teacher of visual language. His philosophy of art and teaching embraces the idea that art occurs when craft and concepts homogenize. He is dedicated to promoting the practice of fundamental visual and dextral skills in a variety of artistic disciplines. His work cannot be categorized completely by one artistic medium but instead exists in varied forms of drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. This mixed media affiliation allows him freedom as an artist to produce work in any combination of material and process, informing and enhancing his particular concept. His current work can be characterized as a visual reflection of his life as he attempts to translate commonplace occurrences into intimate visual dialogs utilizing the visual and tactile container of artists’ books and sculptural assemblage. The work includes the use of toys and elements of childhood play, metaphorically creating a reciprocal relationship between early memories and the awareness of adulthood. Adam has exhibited his work extensively throughout the region, around the country, and internationally. He is currently a tenured Professor of Art and Gallery Director at Snow College in Ephraim, Utah where he teaches drawing, 2D design, mixed media, and printmaking.
Alison Neville graduated magna cum laude in 2016 with a Bachelor’s of Fine Art from Weber State University. She lives and works in Bountiful, Utah as the Education and Outreach Director at Bountiful Davis Art Center. Her work has been shown nationally as part of pop-up shows, galleries, fundraisers, and city-funded projects. She organized Nasty Women Utah, an all-female identifying show, protesting our previous president, and raising funds for Planned Parenthood Utah. Her work varies widely including drawings on paper, dioramas, mixed media, textile, and polymer clay sculpture. Along with contemporary projects, she illustrates coloring books for adults (Fungi Fancy, Sacred Sloths, and Sultry Sea Slugs), serves on the board for the Mushroom Society of Utah, and contributes miniature works to refurbished cigarette vending machines called art-o-mats.
Ashton Young has been a professional artist and craftsman for twenty years, working as a full-time studio artist and consultant. He is experienced in stained glass design (fabrication and restoration), historic restoration projects, as well as interior design and construction. He has designed and created numerous museum frames for original oil paintings placed in many countries. He also works in ceramics, casting, decorative ornamentation, printmaking, pen and ink, oil painting, furniture design and fabrication, woodworking, and carving. He has a BA in History from Brigham Young University.
Daniel George is a photographic artist whose work is rooted in the medium’s documentary tradition and explores the interconnection of place and culture as it relates to communal and personal identity. Having lived as a transplant in various locations throughout his adult life, he uses the camera to study defining characteristics of the communities within which he resides. The resulting photographs are his attempt to visualize and understand the idiosyncrasies of human activity in these local cultures. Daniel’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and has been published internationally in both print and online publications. He is currently based out of Vineyard, Utah.
Danielle Susi is a writer and fiber artist originally from Boston, Massachusetts. Much of her work focuses on preserving landscapes and geographical features that are disappearing due to climate change, deforestation, or other human-driven environmental harm. Her work has been shown at Finch Lane Gallery, Bountiful Davis Art Center, and the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, among other locations. She received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and currently lives and works in Salt Lake City.
Douglas Tolman is an interdisciplinary artist primarily practicing in rural Utah. He is a current MFA Candidate & Global Change and Sustainability Center Fellow at the University of Utah who believes a sense of place is the strongest tool we have for fixing the many socio-ecological problems in the Mountain West. With his practice, he hopes to facilitate a sense of place within the community by reframing historical narratives and promoting civic participation in the places we call home.
Heidi Moller Somsen was born in Saskatchewan and raised on the coast of British Columbia. She received a BFA in Ceramics from Brigham Young University (1995) and an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Utah (2011). She is a two-time Utah Artist grant recipient and has been included in three publications: 500 Figures in Clay, Volume 2, Utah Art Utah Artists: 150 Year Survey, and Utah Painting and Sculpture. Currently, she teaches at the Waterford School and works out of her Sandy studio. Although she is known for her evocative ceramic figures, Somsen enjoys experimenting with a wide variety of materials and processes. Common themes in her work include anxiety, memory, feminist theology, and erosion.
Humberto Sanchez Conejo, also known as Beto Conejo, is an artist from South Salt Lake, Utah. Beto was born in Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico, and lived there for a year before migrating to the U.S. with his family. Although he practices and celebrates his Mexican heritage, he would describe his experience as an immigrant in this country as Chicano. Beto was able to focus on his art career at the beginning of the 2020 pandemic and participated in PangeaSeed Foundation’s “HOME,” the world’s first stay-at-home environmental mural festival, and the Urban Arts Festival. His main mediums are spray paint and acrylics though he has no art education in these mediums other than experience. Key themes from this artist include struggle, growth, perspective, and empowerment. Beto strives to be a full-time artist and continues to create across mediums including film, photography, stage design, and fashion.
Jamie A. Kyle is a photographer based in Salt Lake City, Utah. She completed a BFA from Weber State University and pursued an MFA from the University of Utah. She now works with local artists and other people's old family photographs, and spends time managing the gallery for the Downtown Artist Collective. She prefers to work with a scanner rather than a camera, collecting images from paper ephemera both old and new.
Jann Haworth is closely associated with the 1960s Pop Art movement in Great Britain and holds two unusual distinctions: a female Pop Artist and co-designer for the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover for which she received a Grammy. She has had 23 solo exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. Her most recent solo exhibition was held at the Gazelli Art House in London and previously on display at Granary Arts in Ephraim, Utah, was Work in Progress, a one-of-a-kind collaborative mural project that celebrates women. Haworth was a contributor and director for eleven public works projects in Salt Lake City. Most recently she worked on the 6000 square foot mural celebrating the ratification of women’s voting rights, Utah Women 2020, for Zions Bank on the Dinwoody building.
Jeremiah Tuchyner is a photographer and digital media designer based out of Salt Lake City. Currently an architecture student at the University of Utah, he is heavily inspired by the buildings, geography, and stories that make a place. Salt Lake City has proven to be a rich and deep creative subject and he shares his work and explorations via his Instagram page, the Hunchback of Temple Square.
John Tavoian was born in Murray, Utah but moved with his family to California at the age of twelve. He came back to Utah at the first opportunity and has lived here ever since. John always enjoyed drawing but never pursued art in any serious way until he needed a couple of fine arts credits for the degree in mathematics he was pursuing at the University of Utah. After finishing the mathematics degree, he decided to return to the University to explore his newfound passion for art. In the course of this exploration, he found his true expression in the world of sculpting. John finds great satisfaction in the creation and the sharing of his geometrically abstract works.
Julie Strong was born and based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and has also lived in Wisconsin, Montana, Idaho, and Canada. Her artistic inspiration comes from nature and her relationship with spirituality. Works portray her belief that value in life comes from acts of living, not in reaching an end goal. Each interaction weaves the cloth of Life and she aims to reflect this in her art, which in turn acts as a mirror for others to examine their own lives. Being entirely self-taught, she seeks to evolve through experimentation with techniques, materials, and motifs. She works in linen, wool, silk, cotton, and glass beads with hand embroidery. Spirals and swirls interconnect, expanding and contracting to depict the movement of life and the universe. She has received several awards and had work featured throughout Utah in various exhibitions and juried shows including the Springville Spring Salon, SLCC President's Art Show, and the Eccles Statewide Competition.
Justin Wheatley was born and raised in Clinton, Utah. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Utah State University with an emphasis in drawing and painting. His work is influenced by his love for nature and architecture. Justin currently resides in Salt Lake City with his wife and four daughters. Justin is represented by galleries across the West and his work appears in the collections of the Springville Museum of Art, Marriott International, Salt Lake County, the LDS Church, and the State of Utah Alice Merrill Horne Art Collection.
Kalani Tonga is a hafekasi (biracial Tongan/Swedish) artist and published author living in Midvale, Utah. She is the Director of PEAU (Pasifika Enriching Arts of Utah), a nonprofit organization geared towards helping Pacific Islanders and members of marginalized communities develop and monetize their artistic talents. Kalani's artwork is an extension of her "hafekasi weirdness," in that she takes traditional Polynesian patterns and employs them in unusual ways and with a non-traditional color palette. Kalani's artwork was chosen by Walmart to represent the community as a mural in the Millcreek location, and she was recently commissioned to participate in Utah’s Thrive125 art project, honoring Utah’s 125 years of statehood. Kalani paints custom pieces by commission and is currently working on several projects for upcoming art exhibitions.
Kate Ithurralde is a Salt Lake City-based embroidery artist who likes to create commentaries about historical, pop, and political themes.
Laura Sharp Wilson is a multimedia artist whose practice is focused on painting, sculpture, outdoor installation, public art, and performance art. Laura received a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and went on to receive her MFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her paintings are distinguished by rendering with acrylic paint and graphite on mulberry paper adhered to a wood panel. Textiles and surface pattern design have long been a huge influence on the artist and are an element in her installations and performances.
The artist’s current work explores intersections between humans and the botanical and overlaps amongst human identities in contemporary American society. These ideas are illustrated with floral forms, patterns, cords, ribbons, knots, weaving, bound, cosseted, and ensnared shapes, chains, and strands of beads.
Lenka Konopasek was born in the Czech Republic where she attended the School of Applied Arts in Prague. After immigrating to the United States, she received a BFA from the University of Utah and an MFA from Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine. She attended artist residencies in Vermont Studio Center, Chicago Art Institute, and Little Falls, Minnesota. Her work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and internationally. She also completed several large public art projects in Utah. Her work has been featured in New American Painting, Studio Visit Magazine, and other publications. She was awarded the 2018 Utah Visual Arts Fellowship. Lenka has been involved in co-owning an art gallery in Salt Lake City and Denver, and working for the Salt Lake Art Center, Visual Art Institute, and Utah Arts Festival. She currently teaches studio art at the University of Utah and Westminster College.
Lily Havey began her career in the arts as a musician and graduated from the New England Conservatory in Boston. After 14 years of teaching, she quit to have a son and took up stained glass because of a lifelong fascination with the medium. Sometime in the early 1980s she heard stories of veterans returning from the Vietnam War with PTSD and wondered whether her free-floating anxiety might be due to her forced incarceration in a concentration camp during World War II. She realized quickly that she could not easily express her emotional responses in glass and began watercoloring. She enjoyed watercolor and continued to paint scenes of Japan and Southern Utah. Her interest in other media expanded. Currently, she has been working in collaboration with her son Michael on projects that include tsuru (cranes). Tsuru have become symbols of peace. When the U.S. bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a young girl named Sadako was badly injured. She was told that if she folded 1000 origami cranes, she would recover. She managed to make 644 before she died. Many artists are continuing her legacy.
Linda Bergstrom is an art educator, weaver, spinner, and shepherd on her fiber farm in Bluffdale, Utah. She raises alpacas, Angora goats, and Icelandic sheep and utilizes their fiber by spinning their fleeces into yarn. She experiments with natural dyeing of fibers from flowers grown in her garden and pollinated by her bees. Spending time weaving, rug-making, and needle felting, and teaching these skills to others is a highlight of life at Bergstrom Farms. She has shown her paintings, photography, and fiber works in various galleries and shows, including the Historic Santa Fe Foundation Gallery, 300 Plates at Art Access Gallery, the LDS Church History Museum, and most recently, the Spring Salon at the Springville Art Museum.
Lola Reyes-Grant works as a graphic designer and artist in Utah. She is inspired by her family and community and seeks to blend that inspiration with symbols of resilience and compassion. Her works include digital illustration and papel picado (cut paper art) as well as public art such as an installation for a designed panel on a park bridge in Salt Lake City. Lola received her BFA in Film and Media Arts from the University of Utah and an MFA in Animation and Visual Effects from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
Michael Havey was born in Salt Lake City. Inheriting an artistic eye from his mother, he spent long hours of his youth absorbed in various arts, from illustrating friends’ school reports to developing photographs in the basement. He got his BFA from the University of Utah with an emphasis in photography. He currently manages operations at public radio station KUER and creates art “when he can,” which is less than he’d like. Recently he has collaborated with his mother Lily to create art using Tsuru (cranes) as a motif.
Mercedes Ng was born and raised in Hong Kong, inspiring her fascination with cityscapes and buildings. She received her BA in Art from Brigham Young University in 2020 and has since been making work (primarily oil paintings) in her studio. She received multiple awards including the BYU Art Department Talent Award and the Open Studio award. Her work has been exhibited in the Provo Studio in Provo, Utah, the BF Larson Gallery in Provo, Utah, and Santa Fe Community College. Her work is also published in the 35x35 Project by the Copelouzos Family Art Museum in Greece. In her free time, she teaches private art lessons to seniors and is a proponent of creating opportunities for first-time artists, specifically those middle-aged to senior individuals.
Yusef Shakkir, also known as the artist MönSr Yusef, lives and works in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. MönSr Yusef designs and renders using colored pencil on paper, illustrating contemporary issues and urban context through drawing. His process uses images of pop culture, fashion, and design to explore the philosophies of the Thuggin’ Generation. The artist explores many themes from his personal experiences of life on the streets and philosophies that inspire hope of a unified humanity. Raised in environments of turmoil and chaos: from Okla, thru NY to California to Utah. MönSr Yusef’s works were included in Utah DesignArts 2020. He was recently featured in the international award-winning documentary film Thuggin’ A New Generation about the T.A.N.G. exhibition at Todd Marshall Contemporary. MönSr Yusef is an emerging self-taught urban artist, poet, and professional barber.
Rebecca Snyder Woolston was raised in Utah, by others who grew up in Utah, from ancestors that settled Utah. Incredibly influenced by the culture and the landscape, Rebecca uses fabric, thread, hoops, and needles to make her work. She studied studio art and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design from Brigham Young University where she received a talent award scholarship. She’s worked as a fabric designer, web developer, and graphic designer; however, she now spends her studio time with the traditional arts of embroidery, hand quilting, and garment sewing. She has a special interest in line art and creating depth and texture with thread, playing with solid colors and simple shapes. She is a homemaker with two young boys, teaches craft workshops, and is a sewing volunteer at the Utah Refugee Center.
Sarah May (she/hers) is a biracial Salvadoran American, artist, writer, curator, facilitator, and community advocate in Salt Lake City, Utah. She graduated from the University of Utah with her BFA in Photography & Digital Imaging and her MA in Community Leadership with an Emphasis in Art & Culture from Westminster College. Sarah coordinates and facilitates designated spaces of healing, connection, and empowerment for BIPOC communities with an emphasis on Black, Indigenous, and Womxn, Femmes of Color. She is a facilitator and coordinator for two groups for Womxn, Femmes, and Non-Binary People of Color at the YWCA Utah: the Color Collective, an intersectional community group; and the Woke Words Reading and Writing Series. Sarah creates work exploring the intricacy of narrative through merging multiple mediums together, reflecting on the collective human experience using cyanotype, film photography, found objects, textiles, and her own writing. Her work and process reflect her journey exploring identity as cyclical and evolving, connecting to ancestry, and the idea of destiny and healing as intertwined.
Sarah Morton Taggart is a writer, illustrator, photographer, and musician. She grew up in Kaysville, Utah where her family has resided for five generations. Sarah studied sociology and mass communication at the University of Utah, then moved to Chicago. She earned a Master’s Degree in urban planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago and stayed there for nearly a decade. Sarah currently lives in Midvale, Utah with her husband and two young sons and works as a writer for The City Journals. She taught herself to knit as a child and has made countless hats, scarves, socks, sweaters, and toys. This was her first knitting project meant to only be looked at, not worn or played with.
Tzvi Izaksonas is a Salt Lake City-based artist. Tzvi playfully engages the landscape through their illustrative creative practice. With a Master's Degree in printmaking from the University of Georgia, Tzvi is trained in a variety of media and is currently focused on their painting. These paintings have been described as otherworldly portals in the landscape through which the viewer confronts animated fragments of nature and human-made detritus. These fragments are eager to forge a connection between the land and humanity.
Virginia Catherall is a textile artist, knitter, and knitwear designer who lives and works in Salt Lake City. She is inspired by the extraordinary, rugged, and sublime landscape of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau. Many of her wearable landscapes and sculptures focus on interpreting the science, geography, and biology of an ecosystem within the traditional craft of knitting. She is informed by the unique natural history and science of the land and its rich history. In the past few years, she has delved into this inspiration through Artist-in-Residence programs in Black Rock Desert National Conservation Area, Great Basin National Park, and Capitol Reef National Park. Lately, she has been exploring knitting Utah’s endangered or threatened species out of paper yarn to emphasize the fragile nature of these species and their ecosystems.