In the past year and a half, arts, cultural organizations and nonprofits across the country have struggled as Covid-19 closed businesses. However, organizations in Salt Lake County have had some financial pressures alleviated through the Zoo, Arts, and Parks (ZAP) program. A quick refresher on the ZAP tax: ZAP is a sales tax add-on voted upon by the people in Salt Lake County. It is a .1% increase in the local sales tax, and proceeds support funding for arts, cultural, recreational and zoological organizations. After initially failing in 1993, the ZAP program was overwhelmingly passed by residents in 1996, and has remained popular, being renewed in 2004 and 2014.
TravelAwaits
May.5.2021
Although it may be best known for “The Greatest Snow on Earth” and the opportunity for skiers to be on the slopes of one of four world-class ski resorts within an hour of landing at the Salt Lake International Airport, I prefer to visit Salt Lake City in the summer. As the perfect powder melts, it fuels crystal-clear waterfalls, and the trails carved into the mountains attract hikers instead of skiers.
July and August are the hottest months in Salt Lake City, with daytime temperatures regularly reaching 90 degrees. But one of the benefits of visiting this high-desert destination is that the night temperatures regularly drop into the 60s.
The UMOCA Artist in Residence program provides a crucial support system for local artists. Let’s face it: it’s not easy to survive as an artist in Utah.
Baggage: Alex Caldiero in Retrospect @ UMOCA
Alex Caldiero ranks among Utah s most distinctive creative minds, with a career spanning 50 years as a writer, performer and multidisciplinary innovator just don t call him an artist. Caldiero prefers the term maker, and a new exhibition at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (50 S. West Temple, utahmoca.org) explores the many things and ideas he has made.
Baggage: Alex Caldiero in Retrospect currently running digs through Caldiero s archives for a showcase of notebooks, drawings, sculptures, recordings of his live performances and more. The curators state that the exhibition was put together without an attempt to define chronology or any specific progression in Caldiero s career, using custom-made shelves and pedestals similar to those from Caldiero s own studio as a way to convey the range and scope of his work. In an opening event with the curators, Caldiero described the rush he felt from looking at items as they were unpacked:
Sonderimmersive
We all remember where we were, and how it felt, when the COVID-19 pandemic truly hit home a year ago this week. Businesses and schools shut down, toilet paper became more precious than gold and we became very aware of how much we did or didn t like the people we were stuck in our homes with.
Arts organizations in particular were forced to scramble in a world where isolation was the norm; how could you adjust a paradigm built on shared experiences of creative work? But as hard as the past 12 months have been on so many such organizations, they ve also shown remarkable resilience and creativity in figuring out how to continue their missions and connect with their communities. While we all eagerly anticipate returning to the things we miss from The Time Before and see a faint light at the end of a vaccine-illuminated tunnel here s a nod to just some of the many ways that local a