Anyone concerned about the health of Utah's visual arts need only visit Springville to set their minds at ease: The 73rd Utah Spring Salon, Springville Museum of Art, through May 25, offers wall after wall of finely crafted, thought-provoking works that excite and intrigue viewers.

Museum director, Vern Swanson, says, "I think the jurors, Martin L. Beisly, director of Victorian Painting at Christie's in London, and Betsy Quintana, curator of exhibition and education at the Kimball Art Center in Park City, gave us a well-rounded exhibition, choosing the best pieces from all the different genres, medias and styles."Devoting five galleries as well as several hallways to the display, Swanson was amazed by the level of this year's participation: 851 pieces entered, 266 selected. "I think the exhibit is solid top to bottom because we had a lot of entries," he says. "The more pieces you have to choose between, the greater your chances of having a better show."

Most of the big exhibitions in the state have between 100 and 150 pieces. However, they allow artists to enter 3 works. This means only about 40 artists are participating. "We only allow two works per artist," Swanson says. "So where our show might be two and a half times bigger, we have four times the artists participating." This year there are 245 individual artists showing in the Spring Salon.

Each year the museum invites certain artists to exhibit as "guest artists," believing their inclusion helps expand the show's vision while encouraging other well-known artists to enter. This year J. Blair Buswell, Michael David Hall and Anton Jesse Rasmussen are the invited participants. Buswell is a figurative sculptor of Western Americana. Hall is an abstract expressionist. Rasmussen depicts the grandeur and beauty of southern Utah landscapes.

James Christensen, famous for his illustrated books "A Journey of Imagination: the Art of James Christensen" and "Voyage of the Basset" is the featured artist. His exhibit paintings, "Court of the Fairies" and "The Royal Procession," are typical of the artist's fantastical vision.

This year's "Juror's First Place Award" went to Peggy H. Anderson for her large landscape watercolor "Moving Out." Other winners were Joseph Brickley for his oil painting "Cold Missouri Night," Chris Hawkes for "Tuesday," Teresa Ann Flowers for "The Age of Feeling," Jacqui Biggs Larsen for "Sitting Lessons" and Linda L. Shimmin for "Family Ties." Awards chosen by the director went to Royden Card for "Deseret Sanctuary" and Steve Songer for "Liberty Patchwork."

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"Next year," Swanson says, "we'd like to do three things: First, enlarge the number of invited artists; second, have no slide jurying (over half of all the slides juried into the show would not have made it had the work been here in the original); and third, no insuring canvases that don't have some kind of foamcore or cardboard backing for protecting the work." The Museum will require this not only for the Museum's protection but also for the protection of the buyer who has the right to expect the purchased work to last for decades, if not longer.

If there is a weakness in the show, it's the "continual lack of post-modernist assemblage/installation," Swanson says. "Most post-modernists in the state live and work in Salt Lake City, and it's hard to carry their works down here."

Swanson's enthusiasm, however, cannot be stifled by such a small deficiency. "Right now is the Renaissance of Utah art. It has grown in diversity and depth. It is also inching its way up in height, which is quality. I see artists doing things that we couldn't do before, especially in the Classical Realist area."

The 73rd Utah Spring Salon has something for every viewer, and with this year's degree of quality works, it's a must see.

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