A working title could be "Artists Beyond Jell-O."
This is a production — call it a pageant, a festival . . . a movie — set in Salt Lake City during the 2002 Winter Olympics, in which the characters don't curl, ski nor skate. The casting director seeks altogether different breeds of athletes: those who sculpt, paint, dance, blow glass or make music. And this Monday evening, those Salt Lake artists are invited to a casting call during which they will map their own plot.
Last week, the executive producer, John Sittner, saw he had a band of restless natives on his hands. He'd invited scores of local artists to an Olympic planning forum and started the discussion by saying he hoped downtown Salt Lake City would turn into an outdoor arts festival during the Games, a place teeming with street musicians, dancers and displays, "so people will come around a corner and say, 'Look at that, isn't that neat.' "
Whoa, so we're mere window decoration, asked a number of artists — a sideshow people can glance at on their way to the medals plaza? One said the prospect of sitting outside all night in February didn't inspire him to create art for passers-by; another said her singing group's clear sound would be lost amid the downtown traffic.
It seemed that Sittner's initial image of an arts festival would have to undergo a radical reshaping. This "movie" needs a wider screen and living color, said one attendee at last Monday's forum — to a quick round of applause.
"There's a wide perception that all this is coming from middle-aged white guys in suits," said Andy Monaco, longtime technical director of the Park City Arts Festival. "If you deal through the regular channels" of Salt Lake arts organizations, "you're going to come up very dry and very white."
To this, Sittner opened up his suit jacket and said with a big smile, "You're talking to a white WASP. And I don't know how to do what you're asking." His idea for the local art show during the Olympics, he added "is only a skeleton. I need you to tell me how to paint it."
That was about when Cordell Taylor, a sculptor and president of the Salt Lake Gallery Association, said he envisioned art all over the city, not only in one or two downtown designated areas. "Maybe we could make it look like Salt Lake has a little culture . . . other than Jell-O," Taylor said, referring to Utah's official state snack.
Much of downtown will, of course, be the fabled "secure area": the medals plaza, Salt Palace accredited media center and the Delta Center, all inside fences. The Salt Lake Organizing Committee plans to wrap "look of the Games" banners around those blocks, Sittner said.
"That's Vatican City," he said. But away from the Olympic territory, "it's a free country."
It could also be the playground of the artists. Yet exact locations are yet to be found. And with time's tendency to fly, last week's forum participants want to nail spaces down.
"We're looking at (events much like) a 17-day Utah Arts Festival, and we have 11 months to plan it," said Emily Cannon, owner of the Avenues Arts and Wellness Center. The original UAF and the Sundance Film Festival were both years in the making, she added. "I'd like to be optimistic, but I have to be realistic. This is going to take some serious budgeting, some serious volunteering."
At that point a serious volunteer raised her hand.
Susi Kontgis, a veteran city budget and policy analyst, offered to convene another meeting, during which artists could exchange ideas and zero in on their own Olympic venues.
"John (Sittner) gets maybe 500 calls a day," said Kontgis. "What we kept hearing was that people have good ideas and they want something to happen . . . so I'm willing to come in on my own time and help." Kontgis sees herself as a kind of clearinghouse, furnished with knowledge of Sittner's Olympic planning budget. City Redevelopment Agency funding may be available to rent performance and display spaces for artists, she added, "and maybe there's a tax benefit for property owners to donate property during the Olympics."
Artists are already pooling their resources. Taylor, the sculptor, told Jean Applonie, artistic director of the vocal group Viva Voce, that his studio-gallery is available. "It's open every day for anybody who wants to come sing there."
Kontgis envisions a dazzling artistic showcase come February 2002, while acknowledging that it may take some arduous planning sessions. "It's hard sometimes in a bureaucracy," she said, "to make that come to life." But that Olympic period "is what you want it to be. You create your own reality. If you want to make something happen, you will."
Reality creation starts at 6 p.m. Monday in the City-County Building's Cannon Room, room 335. The meeting is expected to go till 9 p.m.
Monaco predicted another lively evening with his fellow artists. "People will do some homework and come back to say, 'What about this?' " he said. "This will be a hotbed next week."
E-mail: durbani@desnews.com