If a prerequisite to success in art is starvation, the Visual Art Institute on the east side of Salt Lake City is well on its way to becoming priceless.

The VAI has been around for 20 years now, which in itself is a tribute to how long you can hang on and how much you can accomplish when you don't worry about how much you eat.

The institute, open to young people ages 5 through 18, was started by a woman named Stephanie Burn with one overriding principle: that the right side of the brain should never be stifled.

It's the right side of the brain that is responsible for all the great concertos, plays, poems and, especially, paintings in human history.

The left side of the brain is more concerned with schedules, paying bills, edging the lawn and buying day-planner inserts.

It was Burn's opinion that conventional schools, and conventional art programs, routinely ignore right-side creativity.

So she used her right brain and started up VAI.


All went well enough until three years ago when Burn passed away.

With no heir.

Literally on her deathbed she spoke the name of the person she felt was qualified to not just keep the institute alive, but also its principles.

"Bruce Robertson."

At the time, Robertson was teaching art full time at BYU, his alma mater.

He remembers the phone call.

"Excuse me, but is this the Bruce Robertson who taught for a year at the Visual Art Institute?"

"Yes," he said.

He was told what Stephanie had said.

What could he do?

He drove to Salt Lake, looked at the books, and realized one thing instantly: Stephanie didn't draw a salary.

But for some reason — and to this day don't ask Bruce to explain why — he took the job.

And the institute survived.


Three years later, it's still surviving. Nearly 90 kids are enrolled in the institute's after-school regimen of classes this year, taught by a faculty of seven.

Among this spring's prospective graduates is a senior named Spencer, who came to VAI at age 6 as a resource student and is leaving a dozen years later with a $25,000-a-year scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute.

It's that kind of pay that keeps the institute, not to mention Bruce Robertson, going.

"I believe in what we're doing," he says. "We'll get kids in here who are on the verge of dropping out of regular school, and then they plug into their creativity and they gain confidence. It's amazing what happens. Their lives turn around."

Slowly, the school is becoming more fiscally viable. It was in debt $25,000 when Bruce took over. Now, thanks to a variety of charitable foundations and other benefactors, it has crawled into the black.

Bruce's salary is sky-rocketing, in a manner of speaking. It has doubled every year that he's been in charge. From zero the first year, to $8,000 the second year, all the way to a whopping $16,000 this year.

If all goes well.

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If this keeps up, he won't even qualify as a starving artist anymore. He might actually be able to quit some of his other jobs.

Bruce gets a bemused look on his face at the thought.

But not for long. Too much of that left brain thinking can wear an artist out.


Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.

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