Mural Fest 2024 features artists from all over Utah and from across the country who come together to create an exciting vibe to the streets and alleyways of South Salt Lake’s Creative Zone.
"Mural Fest is a program we started in 2018 as a way to help revitalize the South Salt Lake downtown, " said Lesly Allen, Director of South Salt Lake Arts Council.
"It's a great way to bring people into the neighborhood and add color and vibrancy."
The original goal of Mural Fest was for ten murals a year for ten years; after this year they will have 66 murals completed.
"The artist takes about two weeks to paint the murals," said Allen, "and then when the murals are all finished we have our celebration event called the Mural Walk, and the public can pick up a map and use it to walk or bike around the Mural area and the artists will all be at their Mural sites and they can meet the artist, watch their process, and talk to them about their murals."
One of those artists is Bunnie Reiss, a Colorado native and one of the 14 artists chosen from more than 800 applicants.
"The owners of Bjorn's Brew are big supporters of animal rescue and the Humane Society and so I wanted to do a little nod to animal adoption," said Reiss.
"The only request they had was that if I felt up to it to include their dog, which I did, but recently their dog passed away before I even got here. So I didn't even know as I was painting it that the dog was elderly, so this became a very nice thing for them." She also added a homage to her own cat from when she was younger.
But meeting the artists is only one aspect of the Mural Walk. "We have live music from local musicians and we have our Celebration Station where we have food trucks, more music, info booths and live painting there as well," adds Allen, who also touted the "treasure hunt" aspect of the Walk.
Each of the 14 featured artists has stickers to pass out which correspond to a spot on a mural map available for free at the South Salt Lake City Hall building (which itself is adorned with a colorful mural from DAAS). Once visitors collect all 14 stickers, they can turn their mural map back in to be entered into a drawing for prizes, including Kilby Court Block Party tickets and a date night at Workshop SLC for a pottery class.
Due to so many moving parts for such an event, Allen admits they could still use a little help.
"We're still looking for volunteers at the event. People can go to themuralfest.com to sign up ...and they get a free T-shirt!"
Meanwhile, South Salt Lake Mayor Cherie Wood knows all about working on the Mural fest and also about its many benefits for the community.
"There's so many things that come from it, it's hard to focus on just one, like it's hard to focus on just one mural. Coming to work right now is just amazing. You just pull into the parking lot and you go Ahh! This is why I do this job. Because we get to make decisions like these that benefit our community, that brings talent and art, and economic development... and hopefully inspires young artists in our community."
That inspiration happens long before the murals are revealed according to Allen.
"I always say the magic happens during the weeks of the painting. We love the murals when they're finished, but we always encourage people to come out and see the artist at work so if they come down in the next week or two, they'll be able to see the artist actually painting as they finish up the murals for Saturday."
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