Summer 2022 Social with Music, Photography, History, and Dance

July 21, 2022

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Summer Social at Park Place Eatery.

We are always excited to see the breadth of arts in our community. CCAC President Roger Gold, Mary Anne Andersen, and Sara Penny intoduced the presentations. The Social included promotion of the Final Friday Art Walks, mini-grant submissions due August 1, and upcoming Art and Photography Contests in conjunction with the Cedar Livestock and Heritage Festival for kindergarten through grade 12.

Ellyn Rock started the Social with a musical presentation. Ellyn recently attended the Intermountain Suzuki Strings Institute in Draper where she worked with national and international clinicians to improve her violin performance. She spoke about the inspiration of working with professional musicians to improve her playing and hearing wonderful performances. She performed a Violin Sonata movement by Handel accompanied by Mary Anne Andersen.

Ellyn Rock and Mary Anne Andersen

Rheana Gardner-Reeves is an Associate Professor of Photography at Southern Utah University, specializing in historical and alternative photographic processes. Her work has been showcased in The Greater Taipei Biennial of Contemporary Art exhibition at You·Zhang Art Museum, the Worldwide Photography Biennial Exhibition held at The Borges Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, PH21 Gallery in Budapest, Hungary, and the Millepiani Exhibition Space in Rome, Italy. As a recent recipient of a Cedar City Arts Council Mini-Grant, she has further developed her chlorophyll print series, "Time Capsule." In this alternative photographic process, images are developed on natural leaves through the action of photosynthesis. The leaves are then preserved and encapsulated in resin, like biological samples for scientific studies intended as a deliberate method of communication with future archaeologists, anthropologists, or historians.

Rheana Gardner-Reeves

Photographs printed on leaves

Roice Nelson introduced the newly established Southwestern Heritage Center Historical Society (swhchs.org) It is designed to provide a safe, family friendly environment to participate in hands-on experiences tied to different aspects of our wonderful southwestern heritage. The center will be located at Iron Springs, where there are 29 historic trails (https://www.swhchs.org/index.php/history/). The Heritage Center will teach about these trails and our local heritage, eventually with a museum, and encourage visitors to explore modern hiking, biking, equestrian, and off highway vehicle (OHV) trails starting at the center or to follow available maps to monuments, other trails and petroglyphs, and, thanks to the Southern Utah Rock Club (SURC), to rockhounding sites in the vicinity.

SWHCHS.ORG grew out of efforts by the Cedar City Chapter of Sons of Utah Pioneers (SUP) to document 137 identified Monuments in Iron County. SWHCHS.ORG has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Iron County School District (ICSD) to digitally capture stories about local monuments and pioneers and residents, teaching values and positive character traits to strengthen ICSD students. Anyone can submit a story teaching honesty, resilience, work, history, or other characteristics of solid citizens and real men and real women by going to http://www.swhchs.org/index.php/story-submission/. These stories will be reviewed and those selected will become Iron Stories available to citizens and students at no charge. The Iron County Camps and Museum of Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP) are helping capture stories, and plan to store artifacts and to have a satellite museum at the Heritage Center.

Roice Nelson with CCAC Treasurer Bruce Hughes at the Social

Roice brought a Ken Turner painting as part of his presentation

The final presentation was by Master Dance Instructor Christy Johnson, who utilizes the new Johnson Center for the Arts, for weekly dance classes, private lessons and dance parties. Her mini-grant project was for "Dancing Dads & Daughters". "It is a brand new program that celebrates the fun that a dad and his daughter can have dancing together!" She also told us a bit about her family's vaudeville history and how she ended up in Cedar City. In addition to teaching dance and tutoring school kids, she also manages the Festival City Farmers Market & Artisan Faire. She says there are now a couple dozen artists and crafters at the market. There's also weekly local live music, as well as other performers for special occasions. Then Christy taught us the Temptation Cha-Cha soul line dance, a fun way to end the Social.