Ceramics and Sculpture Bachelor of Fine Arts UVU student Rachel Walton has achieved what many work hard for: a spot in Utah’s Annual Spring Salon in Springville.
This year 1,500 entries of artwork were submitted to the 100th Annual Spring Salon for consideration, beating their previous record by over 300 entries. Of those works the jurors chose 276 for display. This means 1,200 artworks, or 4 out of 5 works submitted were not displayed.
On a whim, Walton submitted an exhibition of wood-fired cups to the Spring Salon with fingers crossed that she would make it in. The process of making these cups was labor intensive. Walton explains that she made the special wood-fired cups while on a trip that the ceramics department took to Southern Utah. They sacrificed a full night’s sleep as they had to continuously chop wood and throw it in a kettle all night to get the results they wanted.
In an interview with the Review, Walton expressed, “You get these results that you can’t make physically as a person. It is fire, rocks, and luck.” She described her cups as a commodity item, something you couldn’t just recreate.
Walton feels that her other interests influence her art. She enjoys being outdoors whenever possible. She likes to hike and climb and currently holds a job with SLWC Outdoor Adventure, also known as the Climbing Wall. She bikes to school whenever she doesn’t have to haul her art supplies with her. “My printmaking is mainly actual images and textures of rocks that look abstract but are literal fragments of rock, or ferns and various plants,” she said.
After four years of intensive schooling, Rachel will be graduating this year. She expressed the immense importance of her education in her art journey as she moves forward into a career. Her education gave her the opportunity to relearn techniques in an incubated, fast-paced environment.
She also feels blessed to have worked with the head of the department of sculpture program, who helped her learn more about framing gallery exhibitions. “People think that art is just stuff you put out there but it’s not. You got to build frames, and you got to figure out a gallery space and how things look together,” she explained.
When it comes to other artists, Walton stated, “Realize that it’s so much experimentation. If you’re just doing the same thing all the time, then you’re not growing and you’re not having fun either. Just mess around. Get dirty and make mistakes.”
Follow Rachel Walton along on her artistic journey on Instagram, @narwhalsandhawaiinshirts.
