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Sounds are everywhere at the Utah Arts Festival: bands playing music, poets reciting their works, fresh-cut French fries sizzling in oil and more.
Even visual artists displaying their works at Library Square and Washington Square during the four-day event, which began Thursday, incorporate sound into their art.
For Salt Lake City wood sculptor Don Challis, sounds are the basis for his intricate carvings. With a printout and a saw, he can carve sound-wave patterns of any utterance or music that a customer wants.
"We've done somebody's dog that makes a crazy noise or a wedding song," Challis said.
Challis, a contractor, has been carving sound waves for the past two years. The idea came as a way to pay tribute to his wife Jules' grandmother, Deann Weaver, who died three years ago. Using an old voicemail that Deann left the couple, he isolated her saying "I love you" and turned it into a wall sculpture.
In his festival booth, Challis has carvings that visualize dialogue from the last "Harry Potter" movie, Sara Bareilles' song "Brave," and "The Imperial March" from the "Star Wars" movies. They are priced at $200 unframed and $425 framed. He also offers custom-order work.
Elsewhere on the Washington Square grass, Rick Gnerich of Patagonia, Ariz., creates art that actually makes sounds: wood flutes in the Lakota tradition.
"They're simple instruments," Gnerich said. "Our ancestors had no printed music to play. … So you can just play from the heart."
Gnerich played his first flute 16 years ago and immediately felt, "I can use that," he said. "I can use that relaxation because I had a stressful job" as a call-center supervisor. He started making is own flutes four years later.
Some of Gnerich's flutes play at a frequency of 432 hertz, lower than the 440 hertz that is standard in European orchestral instruments. That's "the frequency that Mother Earth generates," Gnerich said. "I've had musicians come in and play [these flutes] and really feel it."
But don't try to play the guitars that Denver artist Todd Perkins makes. Most of them are decorative, not functional.
"It's a recognizable shape," Perkins said. "I just like it over squares and rectangles."
Perkins repurposes damaged guitars, adds his own artistic touches and sells them as wall art. For some, he uses maps, postcards and wine labels.
One is covered in Scrabble tiles, creating a word-search puzzle with the names of country singers. Another, part of a series he calls "steam-funk," has clock parts and other odds and ends he accumulated over six months.
One of Perkins' favorites features a sheet of copper, on which he dripped nitric acid.
"These are cool, because you have no idea what they will look like before you do it," he said.
Perkins does make guitar art that's playable — usually electric guitars. He has prints of one of his favorites, which has as its body a plastic model of the Millennium Falcon. (He recently sold it in Tennessee.) Another working guitar, which he didn't bring to Utah, is covered in Swarovski crystals and sells for $15,000.
Twitter: @moviecricket —
2017 Utah Arts Festival
The 41st Utah Arts Festival, featuring music, visual arts, film, spoken word, dance, street performances, children's activities, workshops and more.
Where • Library Square and Washington Square, 200 West and 400 South, Salt Lake City
When • Through Sunday
Hours • Noon to 11 p.m. each day
Tickets • $12 for adults Friday, Saturday and Sunday; $35 for a four-day festival pass. Children 12 and younger get in free; members of the military and people older than 65, $6. Other discounts and presale offers also are available at uaf.org.