Salt Lake City attorney and 337 Project founder Adam Price will become executive director of the Salt Lake Art Center in January.

Just 10 days after Heather Ferrell announced her resignation as executive director of the Salt Lake Art Center, the center's board of directors announced Thursday it will elevate its board president to fill her seat.

In January, Adam Price, 41, who currently practices commercial litigation for the Salt Lake City law firm Jones Waldo, will become the center's new executive director. He is the founder of 337 Project, an award-winning art education nonprofit, and served as president of the center's board.

Katherine Kanter, who became board president after the announcement, said the decision was a confluence of convenience and Price's experience. Price offered his name for consideration, she said, which the board accepted unanimously. The board was working with a local search firm and was considering several local and national candidates. Price's candidacy stood out.

"It [the decision] evolved in a pretty short time span," Kanter said. "But we feel we conducted a thorough and deliberative process. In the end, all his expertise and qualifications dove-tailed into what we were looking for in a director."

A graduate of Harvard Law School, Price moved to Salt Lake City in 1996 after living in Boston. In spring 2007 he offered more than 140 local artists the chance to transform a building into a piece of community art. The building at 337 S. 400 East was later demolished, but its address inspired the name of Price's new nonprofit. The 337 Project

Advertisement
later sponsored public art projects at other urban sites, and Price made over an old vegetable truck into a roaming art gallery to bring contemporary and modern art to schools across the Wasatch Front.

Price's 337 Project this year received the Salt Lake City Mayor's Service to the Arts Award, Best of State Medallion for Arts in Education and other accolades. Kanter said Price's outreach efforts to bring art to the masses suits the center's mission. Ferrell, who resigned late last month to join her fiance in Qatar, emphasized community outreach projects in education and dialogue during her 16-month tenure.

"The art center is well situated to expose the entire community to the wonderful experience contemporary art can provide," Price said. "I'd like to see us bring people inside the center's four walls to experience that, as well as take ourselves out into the community to share that asset as well."

The lawyer expressed "real regret" about leaving his firm. "I certainly was not expecting this opportunity to come about at this time," he said. "I've never been happier than with the work I've been doing in the local art scene for the past few years."