This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Long before the Utah Arts Festival opens its gates on Thursday, June 23, artists selected to participate are frenetically preparing for the onslaught of arts-and-crafts lovers. The festival is all about art — but it's also business.
Dave Borba's Salt Lake City house and studio have been turned upside-down as he hustles to produce enough inventory to fill his festival booth. During the past several weeks, 159 other artists and craftspeople from Utah and around the West are doing the same thing.
Borba isn't a rookie; he'll be returning for his third festival this year. But the 36-year-old rock climber, mountain biker and river runner is still struggling with the transition from craftsman/artist to businessman.
His first Utah Art Festival was in 2008 — and it was nearly his last. "That was an insane spring," he recalls. "I had to produce 78 pieces in three months."
The exhausting experience, in fact, knocked him out of the 2009 show. "I didn't touch another piece of art for more than a year."
But Borba returned last year to win a jury award, and his booth is expected to be a draw in the 2011 festival. His works, meticulously carved devil heads and near-anatomically correct human hearts, are animated by levers and strings that cause satanic mouths to move (creepy) and hearts to take wing (whimsical).
"I'm trying to get people to interact with the surrounding environment without a lot of technology," he says of the work that evokes a bygone era of cuckoo clocks and wind-up toys.
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'Creating Punkenstein' • Meanwhile, across town at Poor Yorick Studios, Christine Fedor is working feverishly on her "Punkenstein" line of jewelry. Fedor cannibalizes broken custom jewelry, typewriters and watches to create one-of-a-kind pieces that blur the line between sculpture and body adornment.
"I take found objects like vintage jewelry and machinery and put it back together in a jewelry kind of way," she says. "I see it as sculpture, but I want to be practical."
Fedor was well on her way to her target inventory of 500 pieces for the festival last week, but then came the first Downtown Farmers Market of the season, where her inventory was wiped out. Now, she's frantically shopping vintage shops and online auctions to find the raw materials to rebuild her stock.
"One piece can take five minutes or two hours to make," Fedor says. "I'm in the studio from now until the festival."
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'Killing it' with art • Borba's pieces sell in the range of $200, which doesn't intersect well with the festival's most lucrative market. "I have to come up with something in the $20 range," he says. "That's where other booths are killing it."
On the other hand, Fedor, showing her jewelry at the festival for the first time, seems to be in the zone. Her pieces range in price from $125 down to the magic $20.
Finally, as if to confirm both his passion for his craft and his business ineptness, Borba's newest masterpiece, "Flight of the Wounded Bird," will make it into the booth without a price tag.
The mechanized sculpture of a bird with a bandaged wing comes alive when a ratcheted crank is turned, and it's still too precious to the artist for him to allow it to be sold.
The wonder in the sculpture is in the details: It took Borba five months to hand cut and file each tiny gear, shaft and screw. He fabricated the bird's tiny goggles out of microscope-slide glass. "When the gears worked, I was stoked," he says.
But as far as actually selling his masterwork — it's just too soon, Borba says. "I'm going to just sit with this one for a while."
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Utah Arts Festival
O When • Thursday, June 23, to Sunday, June 26; noon to 11 p.m.
Admission • Adults, $10. Kids 12 and under, free. Seniors, $5. Check out $5 lunchtime specials and passes.
Where • Between Salt Lake City County Building and Downtown Library.
Getting there • Parking will be insane, but a Trax station is next to the festival grounds. Or use the bike lot and receive a $2 admission discount.
Information • http://www.uaf.org, Twitter @utahartfest and facebook.com/utahartsfestival —
Creative sounds
What • Read our interview with Brandi Carlile, who's on the bill along with headliner Ray LaMontagne & The Pariah Dogs and The Secret Sisters, for the Saturday, June 18, Summer Solstice Show, which is a Utah Arts Festival fundraiser. Interview on E4.
Also • Young Dubliners, the Celtic-rock band from Los Angeles that has earned a loyal Salt Lake City following, will kick off the Utah Arts Festival with a 9:45 p.m. show on Thursday, June 23. (For details and more of this week's live concerts, see E6).
More • More interviews and highlights of the festival's music lineup coming at http://www.sltrib.com/entertainment and http://www.sltrib.com/Blogs/burger.