To honor the centennial, UVU art students and faculty focused on Utah’s 13 national parks and monuments managed by the National Park Service. Utah has seven National Monuments, a National Historic Site and a National Recreation Area. This is the second in the series of fine art books produced by UVU’s Art & Design Department.
Annika Suchoski
Kyara Englund
Richard Hull
Utah is home to five National Parks: Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef and Zion. Often and understandably lost in the grandeur of these parks collectively known as the Big Five, Utah also hosts seven National Monuments, a National Historic Site, and National Recreation Area. In the entire United States, only two states boast more.
On August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the National Park Service Organic Act, co-sponsored by Utah Senator Reed Smoot, into law. This act created the National Park Service to manage existing national parks and monuments and protect future locations as well. One hundred years later, we celebrate the foresight of preserving these national treasures.
To honor this centennial, Utah Valley University art students and faculty chose to focus specifically on Utah’s 13 national parks and monuments managed by the National Park Service. (While officially a national monument, Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument was not included, as this site is managed by the Bureau of Land Management.) Driving over 7,800 miles and amassing over 50 days in the NPS sites, we were exposed to broad contrasts in topography, weather and, especially, visitors. Some were loud, some reverent. Some snapped up souvenirs while others snapped selfies. Languages mixed in a culture of collecting individual memories of America’s best idea. The world came to Utah to experience what we sometimes take for granted.
We spent the year taking students from Arches to Zion and watched these artists gather where two railroad lines connected the continent, exploring where past and present meet and discovering their place among countless stars in the Hovenweep sky. We were also saddened to find litter scattered the along trails, names carved into rocks, tire tracks in protected meadows, and footprints destroying fragile biological communities. All of what we saw, positive and negative, inspired what you will find in this book.
One of the hardest things to do as a beginning artist is to approach a known subject with fresh eyes and not re-create that which you have already seen. We challenged the art students and faculty to create work not only about, but inspired by, the parks. Hoping to see representational, abstract, and conceptual work, all Art and Design students were encouraged to be active participants. The students were free to respond creatively to anything they experienced in the parks, be it the impact of tourists or the profundity of solitude, the beauty of nature, or the disregard for its sanctity. Art done well challenges us to rethink what we know and how we think in general.
This is the second of an ongoing series of annual fine art books created, designed, and produced by UVU’s Art and Design Department, this particular book showcases the uniqueness of Utah’s contribution to the NPS viewed through the eyes of our students and faculty. All proceeds from the sales of these books directly fund the publication of future engaged learning experiences in the department.
Uncommon Ground is the ground we all share, tourist or local. These parks are ours to love, enjoy, and protect. Treasures as valuable as a glass of water under southern Utah’s blistering summer sun, and if we don’t protect these lands, they are just as fleeting.
—Howard Fullmer, Illustration
—Travis Lovell, Photography
