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Patrons walk through the Springville Museum of Art during the museum's Spring Salon opening on Wednesday, April 26, 2023.

Harrison Epstein, Daily Herald

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Shawn Bailey and Andrea Bailey, of Logan, look at Frank McEntire's "Firewater," a mixed-media installation, during the Springville Museum of Art's Spring Salon opening on Wednesday, April 26, 2023.

Harrison Epstein, Daily Herald

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Emily Larsen, director of the Springville Museum of Art, speaks during the museum's Spring Salon opening on Wednesday, April 26, 2023.

Harrison Epstein, Daily Herald

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Maddison Tenney photographs artwork during the Springville Museum of Art's Spring Salon opening on Wednesday, April 26, 2023.

Harrison Epstein, Daily Herald

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Artist Shari Darley Griffiths shakes hands with Jay Hanson, board president, after receiving an honorable mention award at the Springville Museum of Art's Spring Salon opening on Wednesday, April 26, 2023.

Harrison Epstein, Daily Herald

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Pamela Beach's "Enewetek Atoll" is shown beyond Emily Larsen, director of the Springville Museum of Art, during the museum's Spring Salon opening on Wednesday, April 26, 2023.

Harrison Epstein, Daily Herald

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It’s never easy deciding what artwork will make it into the Springville Museum of Art’s annual Spring Salon, but this year was particularly difficult. In a typical year, the museum will receive between 800 and 1,000 submissions, with 1,000 being “a really good thing,” according to Emily Larsen, the museum’s director.

The 2023 show had over 1,100 submissions.

On Wednesday, artists, their loved ones and members of the community came together for the 99th Spring Salon featuring award presentations and recognition for all 259 artists accepted into the show. In total, 298 new pieces of art — ranging from traditional paintings to mixed media and sculptures — are pointedly placed around the museum’s ground floor.

Going from 1,100 submissions to 298 submission was done in almost one day, from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. using a process of elimination until the judges have a number of selections that “we can reasonably fit,” Larsen told the Daily Herald. The jurors themselves have different expertises, preferences and skill sets, but the museum makes sure each one is knowledgeable about art.

The 2023 salon, in fact, uses more gallery-style walls than in years past to best display the slightly-more-than-average number of acceptances. The show typically accepts about 25%-30% of submissions.

Larsen has been a part of the museum team since 2006, first as a volunteer, then as an employee in 2014 before being named the museum’s director in December 2022.

“I’ve always felt a lot of accountability and pressure, but I guess as the director, you do feel a higher level of ‘Is the show good? Did we make the right choices? Do we hang it the right way?’ And I’m just really proud of our team and the artists,” Larsen said. “I see a vibrancy. I think that’s a word I keep using about this salon. It really showcases the vibrancy of our art community and how engaged the artists are and making interesting, really well-done work.”

The rules are simple for the show. There’s no theme for subject matter, style or medium. Pieces just need to have been created in the past three years and no larger than 11 feet, for logistical purposes. The included artists, mostly from around Utah with some acceptances from elsewhere in the U.S., bring their own styles and experiences across the show. Going from room to room, attendees examined everything from a painting of a spiral jetty on the Great Salt Lake to a physical display focused on 20 years of American war efforts in the Middle East.

Larsen praised all the works included in the show and those submitted that weren’t accepted, but she did have a few pieces that stuck with her throughout the process. In the museum’s main room is a painting by Pamela Beach — “Enewetek Atoll” — of a woman wearing a mushroom dress that received an Award of Merit.

Based in Bountiful, Beach came to Springville for the show’s opening. Most of the subjects in Beach’s work are people she knows and comes across in her daily life, asking people she meets if they’re willing to pose and become subjects.

“I really am driven by just listening to people, getting to know people. In short, my process is about conversation. I talk to people, they say something, it strikes something in me,” Beach said. “If I feel something when someone’s talking to me, then I know that’s what I need to paint.”

In the painting, Alison Neville is show on a map of Enewetek Atoll, a landmass in the Marshall Islands used by the U.S. government in the 1940s and 1950s to test nuclear weapons.

While grateful for the recognition and placement of her work — Beach has two pieces in the show — she doesn’t let ego get in the way. In fact, she struggles with “taking in truth” about herself, good or bad.

“I’ve sort of had to teach myself that if I don’t get into something, I can’t feel bad, because it doesn’t mean that I’m a bad artist. But then the flip side of that is that if you get in it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re good either. … I am happy about this, very happy, but I have the other side of it,” Beach said. “The only thing you trust is your hard work.”

Stacy Weitz Minch, a representational painter and portraitist from Vineyard, has one piece in the show — a painting of her son. Most of her subjects, she said, are from her daily life, meaning her kids are often pictured because “that’s just what my life is right now.” Minch first had a piece accepted to the show in 2019 and has had at least one make it into the salon each year since. Shows like the Springville Museum of Art’s salon, and art in general, Minch said, are opportunities for communities to offer different perspectives on life.

“Utah tends to be a little bit more homogeneous, but I think the artistic population is broader minded. So I like the idea of coming to the show, and the stylistic choices of all the different artists are so different, and the things that everybody is saying are so different, and I hope it’s just a good representation of what’s being produced in Utah,” she said. “I think every year it’s a great, like, sampling of everything that’s being produced.”

The first-place award was given to Zachary Proctor’s “Finding Balance”; second place went to Santiago Michalek’s “It’s Time – 10 Years Gone”; third was Gary Anderson’s “Shore”; and the purchase award to Michael Malm’s “Winter Woods.” Eight artists received awards of merit and 12 were given honorable mentions.

The Spring Salon installation is viewable until July 8. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m until 5 p.m. with a late closing of 8 p.m. on Wednesdays.

While the 99th salon has just completed, Larsen and the museum are already working for the future — for Salon 100, a retrospective on a century’s worth of art defining the museum, city and Utah as a whole.

“Stay tuned for that,” Larsen told the crowd.

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