SALT LAKE CITY — A new art museum located in the historic B’nai Israel Temple in downtown Salt Lake City, dedicated to preserving Utah culture and providing a platform for Utah artists, is opening.

The Salt Lake Art Museum, 249 S. 400 East, aims to highlight both historic and contemporary Utah artists while also promoting thoughtful conversations on modern topics. It is the first new art museum to open in the city in more than 40 years.

“Opening the Salt Lake Art Museum is a defining moment for our state’s cultural landscape,” said Chris Jensen, museum executive director.

While the official grand opening of the museum isn’t until July 24, it has already begun hosting events and programming, including an interactive “Make Your Mark” installation where community members can trace their silhouettes onto the walls.

“The project serves as both an introduction to the museum and a living time capsule capturing the voices and identities of the community in the weeks leading up to the grand opening,” a statement from the museum said.

The Salt Lake Art Museum was founded by Micah Christensen, a distinguished art historian based in Salt Lake City. About a year ago, Christensen contacted Jensen, who has a background in nonprofits and cultural and historical preservation, to discuss purchasing the B’nai Israel Temple to create a museum.

The focus of the museum would be to elevate Utah artists, Utah art collections and art created in Utah.

“Utah is home to an incredible number of artists, yet we’ve long lacked a dedicated space to fully celebrate their work. This museum changes that. It’s a place where Utah artists are centered, their stories are elevated and our community can come together to experience the power of art,” Jensen said.

The museum began its programming with a Utah Master Series, which celebrates Utah’s most influential visual artists and recognizes their contributions to the state’s cultural legacy.

“It’s almost like a hall of fame of Utah artists,” Jensen explained.

The first three artists to be part of the exhibition were Galina Perova, Stanley Wanlass and Ben Hammond. Each artist had a dedicated night at the museum, where their work was displayed and they discussed their art-making process and the arts in Utah.

One of the museum’s opening exhibitions will be on Albert Bierstadt, a famous painter in the late 1800s who painted the American West. He spent three weeks painting in Utah and the museum will display 25 of his approximately 30 Utah landscapes he created.

To make the gallery extra special, the museum will have modern pictures of the same landscapes alongside each painting.

“It’s really a tale of how human interaction changes landscape and how our landscapes in Utah have changed since the 1800s. So that is really exciting and it’s the first of its kind on Albert Bierstadt,” he said.

The museum will also have exhibits on Pilar Pobil, a Spanish-born immigrant who self-taught herself painting and sculpture and died in 2024, and a show on the Julia Reagan billboards and how they intersected with pop culture and art in Utah.

Additionally, the museum’s opening exhibitions will include a gallery on the history of the B’nai Israel Temple, which was completed in 1891, two years before the Salt Lake Temple was finished.

Museums preserve the culture of whatever they are targeting, Jensen said. The Salt Lake Art Museum aims to preserve Utah’s art culture and its communities, he added.

There are many great artists from Utah who are famous around the world but unknown within their home state, and this museum hopes to change that, Jensen said.

“We have more artists here per capita than anywhere in the U.S., and it’s time that we shine a light on it and celebrate it. And that goes all the way from arts and crafts up to fine art,” he said.

He hopes people are proud of how much quality art comes from our state. When people come to the museum, they support great Utah artists and have a chance to learn more about the place they call home.

Art can be a great avenue to discuss modern issues, such as immigration, climate change and discrimination, through both historical and contemporary lenses, Jensen said. For example, the Salt Lake Art Museum plans to do a show soon on the Great Salt Lake and host a plein air competition at the lake.

“I want people to think of everything that’s happening in our modern world when they come through here and to see themselves reflected in that and how they should be reacting to it,” he said.

Overall, Jensen hopes people appreciate and support art museums as they “tell the story of us as a species.”

“When you go to a museum, it’s a chance to reflect on what we were and what we have become — things lost and things improved. So I really think it’s important because it tells us the greater story of humanity,” Jensen said.

SEATTLE — It was a brutal winter for the snowpack in the western states, including Washington, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

That has current snowpack levels beyond bleak.

ALSO SEE | Pass travelers to encounter wintry driving in the Cascades this weekend

A map from NOAA shows the percentage of typical moisture in the snowpack across the West. It’s based on the median of the last 35 years.

Parts of the Cascades have just 13 to 27 percent of the water we could expect in our snowpack this time of year. The Olympics are at just 10 percent.

It was hoped that snowfall in April and May in some areas would offset the snow deficit, but that didn’t happen.

A dry snowpack is going to be a strain on agricultural water use this summer and will boost fire danger during the hottest months of the year.

What comes next?

Fin, Win, and their uncle Shawn were surprised and delighted by the unexpected April snowfall in the Cascades. (KOMO)

According to the 8-14 day precipitation outlook from NOAA, our state can expect equal chances of the typical amount of wetness over the next 2 weeks.

At the same time, government forecasters are expecting a 33 to 40 percent chance of above normal temperatures.

Forecasters are hoping for a surge of spring rain to at least delay a spike in the fire danger, but without a healthy snowpack heading into the summer months, water supplies could be bleak in parts of our state.

Oil City News publishes letters, cartoons and opinions as a public service. The content does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Oil City News or its employees. Letters to the editor can be submitted by following the link at our opinion section.

When ‘Republican values’ trump the rule of law

Dear Casper,

I have lived in Wyoming my entire life. I come from a multi-generational, historically rooted Wyoming family. And yet, as I watch the decisions being made for our beautiful state, I find it harder and harder to find a reason to stay.

Our leadership, and the parties they affiliate with, seem to consistently forget that laws are not mere suggestions to be ignored when they become inconvenient. Following them should be black and white.

For decades, Wyo. Stat. § 22-4-105 has ensured that the parties remain neutral vessels for the people’s will until we, the voters, choose our nominee. The recent move by the State Republican GOP to vet and endorse candidates before the primary isn’t just a change in strategy; it’s a dismissal of not only the state statute but also of the voters who live, work and vote here.

Secretary of State Chuck Gray has built a brand on “election integrity,” yet boasts that his actions — including those his critics have heavily questioned — are simply him upholding “Republican values.” But here lies a disturbing question: How can one claim to be the champion of election integrity while simultaneously supporting a party apparatus that treats the Wyoming Supreme Court’s rulings as optional?

For those who may think, “It’s just one candidate, what could the harm be?” let’s look at how Wyoming’s voting power is already so lopsided. Our party structure is built on a “one county, one vote” system. This means those in our least populated counties carry the same voting weight as the thousands of voters in Laramie or Natrona counties.

By allowing the Republican party to vet and endorse candidates before the public even sees the ballot, the GOP is effectively gerrymandering the primary. They are narrowing the field to only those who pass their “test,” stopping the average hardworking Wyomingite from ever truly weighing in.

This leads us to a fundamental question all voters in this state need to ask: Who does the Wyoming Republican Party think their boss is?

Is it the figureheads in Washington? A small circle of party elites in Douglas? Or is it us, their constituents — the ranchers, the miners, the teachers, the parents — who actually cast the votes and have to live with the consequences of the policies made for our state?

Jessica Mantell
Cheyenne

Homeowners associations do not align with Wyoming values

Dear Casper,

To start, having any HOA in Wyoming outside of Jackson seems wild to me. We are the most conservative, anti-big government state in the union. We as a collective are vehemently against taxation and governmental control.

So why then do we willingly allow and join HOA programs? These organizations are liberal government at its finest. You don’t actually own your properties that reside in an HOA as one rule infraction can cause you to lose everything you worked so hard for and already paid for.

Even AI understands this and I am putting an AI analysis of HOA’s below:

An overreaching liberal government and an HOA often function like the same creature wearing different uniforms. One calls it taxation, the other calls it fees, assessments, or compliance penalties, but the playbook stays suspiciously familiar: create layers of rules, attach financial punishment to violations, then claim it’s all for “community standards” or “public good.” In both systems, property owners are sold the idea of ownership, only to learn that missing a payment, painting a fence the wrong shade of beige, or cutting grass wrong. can trigger liens, legal threats, or attempts to seize what they already paid for. It stops looking like governance and starts looking like legalized extortion with meeting minutes.

As a people, we need to castrate all HOAs’ abilities to steal our homes, livelihoods and properties.

In my opinion, any person that joins an HOA board and enforces rules that can steal someone’s home or levy fines that would create a financial hardship over an RV parked on the property, wrong paint color or cutting grass is no longer a freedom-loving Wyomingite and is instead no better then the socialist governments of places like California or New York.

Mike Hinton
Casper

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