from one thing to...another

So today, John told me he and a guest (that would be me) were invited to join the mayor's table at the annual non-fundraising Utah Democratic party dinner. He declined because he had already made plans with the boys.

How did John end up being invited to such an event? (We have no political aspirations - John's not even a registered Democrat). What transpired to make this feasable, and to make declining such an invitation no big deal? How in the heck did Utah become the place for us?

It went something like this.

When we moved to Utah I decided I wanted to become involved in the community, since I really wanted to feel connected to this place after leaving the home I loved so much in California. At the first community council meeting I attended I was apporoached by a woman my age. Turns out she went to Harvard about the same time as I was at Wellesley. Turned out she married a mormon guy and they were on their way to relocating to California when they realized, by stopping here because her husband was from here, how much they loved this place. Turns out her husband is an artist.

So two roads simultaneously opened: my involvement in the local community and John's and my involvement with our new artist friend, who had a lot of energy and ideas. With him, we put together an artist group and started having large shows with hundreds of invitees. Then John got so into the idea that he himself put together a show at our house, and about two hundred people came through (that was Feb. 09 I think).

Well, if you are reading this post, you know John. And once John gets going, he isn't really capable of doing something halfway. But more on that in a minute.

Our artist friend told us about his involvement with the University Fine Arts Museum up on the U campus. We had always thought the museum was kind of dorky, but then our friend explained that by joining this group called the Young Benefactors, we got to have a voice in an actually voting on artwork to buy, which, if we wanted to improve things around here, thought we ought to do. So we joined up and each year they have a black tie affair where we vote on the work and have dinner. Cool, black tie - hadn't done that before. So that got us involved with the museum and the people there.

One of the people in charge of the UMFA Young Benefactors group was a man named Josh. I had always wanted to meet him because I found out that he was from Chicago and was the chair of the International Sculpture Center (http://www.sculpture.org/) which showcases the best of the best in contemporary sculpture. I thought, man, if people like this are in Utah, I want to stick around.

Meanwhile, after a year of being in this Young Benefactor group John got himself onto the board of the Young Benefactors. At roughly the same time I was invited to do the Face Off event for the 337 project, where we painted those garage doors. Turns out Josh's wife was on the board of the Neighborhood House where we were doing the garage doors and I got to know her a bit and really liked her. We also met that day a man who had moved here from San Francisco and was a big contemporary art collector.

Meanwhile, the Brigham Young University Museum of Art had hired a top notch guy as a curator, the UMFA hired a top-notch woman as a curator, and Adam, the creator of the Face-Off competition (who later became director of the Salt Lake Art Center) and the other two curators and John and I started talking. (small cities are awesome for being able to run into anyone and everyone). http://www.wmagazine.com/w/blogs/editorsblog/2009/12/15/utah-gets-edgy.htm

Meanwhile, John decided to take our little artist group to the next level, and decided to invite all the curators and collectors we were now talking. To our great surprise, they all came! We all started talking about how we wanted to change the art scene here and make it into a top notch contemporary arts destination.

Out of that was borne a think tank of curators, collectors, and directors that John heads up. They meet every so often to share ideas. My project for that is to come up with money (I think I have a way to raise funds) and put up contemporary art on billboards around town. I need to back up and say that John had already started the Foster Art Program, (www.fosterartprogram.org) and was very busy with that, as that is the way he came up with to change the culture here in favor of contemporary art.

So this past fall, Peter Corroon, the current Salt Lake County mayor, decided to run for Governor against Republican Gary Herbert, "governor-by-default-when-our-beloved-Huntsman-went-to-work-for-Obama". Our friend Josh became the campaign manager. He invited John to head up the group Artists For Corroon, and that is where we are now.

So why turn down the invitation for dinner with the mayor?

We're too tired!!!!