Artists: Past and Present

Erin DiGiovanni is an artist, hiker, dog and nature person, and educator living in Logan, UT. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Printmaking at Utah State University where she teaches drawing and printmaking courses. Previously, she taught foundation through graduate courses at The University of Arizona, where she earned her MFA degree in 2D Printmaking, 2020. She has been an artist-in-residence twice for Open AIR, Montana in partnership with the US Forest Service and Frank Church Foundation. Both residencies were in remote wilderness locations, which included Fish Lake in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness and Castle Butte Lookout in Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest. Her work has been selected for juried and group shows throughout the Midwest, Southwest, nationally and internationally, including New York, Sweden, and Puerto Rico.

Through drawing, printmaking, and collage, her work navigates and questions societal norms within American culture as a woman born and raised in the Midwest playing soccer near cornfields and shopping malls, to now living in the West exploring our public lands. DiGiovanni manipulates seemingly banal imagery to codify personal experience within the familiar and the new. Her work incorporates material, process and product to hold space for disparate thoughts and conflicting ideas found within individual anecdotes and commonplace shared issues. Themes of domesticity, ownership, consumerism, neglect, reverence and loss trickle along fragmented compositions and symbolic, mundane objects within Erin’s prints, drawings, and installations.

Lisa Flowers

Teri Harman is a writer and photographer. Her work explores the interactions of culture, language, and landscape in the American West. Currently, she’s engaged in several projects focused on the cultural narrative of Utah Lake. Teri co-curated the current exhibit Healing Waters: Restoring Our Relationship with Utah Lake at the UVU Museum of Art. Her essays have been published by Torrey House Press and Edge Effects Magazine. Her photos have been used by Conserve Utah Valley, Sageland Collaborative, and Grow the Flow. She also regularly presents on Utah Lake and water issues at events, symposiums, and conferences.

Teri is currently a graduate student in Environmental Humanities at the University of Utah, volunteer director of public outreach for Conserve Utah Valley, and an organizer for the upcoming symposium The Water Commons: Living Legacies of Utah Waterways hosted by the Tanner Humanities Center at the U.

She lives with her partner and three children near the shores of Utah Lake, in Saratoga Springs, Utah. Find her on Instagram: @teriharman or teriharman.com

Who am I?

My name is Steven Heffner. I am a musician, a bassist, a composer, a collaborator, an improvisor, and an educator. My career includes jazz, Motown, gospel, folk, and classical music performances and multiple album and song credits. I have performed across the United States and internationally including Europe, Canada, Colombia, and China.

As an artist…

To me, creating art is a meticulous process of changing my perspective on the chosen subject. I have found that music is a powerful tool when taking a prosaic subject and teasing it into an abstraction. Yet, paradoxically, my greatest joy in creating original music is finding ways to express complex subjects in a simple, disarming way. The process of creating elegant, simplicity with musical building blocks that may not be inherently simple is a powerful motivator in my expansion as an artist.

Artistic process…

My process is one of balancing two opposing views. Creating original art is a serious endeavor, something that I have committed my life to and something to which I am inexorably bound. It is all consuming and precludes all other considerations. On the other hand, there is nothing special about crafting original art. My most creative moments come from unassuming places and unexpected times. It is this balance that I strive for in my creative activities

My name is Michael Peterson. I am a saxophonist, composer, and educator. I lead a variety of jazz groups, including the MPQT, which has performed and hosted educational masterclasses all over the United States. I am a founding member of the blues-soul fusion group, Isaac Sloane and the Sound Brigade, which has released multiple recordings and continues to be in demand in the greater Texas area.

While I spend much of my time trying to hone my craft both as a performer and composer, I find that art music is made in small group settings with limited boundaries and expectations. When composing, my music tends to be simplistic in design, and heavily reliant on the contributions and communications of others in the group. I aim to create improvisational “vehicles” that allow other musicians many pathways to express themselves.

My artistic process comes from an almost meditative state. I aim to immerse myself in the moment and let the music happen in real time. While performing, this process is realized through communication with my fellow musicians; always listening to the information they are providing to help guide my improvisation. While I am composing, I try to find small fragments of a melody and take them to both expected and unexpected places, without worrying about goals, rules, form, etc.