We will soon welcome a beautiful new outdoor sculpture to the Glendinning Home, where Utah Arts & Museums is headquartered. Ogden artist Heath Satow was awarded the opportunity to create a site-specific work to be placed on the home’s grounds. His piece, AMH: 1898, honors our agency’s founder, Alice Merrill Horne, in a number of ways, not least by incorporating the legislative language that established our predecessor agency in 1899 (called the Utah Arts Institute) around the work’s base.
Said Satow in his proposal: “I found in my research that Horne was quite compelling. She was an amazing person who not only accomplished an incredible amount in an age when women were expected to mostly be homemakers, but she got into politics specifically to advance an arts agenda in this state. An artist herself, she was truly an unsung hero that I would love the opportunity to draw more attention to.”
AMH: 1898 will depict a bud of Utah’s state flower, the sego lily, using oxidized corten steel and 24k gold. In a nod to Horne’s faith, Satow chose the gold to echo the material used as the surface treatment for many Angel Moroni sculptures found on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ temples. “I want to use the story of Alice Merrill Horne to inspire people to be that bud, that spark, the first person to make the move to create, to make something happen,” explained Satow.
We can’t wait to enjoy the finished piece.