Mayor Erin Mendenhall is pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 Mayor’s Artists Awards, which will be presented in conjunction with the Utah Arts Festival on Friday, August 27th at 6 p.m. at the Festival Stage at Library and Washington Square. This award was created in 1992 to honor artists and arts organizations who have deeply enriched the cultural landscape of our City and the lives of our citizens.

This year’s recipients include:

Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts (MICA)

Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts (MICA) is a grassroots cultural organization dedicated to arts, justice, belonging, and community power. MICA was founded in 2003 by Ruby Chacón and Terry Hurst as a platform for underrepresented artists and communities to tell their stories and build together.

Lisa Sewell

Lisa Sewell joined the staff at the Utah Arts Festival in the fall of 1996 as its first full-time development director. In 2001 she became the assistant director and moved into the executive director position in 2006. She retired in the fall of 2020 after 15 years at the helm of the organization.

Framework Arts

Framework Arts is a local, project-based, non-profit organization founded on the belief that youth should play a vital role in building and engaging in a creative community. Since 2014, Framework Arts has supported arts programming in community and school settings.

Paisley Rekdal

Paisley Rekdal is the author of six books of poetry and four books of prose, most recently Nightingale, published in 2019 by Copper Canyon Press, and Appropriate: A Provocation, published by W.W. Norton in 2021. Her work has received multiple fellowships including from the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Dallas Graham, Red Fred Project Executive Director & Publisher

Dallas is a publisher and the executive director of the Red Fred Project and is currently creating life-legacies, in the form of children’s books, with kids living with critical illnesses and rare diseases.

EVENT: Mayor’s Artists Awards presentation at the Utah Arts Festival

WHEN: Friday, August 27th, 6 – 6:15 p.m. 

WHERE: Festival Stage, at the Utah Arts Festival at Washington and Library Square, Salt Lake City

More information on the 2021 Mayor’s Artist Awards at https://uaf.org/mayorawards