“An Irreplaceable Poetry Reading for the Great Salt Lake” on December 12, 7-8:30pm, will feature poets Morgan Ray, Nan Seymour and others. This event is free to the public.

This exhibit asks us “what will we miss when the Great Salt Lake is gone?” It’s an opportunity to slip inside the vistas, feel the power of the Lake and connect with the avian world imperiled by our choices.

According to the Utah Division of Wildlife more than 10 million birds, representing 338 species, utilize the Great Salt Lake and its habitats. Terry Tempest Williams in her 2023 New York Times op-ed observed, “Great Salt Lake’s death and the death of the lives she sustains could become our death, too.” Robin Wall Kimmerer noted: “The story that we have to illuminate is that we don’t have to be complicit with destruction … If we can pay attention to things that really matter— there a revolution starts.”

We have been discussing the problems around the Great Salt Lake for years. We’ve attended rallies, written letters, made calls. We found that this sometimes-stinky salty body, its denizens, and environs made its way in our hearts and ultimately into our art. By collaborating on this exhibition, we hope to widen the conversation and draw more attention to the crisis of the dying Great Salt Lake.

Erica Diane Monson is a mixed media artist and educator whose work explores feminist concerns and methodologies. She seeks to untangle the gendered standards she inherited from her upbringing. Using traditional craft and contemporary art methods, Monson's work approaches the female body as an object in which societies bestow or revoke value. Her work draws specifically from the visual culture and ideologies of her faith tradition, though these are echoed in the experiences of women across varying religious and cultural backgrounds. In combining religious iconography with natural motifs, Monson's work deconstructs ideas surrounding motherhood, sexuality and traditional gender roles.