USU Eastern Gallery East presents “The Helper Showcase”

Just six miles north of the USU Eastern campus sits a hub of art activity as world-class artists paint and sculpt in studios that line historic Main Street in Helper, Utah. Some of these artists collaborated to create an exhibit titled, “The Helper Showcase” which opens Feb. 11 and continues through March 7 in Gallery East on the Price campus.
Nine artists are featured in “The Helper Showcase” including David Dornan, Ben Steele, Karen Jobe Templeton, Charles Stuart Callis, Nick Frappier, Mark Green, Kathryn Martinez, Anne Kaferle and Zachary Proctor.
Here’s a little about the artists:
David Dornan is a full-time professional artist with many competitive and scholastic awards to his credit. He received his bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of Utah in 1976 and his master’s of fine arts from Arizona State University in 1982. After teaching at the U for 17 years, he retired to devote full time to his professional career.
Ben Steele, born in Kennewick, Wash., graduated from University of Utah in 2002 with a BFA in painting and drawing. He continued his education at the Helper Workshops under the instruction of David Dornan and Paul Davis. Attendance at the summer workshops led to a multi-year internship with Dornan, and Steele relocated to Helper where he has been living and working as an artist.
Karen Templeton was born in Punxsutawney, Penn. She was in love with art since she could hold a pencil, but in the farming/mining hills of Pennsylvania, getting an education and finding a job meant working, and art was never work for her. After earning a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Columbia University, a master’s degree at the University of Arizona, and 17 years in the health-care profession, she left nursing to pursue her true passion: sculpting. She specializes in portraiture, bas relief and monumental sculpture of adults, children and animals. She created several series of realistic and representational figure sculptures, and steel and glass sculptures based on petroglyphs of the prehistoric peoples of North America.
Charles Callis, born in Salt Lake City, dreamed of becoming an artist from an early age. He began studying art at the University of Utah and received the Grace Durkee Meldrum Scholarship for artistic talent and promise.  After graduating, Callis moved to Helper to continue art education with Dornan in the summer of 2011.
Nick Frappier, another artist from SLC, graduated from the University of Utah with a BFA degree in painting and drawing. Since June 2011, Frappier lives as an apprentice painter in Dave Dornan’s Helper Workshop School. 
Mark Green, another artist who grew up in SLC, had a curiosity for everything, always asking questions and thinking about why things are the way they are. Although being interested in the world he lived, Green never had interest in school and more often than not, was daydreaming instead of listening to what was being taught. Those two parts ended up coming together when he decided to study art. Looking at the simplest things and finding an endless amount of information, his imagination expanded as he interpreted all he was seeing. After studying art in SLS for four years, he moved to Helper and is studying under Dornan. He is learning to have fun painting and that the process is just as important as the end product.    
Kathryn Martinez, another artist from SLC, became passionate about becoming an artist during high school and attended the U of U to study painting. The summer before her senior year, she was introduced to the Helper art community by a professor at the U of U, which led to a summer internship with the Helper Workshops before returning to school. In 2012, she graduated with a BFA in painting and drawing and returned to Helper to apprentice with Dornan and continue her art education. 
Anne Kaferle was born in Connecticut and earned a bachelor’s of art degree in art and geology from Colby College and a graduate degree in science illustration from the University of California at Santa Cruz. She moved to SLC in 2006, and focused on spending time in the mountains, deserts and rivers of the Colorado Plateau.  She began studying painting in Helper, during the summer of 2012.
Zach Proctor graduated from the U of U in 2002 with a BFA degree with an emphasis in painting and drawing. He received an MFA from Utah State University last year. He has won many awards including the Curator’s Award in last year’s Spring Salon at the Springville Art Museum. He is currently working on a portrait for the Pioneer Theater lobby.
The opening reception and artist talk is set for Friday, Feb. 15 from 7 to 9 p.m. in USU Eastern’s Gallery East, located on the northwest wing of the SAC Building. The exhibit is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. or by appointment through March 8. Attendance to the gallery is free and open to the public.
Along with an opening reception and artist talk, refreshments will be provided by USU Eastern food services and the Happiness Within beverage shop, located on Main Street in Helper. The Helper First Friday event map will be available at the gallery talk.
For more information, email Gallery East Director, Noel Carmack at [email protected], or call 435-613-5237.