On Wednesday’s Access Utah we’ll broadcast a full episode from This Is Her Place, a podcast that tells the remarkable stories of Utah women past and present, in all their diversity. Podcast co-host Naomi Watkins will also join us.
At a time of intense discussion of the community values reflected in public art, we take up the question of who and what are represented in public art through the lives of three muralists whose work has transformed the visual arts landscape in Utah: Minerva Teichert, a 20th-century painter with Mormon pioneer roots who was the first woman to paint a mural in a temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Ruby Chacon, a Chicana artist and teacher whose murals dot her native Salt Lake City and the West; and Jann Haworth, a pop artist and co-creator of The Beatles' Seargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover, whose mural featuring Utah women was unveiled recently in Salt Lake City.
Naomi Watkins is an educational leader, women's advocate, and community builder who believes that diverse representation plays a vital role in the empowerment of young people. She authored Champions of Change: 25 Women Who Made History, a book written with Katherine Kitterman and illustrated by Brooke Smart as part of her work for Better Days 2020, a non-profit dedicated to popularizing Utah women’s history through art, education, and legislation. An expert in teacher education and literacy pedagogy, Naomi earned her Ph.D. from the University of Utah and resides and hikes in the mountains of Salt Lake City.
