Park City-based artists Peg Bodell and her daughter Sundyn Woolf decided to curate an exhibit featuring the works of seven creatives in a one-weeknd exhibit that runs from Sept. 22-24 at Miners Hospital.

The exhibit, titled “Bodell & Friends,” will feature paintings, jewelry, fiber work and photography of “inspiring color, texture and imagination,” and a chance for the artists to interact with the public and each other, Bodell said in a press release.

“Just like performance art in a pocket park or on a restaurant deck, an intimate visual art exhibit, studio tour, mural, public signage or art demonstration, can significantly enhance our Park City life or a guest’s experience,” she said. “When we get to know the visual artist on a personal level the image is memorialized, and we can draw from that memory later with greater emotion.”  

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The idea was inspired by the Arts Council of Park City and Summit County‘s BRAND PC and CREATE PC galleries, which gave local artists and entrepreneurs the space to display and sell their works in the old Union Pacific Depot, located at the corner of Main Street and Heber Avenue, according to Bodell.

They have been more about getting someone to take a deep breath, exhale and absorb the world that’s around them.” Mark Maziarz, Park City resident and fine art photographer

“We started our joint creative process during COVID … we called ourselves ‘Silver Queens Creations,’ producing small framed art, greeting cards, boot charms, ornaments, painted votives (and) bottle stoppers.”

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While that was a good start for Bodell and Woolf, they decided to “take our joint work to the next phase.”

So, Bodell contacted some of her creative friends to get back to the art shows she used to produce for herself in the early 1990s.

“We have available to our citizens several community owned venues throughout town that can accommodate comfortable community cultural events without the complexity of big nonprofit and community partnerships,” she said. “If this show works out, we want to put together an art show packet that other artists can use to produce their own intimate style shows that work for them and might be an alternative to festivals and galleries.”

Fine art photographer Mark Maziarz is one of the artists Bodell and Woolf wanted in the lineup. (See accompanying list of participating artists).

“I’ve lived in Park City for 34 years, and I’ve known Peg since the first week we moved to town,” Maziarz said. “She was our neighbor.”

Bodell and Maziarz have worked together on a few projects over the years, and one of the first was a Park City calendar Maziarz did of his photographs in the mid 1990s.

“She was my designer,” the photographer said. 

Maziarz isn’t sure how many works he is going to exhibit during the show, but he said Bodell guaranteed all of the artists will be able to display their works on a couple of large panels.

“I’m hoping to show five or six larger framed pieces, and I will also have a table that will display what I call ‘photo blocks,'” he said. 

Maziarz’s “photo blocks” are small photographs that he mounts on six-inch by six-inch wooden blocks that are an inch-and-a-half thick.

“I coat them with epoxy, and they are pretty different from my big framed works,” he said. “They make really great gifts for people who are looking for holiday gifts during the fringes of the season.”

When selecting photographs to exhibit in shows such as Bodell & Friends, Maziarz lets his emotions lead.

“A lot of the time it’s what I’m personally excited about,” he said.

One such work is titled “Dreamcatcher,” one of Maziarz’s best-selling images that he took while riding a ski lift.

“It’s of a stormy day that is almost a white out, and there was nobody else in front of me,” he said. “You see the chairlift receding into the distance, and there is a nice clump of  trees on the left. It sets a nice mood. So I think, lately, I’ve been picking works that are mood setting.”

Maziarz’s works these days focus more on the peaceful side of life.

“They have been more about getting someone to take a deep breath, exhale and absorb the world that’s around them,” he said. “We’re all doing so much and are exposed to so much while we are trying to get so many different things done in an average day. So I love the moments where we can breathe.” 

Maziarz, who began focusing more on fine art photography after working mostly in commercial photography for the past 33 years, said he is looking forward to the Bodell & Friends exhibit, because he loves talking about the craft of composing and taking photographs.

“When I was working as a commercial photographer, there used to be a lot of brainstorming about the best way a photo can get across a client’s message, but I’ve noticed over the years as more photographers have come into the market, that there is less of that talk,” he said. “In the past eight years as I’ve gotten more into fine art photography, I have found more opportunities to talk with other artists and potential collectors about the craft again. I really love that.”

Participating artists of the Bodell & Friends Exhibit   

• Peg Bodell — dyes and wax, oil, acrylic and encaustic painting (bodellart.com)
• James Burt — acrylic, pour paintings (jamesburtart.com)
• Marianne Cone — acrylic painting
• Sandy Glynn — fabric and quilts
• Steve Johnson — silver, exotic stones and dinosaur bone jewelry
• Mark Maziarz — photography (maziarz.com)
• Blossom Murray — mixed media
• Lone Vilnius — assemblage and fiber (lonevilnius.weebly.com)
• Sundyn Woolf — encaustic, alcohol ink, assemblage, acrylic painting