Museum Store

Chocolate

Esmeralda Torres

Esmeralda Torres, alongside her mother and sisters, honors her Zoque indigenous heritage from Chiapas, Mexico, by preserving the ancient art of Zoque and Maya chocolate making. Through these authentic flavors, they pay homage to their rich history. Esmeralda actively shares her heritage through workshops and projects, dedicated to promoting indigenous culinary arts. Their compelling story and millennia-old recipes are also prominently featured in the cacao display within the UMFA’s Mexico, Central, and South American gallery. Her efforts ensure that her ancestral legacy not only thrives but also inspires future generations and enriches global culture.

Glass Jewelry

Anthony Barbano

Anthony Barbano specializes in a contemporary glass blowing technique that involves 24K gold and pure silver into spectacular art designed with precision and intention. Following graduation in fine art at the University of Utah, Anthony traveled to Murano, Italy, to meet his Italian ancestors and Murano glass masters. He is now renowned for his luminescent color combinations and distinctive detail, with an awe inspiring collection available at select galleries internationally.

Jewelry

Marsha Christensen

Marsha, born and raised in Utah, says her “heart has always been with the rocks, rivers, landscapes, and native people of the world,” which serve as the inspiration for her jewelry. Sourcing pendants from Native Americans, Marsha also travels once a year to Tucson, Arizona, to attend a large bead market offering stones from all corners of the world.

Jewelry

Tracy O’Very Covey

In addition to being a jewelry designer, Tracy O’Very Covey has been an illustrator, fine artist, and graphic designer for more than twenty years. Tracy especially enjoys ethnic and antique beads from Tibet, Afghanistan, Thailand, and Africa. She combines this sense of culture with color and style for jewelry that is unique, romantic, and well-traveled, carefully selecting beads to create a harmonious balance.

framed insects and butterflies

Ron Fehr

Artist Ron Fehr spent his childhood chasing bugs around the Montana countryside. A Salt Lake resident for more than twenty years, he recently left his life as a diesel mechanic to follow his father’s lead in the taxidermy and framing of beautiful insects. With conservation in mind, he acquires stunning insects that pass before their release from government-sanctioned farms all over the world. Each purchase supports the conservation of these amazing creatures as well as their natural habitat.

Hand-bound books

Jazmin Gallegos

Born and raised in Salt Lake City, Jazmin Gallegos is a bookbinder, book arts educator, and advocate for the arts and art education. She is the Community Outreach & Studio Coordinator for the Book Arts Program at the J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah where she coordinates and often teaches book arts workshops for communities across the state of Utah. Jazmin began making books in 2018 as a hobby that has not only morphed into a small business but her art therapy. She’s also a cat mom, a yogi, a yoga instructor, and a travel lover. 

Pottery

Mira Loyborg

Mira has been creating fun and uniques ceramics since 1999, experimenting with form, decoration, and bright colors within functional pieces. Her favorite decoration technique, sgraffito, is done free-form so that every piece is one-of-a-kind.

Jewelry

Ronda Nielson

Ronda Neilson declares she’s “mad for earrings, whether wearing or creating them.” Earrings allow the wearer to feel beautiful, unique, and stunning, so Ronda produces wearable, affordable, and striking pairs. Her pendants are created from semi-precious stones such as turquoise, jade, jasper, and carnelian, which are inlaid in one-of-a-kind patterns of contrasting or complementary colors and textures. 

Jewelry

Lisa Ord

Lisa found her creative outlet at age eight in a bag of broken and leftover costume jewelry from her grandfather—a treasure-trove of beads and sparkles for her to transform. Now she mostly uses sterling or fine silver and precious and semi-precious stones, with occasional touches of leather and pewter. Her motto is “One can never have enough jewelry!” 

Polymer Clay Jewelry

Jana Roberts Benzon

Jana is inspired by polymer clay’s limitless creative potential as well as the natural world. She uses her SLC studio to explore her artistic bounds and discover new techniques, which she teaches in workshops internationally. You can find her work at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the UMFA, and featured in numerous print and online publications. When she’s not experimenting with clay, she enjoys hiking and exploring Utah’s mountainous backdrop.

Glass Art

Lori Scharf

Inspired by Dale Chihuly’s glass exhibit during the 2002 Winter Olympics, Lori entered the sparkling world of glass by learning to make her own fused glass skylight panels to replace the large, plain ones in her new home. Using her engineering background, she now creates glass art pieces as donations for fundraisers as well as private commissions including light sconces, trays, wall hangings, and fun decorative objects.

Photography

Tristan Adler

Tristan is a self-taught photographer whose work focuses on conserving the landscapes and wildlife of the Intermountain West and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. His photos have been featured by Conservation Alliance, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, and Sageland Collaborative.

Korean Ink Painting

Joon Bae

Joon Bae, an Asian ink painter, recieved her BFA in Visual Arts from the University of Utah. She began learning traditional Korean ink painting methods in childhood. After a lifetime of practice and exploration of Western forms of painting through her studies, she has found her rhythm as an East Asian Ink Painter. She is excited to continue teaching and learning through storytelling by putting brush to rice paper. Joon is currently teaching through the OSHER program at the University of Utah.

Jewelry

Jamie Amann

As a little girl, Jamie Amann was enthralled with sparkling rocks and the mystique of adornment. She trained in California as a traditional Goldsmith and worked for many years doing repair and production work before deciding it was time to express her own aesthetic in a namesake line. Vibrant colored gemstones and the organic casting of plants are signature staples in her work. Inspired by the details of the natural world, she attempts to capture the texture or pattern of complex organisms and streamline them into a delicate talisman to wear every day.