Every year, a spook-tacular collaboration between the Art Department, the Humanities Department, and the Honors Program rolls around just in time for the holiday. A Halloween Art show has been held in the North Commons Gallery for ten years now, since 2016. Community members, faculty, and students all submit Halloween-themed art to be featured in the show.
This delightfully chilling event started with Jeff Yules, a Utah Tech University faculty member and avid Halloween enthusiast. He and his wife have been collecting art centered around the festivities for years now. One day, his friends encouraged him to teach a class on the subject along with hosting a show to celebrate. He reached out to McGarren Flack of the art faculty to set upon this idea of an art exhibit. The submissions have grown over the years. Whether focused on witches or ghosts or children trick-or-treating, the submitted art needs to be within the realm of Halloween. Accepted art pieces are then displayed in the gallery, often filled out with pieces from Yules’s own collection. If someone is interested in purchasing a piece in the show, they will be connected with the artist. An opening reception kicks off the exhibit, accompanied by bowls of custom pin-back buttons to commemorate the event.
Yules shared that this all comes from a love of the holiday, the nostalgia for the celebrations in his childhood. He recognizes the efforts of the adults in his life to make the holiday fun “and I want to pay it forward,” he said. Throughout October, you might catch him on campus wearing a Halloween-themed shirt or sporting buttons of years past.
Be sure to stop by the North Commons building to see all the art!
By Allyson Twitchell, Marketing Coordinator for the College of the Arts