Artists

DeWITT PALMER , a lifelong resident of northern Utah’s Cache Valley, developed a lasting interest in ranching during his youth. After retiring from a career in business, Palmer taught himself to braid rawhide, calling upon boyhood memories, determination, and the help of braiders throughout the West. Palmer’s finely constructed reins, headstalls, hobbles, and bossals are popular locally and outside of Utah. Palmer is affiliated with the national Rawhide Braiders’ Association and received the Utah Governor’s Folk Art Award in 1987.

SHAWN CLARK makes bentwood furniture from willow and other soft woods that grow near his home. His work represents a centuries-old craft tradition. In the last few years, Clark has improvised with this tradition by incorporating antlers, rawhide, and other natural materials into his furniture. He has demonstrated at numerous public festi￾vals and has sold his furniture to people from many parts of the country.

ADA JENSEN learned to make rag rugs at Relief Society during the Depression and since then has crafted more than 550 rugs for family and friends. Using donated rags, she likes to work with durable bright colors and bold patterns. She has demonstrated her rug￾making skills in her church and community, at the Festival of the American West, and at the Jensen Historical Farm in Cache Valley.

HENRIETTE MUNANUI was born in Tahiti, where she learned to make traditional textiles, tifaifai , from her mother. She has lived in Utah since 1969 and has continued her craft, often sending to Tahiti for the right type and color of cotton fabric for her appliqued textiles. Her work was featured in a traveling exhibit of Polynesian quilts, and she has frequently demonstrated her skills.

Sisters MELVA EMRAZIAN and ROSE PETERSON come from a family that endured fifty years of exile in Syria before immigrating in the mid-1960s to rejoin earlier Armenian-Mormon immigrants in Utah. During their exile, the family earned a living by weaving rugs. The girls learned to knit, crochet, make lace using only a needle and thread, and reproduce an item simply by looking at it. Both sisters create textiles, and Rose works as a professional tailor.

HAZEL and WALLACE ZUNDEL were born and raised in the small Shoshone settlement of Washakie, just south of the Utah-Idaho border. Both learned their crafts in their traditional community, which fostered age-old skills like basketmaking, hide tanning, and beadwork. The Zundels have displayed their bead and leather work in numerous galleries, art shows, and fairs and have taught their skills in both schools and festivals.

Sisters M ELVA EM RAZI AN and ROSE PETERSON come from a family that endured fifty years of exile in Syria before immigrating in the mid-1960s to rejoin earlier Armenian-Mormon immigrants in Utah. During their exile, the family earned a living by weaving rugs. The girls learned to knit, crochet, make lace using only a needle and thread, and reproduce an item simply by looking at it. Both sisters create textiles, and Rose works as a professional tailor.

GLEN THOMPSON of Huntsville has constructed more than five thousand saddles in Utah during his career. Known for their made-to-order, leather ground seats, artistic tooling, and overall quality construction, each requires between eighteen and thirty hours of labor. Thompson’s Beehive saddle has been displayed throughout Utah and at the Renwich Gallery in Washington, D.C. In 1984 he received the Utah Governor’s Folk Art Award.

Like the Zundels, MAE PARRY was born and raised in Washakie and grew up observing and imitating the arts of her Shoshone heritage. She has demonstrated and displayed her art work at numerous festivals, art shows, and schools and has devoted many hours to speaking and writing about her people.

VON ALLEN, a resident of Provo, Utah, holds a B.A. and an M.A. from Edinboro State College in Pennsylvania, and an M.F.A. from Syracuse University in New York. She is currently an assistant professor and head of the ceramics program at BYU, where she was recently named “Teacher of the Year” in the art department. Her work has been featured in Studio Potter Magazine (Dec. 1988) and has been exhibited widely in such places as Texas, Utah, California, Georgia, Montana, Arizona, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. She is represented by Pierpont Gallery in Salt Lake