Spring City Plein Air: Painting from Life Outdoors

Every year, over 100 artists from all over the west come to the historic, small town of Spring City in central Utah to compete in Spring City Arts’ Plein Air Painting Competition. Each competitor is tasked to paint an outdoor scene uninterrupted and without the assistance of photography, technology or a studio. Spring City is surrounded by preserved, 19th-century pioneer homes, the Wasatch Range and fields of rural countryside, making it an ideal location for the nature-centric painting event.

“It’s a very picturesque location,” says Chris Anderson, Spring City Mayor and Board Member of the organization that hosts the competition, Spring City Arts (SCA). “The painters like it because they can stand in their location and paint four different scenes by turning [in] four different directions,” he says. Over the years, Chris has cultivated relationships with participants and grown his art collection by purchasing competition works—around 20 paintings currently hang in his restored pioneer house.

“If I can not only capture what a place looks like but what a place feels like, that’s the degree of success that I am shooting .”

Chris and his wife, Alison Anderson, first visited Spring City on a weekend close to 20 years ago. Intrigued by the growing “artist colony, of sorts,” he says, but finding no gallery or site dedicated to representing the community’s work, Chris later worked with local artists to create the co-op gallery Spring City Arts. The nonprofit has since promoted the rural county’s artist community through programming and events, including its annual Plein Air Painting Competition.

In 2023, the paint event will start Aug. 26 and culminates on Sept. 1 at 2 p.m. During these seven days, participants are allowed to paint anywhere in Sanpete County and may submit up to four plein air paintings. Pieces are then hung in SCA’s gallery and judged on visual impact, presence, composition and technique. This year, Northern Utah–based landscape artist Josh Clare will judge, awarding $1,500, $1,000 and $500 prizes for first, second and third place, respectively. 10–12 honorable mentions are also awarded $100 each.

“…The experience of creativity, the experience with friends and new friends—it’s a wonderful human experience.”

J. Ken Spencer, who had been painting professionally for 30 years, began practicing plein air in the mid 2010s around the time he started participating in Spring City’s competition. His painting Milburn Road, which depicts a narrow road intersecting pasture dwellings cast in a hazy morning sky, would go on to win 2021’s competition. He had also previously won in 2015. Through his six years as a participant in the Plein Air Painting Competition, he’s painted the setting of Milburn Road a number of times. “When I paint a place, I’m drawn to it for some reason,” says Spencer. “If I can not only capture what a place looks like but what a place feels like, that’s the degree of success that I am shooting .” This is the nature of en plein air art: capturing life “out of doors” through painting.

As much as he enjoys winning and selling his paintings, Spencer says the experience far exceeds the outcome. “I make my living this way,” he says, “but I recognize that a full and rich life just has to include more than the financial outcome … The experience of creativity, the experience with friends and new friends—it’s a wonderful human experience.”

The final Saturday’s Quick Paint and Artist Studio Tour draws the event’s peak crowd of 1,000 attendees. After watching 30 of the plein air competitors paint the historic downtown during the Quick Paint, visitors can also bid on their favorites via a live auction. In the 17 years of welcoming visitors and artists—some from across Utah and the Western United States, others who travel from abroad—Chris has wanted “everyone to feel like they can participate.”

For more information on Spring City Arts 2023 Plein Air Competition, including registration and schedule of events, visit springcityarts.org.

Check out more local art features:
Encircle Gallery: Art For The Community, By The Community
Benjamin Wiemeyer: Painting The City Inside And Out