Opening reception for "on behalf of wings," imagery by Linda Dalton Walker with poetry by Nan Seymour. Exhibit runs May 10–June 22.
Linda Dalton Walker Artist's Statement
The imagery and poetry in this exhibit conspire on behalf of millions of birds reliant on Great Salt Lake as an irreplaceable refuge.
Wildlife photographer Linda Dalton Walker and lake-facing poet nan seymour first met at the receding shoreline. The two friends share a deep devotion to the shallow lake. They reverence the countless lives the saline waters sustain, especially those of over 230 species of birds. Each feature of this exhibit is both a witness and a prayer on behalf of our winged neighbors. Since January of 2022, Linda & nan have helped gather a community to keep vigil for our sacred lake at this time of peril. The intimate photographs, participatory puppetry, songs, and poetry here represent a body of work which continues to swell. Photographer Anna Pocaro, teacher and musician Josh Craner, filmmaker John Meier, and visual artist Therese Berry are all accomplices in this work, each bearing witness in their own genres.
Collectively these artists invite you to turn your own heart toward the lake and to lift your face toward her feathered emissaries. While you are here: learn the shape of swallows, fold a pelican as an act of devotion, and trace the miraculous migration of Wilson’s Phalaropes with the help of sixth-grade experts.
The lives of our winged neighbors are inseparable from our own. Birds cannot advocate for themselves in the human realm and depend on our help. Pay attention to any particular species and you will feel a swell of affection. Speak up on their behalf and add your voice to the growing chorus of lake-facing, bird-allegiant friends. We can begin to repair the rift between humans and the life that loves life by practicing reverence and reciprocity. In this way, may we save what we love.
nan seymour|Artist Statement
Let us gather in a lake-facing way!
Since colonization, this is waste water has been the predominant story about Great Salt Lake. This sorry plot has prevailed over decades, even as the lake has protected us from our poisons. I offer we are a lake-facing people as an alternative narrative. For years now I’ve told this story to anyone who would listen.
I weave words to cast spells on the lake’s behalf. My poems sing praises to the vital but dying heart of our ecosystem. My words bear witness to the precipice we are on. They also seek to repair the breach between our own species and our beyond-human kin.
Poetry, song, story, and ritual are my mediums as well as my tools for the work of relational repair. They bring me joy and stave off despair.
The lake is a creator, not a commodity. Her waters are contaminated and sacred. Diversity is life; all ecology is queer. Hence, we gather in reverence and in jubilance on the shore. We remember winged neighbors who rely on this last refuge; we recognize the lives of birds as no less significant than our own. We seek to learn from Indigenous leaders, scientists, and park stewards; true poets of place. We sing to the lake and listen when she sings back.
Belonging is inherent and cannot be bought. Capitalism will be defeated when we defy the culture of comparison in favor of kinship. This is why I make all the imperfect art I can make. I am trying with all my might to bend our trajectory in favor of life and then bend it again. I consecrate my attention. My labor is an on-going prayer for healing, restoration, and continuance.
We belong to this wave-made world. May we co-create a story in which we will be delighted to reside; may we make it large enough to get everyone inside.
https://nanseymour.com/
Artist's Bio
Linda Dalton Walker, born and raised in this beautiful state of Utah, grew up in the arms of Great Salt Lake, building castles in the sand and floating in the salty water with her siblings. It is only fitting that, as an artist, her eye has turned towards the lake and the 12 million birds that rely on both the lake and us for survival.
Dalton has spent her life being inspired by the natural world around her. More recently, the lens of Linda’s camera has been focused on the birds of Utah’s wetlands. Walker has been documenting birds with a strong emphasis on conservation, and in 2024, the international Bird Photographer of the Year competition, granted her a Highly Commended Award in the category of Urban Birds. With a Masters in Education, Dalton is always seeking ways to educate people through her images.
Linda recently curated an exhibit that involved working with seven other artists, that explored the complex impacts on the rivers that feed Great Salt Lake. She contributed 39 pieces to this informative exhibition, Water Pilgrimage: Where the Rivers End. Dalton’s research and photography for the exhibit spanned nearly two years, aimed at raising awareness about the environmental challenges facing this fragile ecosystem.
In 2024, her wildlife images and story were internationally published in Conker Magazine, UK. Walker is hoping that by creating connectivity to nature, and birds specifically, that people will begin to understand the value in what they are seeing and how important our Great Salt Lake is for all of us. She believes that conservation in photography transcends age, race, culture, and gender and has a way of transcending barriers. Her aim is to get people more curious and spark that joy of curiosity, then perhaps they will inspire others to do the same.
Website: https://www.lindadaltonwalker.com
Instagram: @lindadaltonwalkerart
BIOS for the Making Waves Artist Collaborative
nan seymour, poet of place
A queer daughter of Utah pioneers, nan is a Great Salt Lake celebrant and vigil keeper. She founded the practice of River Writing in order to foster authentic connection. Everyone is warmly welcomed to this community-held generative writing practice. River Writing is one method of mending our relationships with the each other as well as the beyond-human world.
nan’s debut poetry collection, prayers not meant for heaven, was published by Toad Hall Editions in the summer of 2021. Her story “lake woman leaving” was awarded an Alfred Lambourne prize by Friends of Great Salt Lake. In the summer of 2023, Nan was honored by Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall with a Mayor’s Artist Award. As poet-in-residence on Antelope Island, nan led day-and-night vigils on behalf of the imperiled Great Salt Lake throughout the 2022 and 2023 Utah State legislative sessions. During her weeks on the receding shore, she composed irreplaceable, a collective praise poem for Great Salt Lake, containing over 400 lake-facing voices. The book was published in fall of 2024 by Moon in the Rye Press. The ode is a community cry for the full restoration of the ecosystem.
The poet also led the 2024 winter vigil, with daily demonstrations of love for the lake at the Utah State Capitol. Advocates of all ages walked with waves in silence every morning and celebrated the lake’s species with jubilant singing and dancing each evening. During the 2025 session, nan and her accomplices at Making Waves Artist Collaborative are keeping daily vigil at the Capitol once again.
nan’s body of work gives voice to the inherent rights of ecosystems to live, flourish, and evolve in natural way. Her words emerge from a devotion to repairing the breach between humans and the rest of the sentient, singing earth.
Anna Pocaro | Photographer & Native Garden Reclamation Specialist
Anna Pocaro is a professional photographer with over 20 years of experience capturing human connection through editorial, event, and portrait photography. Her keen artistic vision and dynamic storytelling bring authenticity and emotion to every project.
As the founder of In-Joy, a Native Garden Reclamation business, Anna helps individuals restore their landscapes with native plants, fostering biodiversity and sustainability. She sees this work as a direct way to support Great Salt Lake, highlighting the connection between land stewardship, water conservation, and environmental restoration.
A passionate advocate for Pia Apaa, Great Salt Lake, Anna serves as the resident photographer for Making Waves Artist Collaborative, documenting community-led efforts to restore the lake. Her imagery captures the ritual, ceremony, and activism at the heart of this movement.
Above all, Anna is a dedicated mother and creative force, bringing passion, purpose, and connection to everything she does.
John Meier, Filmmaker
John Meier, an Emmy award-winning documentarian who has earned accolades for producing roles on "This is Utah" on PBS Utah. His debut producing role on "Llama Nation" achieved acclaim at national film festivals, winning the Audience Choice Award at the Omaha Film Festival and Best Documentary at the Utah Film Festival. Passionate about the environment, John employs storytelling to reconnect people with their surroundings.
Throughout his career, he's dedicated time to document Utah's pressing issues. John aims to inspire a deeper connection between individuals and the natural world, fostering a greater appreciation for our environment at this time of imperiled waters and ecosystemic collapse.
Josh Craner, Musician & Teacher
Born and raised in Utah, Josh Craner has been teaching at Emerson Elementary School since 2003. He is grateful for the opportunity to inspire students to make a difference in the world. For the past nine years he has taken his 6th graders to the Great Salt Lake for hands-on science, which helped him fall in love with this beautiful treasure. Josh and his students have witnessed firsthand what is happening to the lake level. During the 2021-2022 school year his class asked what else they could do to help. This led the students to get involved in activism for the Great Salt Lake: they successfully advocated for brine shrimp to become the Utah State Crustacean, wrote the song “Do Our Part,” folded over 2,500 origami pelicans for the Dear Pelican project, sang at the 2025 Great Salt Lake rally, and developed informational handouts on American White Pelicans and Wilson’s Phalaropes.
As a musician and songwriter, Josh understands how important art is. He believes that art is a wonderful way to help children and adults alike get involved in activism. As an educator, he helps students recognize their power as artists and use it for good.
Therese Berry, Art Director for the Great Salt Lake Vigil
Therese Berry began her journey with Making Waves Artists Collaborative by designing what the artists fondly refer to as their 'Gen One' puppets, including brine shrimp, brine fly, eared grebe, and avocet hand puppets. These initial creations served as a springboard, leading to a collaborative evolution into creating a series of species-specific puppets; a cardboard transformed cast of beyond-human life to animate in celebration of our love and devotion for Great Salt Lake.
Born and raised in the heart of the Salt Lake Valley, Therese grew up, pursued her education and raised her family here, becoming part of the landscape she loves. She earned her degree in Fisheries and Wildlife Biology from Utah State University and began her career as a seasonal biologist with the DWR. Following this, she returned to academia to complete an education program, and spent many years teaching science to K-6th grade students. Currently, she works as a Research Manager at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in the Department of Population Sciences.
Her love of science is one-half of the equation. As both her parents were art majors, by default she grew up nurturing her right brain with many explorations into various art forms; drawing, book making, weaving, quilting. These days, she draws most of her creative energy from textile arts.
Sarah May
Sarah May is a Salvadoreña artist, weaver, poet, and bruja who has long called the Lake home. As someone who lives in the in-between of multiple worlds and identities, Great Salt Lake is a sacred place where she is seen and held in all she is and where she cultivated her magic into the artist and storyteller she is today. Sarah served as the Director for the 2025 Great Salt Lake Vigil at the Capitol.
Sarah graduated from the University of Utah with her BFA in Photography & Digital Imaging and her MA in Community Leadership with an Emphasis in Art & Culture from Westminster College. Sarah has led designated spaces of healing, connection, and empowerment for BIPOC communities in Salt Lake City utilizing art, knowledge, and wisdom from BIPOC and Indigenous communities.
One of Sarah’s mediums of choice is cyanotypes and her cyanotype tapestry work led the way for the Making Waves Cyanotype waves, flags, and banners to be created embodying Great Salt Lake.
AGE GROUP: | All Ages |
EVENT TYPE: | Exhibits | Arts & Creativity |
NOTE: The Main Library's Rooftop Terrace is closed for renovations.
Salt Lake City's Main Library, designed by internationally-acclaimed architect Moshe Safdie in conjunction with VCBO Architecture, opened in February 2003 and remains one of the most architecturally unique structures in Utah. This striking 240,000 square-foot structure houses more than 500,000 books and other materials, yet serves as more than just a repository of books and computers. It reflects and engages the city's imagination and aspirations. The structure embraces a public plaza, with shops and services at ground level, reading galleries above, and a 300-seat auditorium.
A multi-level reading area along the Glass Lens at the southern facade of the building looks out onto the plaza with stunning views of the city and Wasatch Mountains beyond. Spiraling fireplaces on four floors resemble a column of flame from the vantage of 200 East and 400 South. The Urban Room between the Library and the Crescent Wall is a space for all seasons, generously endowed with daylight and open to magnificent views.
