Sitting in a barely-earthbound aircraft last Saturday, I learned of Paul Reynolds’ death via a text from a friend. I felt shocked, hollowed out, and heartbroken. Paul was loved by the dance community in Salt Lake City and beyond. I soon found myself reminiscing with Ashley Anderson, founder of loveDANCEmore, and the two of us both felt the need to write down some of what we felt about the gravity of his passing. We offer what’s below as an invitation to share your own memories. We’ll publish what’s collected at some point in a print edition of our journal, which Paul frequently helped us to share at 12 Minutes Max, a multidisciplinary works-in-progress platform he ran for years at the City Library.
– Samuel Bennett Hanson
Photo by Shalee Cooper.
Ashley Anderson: The first time I met Paul was when I had returned to Salt Lake City and was looking to present choreography in a public space in the city. As ever, he was helpful and dedicated to the idea that the downtown public library was a place where anyone could stumble upon a meaningful performance.
Over the years I saw Paul in various iterations of performance. We were both at the Performance Art Festival, watching Gretchen (his wife) and Zoey (his daughter) await the return of puffins. At a few gallery shows, I was fortunate to watch Paul perform in Choreographer’s Dream, Puppeteer’s Nightmare. Gretchen had choreographed a trio of puppets who danced on a wooden stage to Elvis’ “All Shook Up.” At a key moment, the stage turns, and we see the bare backs (and with them, the humanity) of the three puppeteers.
Because Paul was a visual artist, it was nice to see him given this chance to share the vulnerability of dance. I equally enjoyed seeing his own visual art in the same galleries, something which highlighted his contemplative, but playful, nature.
Paul and I shared a commonality of living in other places and wanting to bring new platforms to Salt Lake City. He wanted to shore up the art happening in the city, and he wanted us to stay here. He cared about all of our art, even when it was radically different from his own. I didn’t thank Paul enough, or maybe ever, for this important quality, because it felt like he would be here forever.
Samuel Hanson: Like Ashley, when I think about Paul, I imagine seeing him at the end of countless shows and openings. Paul was tall, skinny, and stood out as somehow quiet and gregarious at the same time. I don’t think I ever left a show where I’d seen Paul without searching him out to say hi, probably because I knew he’d temporarily restore my faith in being alive. Bright and amiable, Paul brought such infectious curiosity into the room.
This curiosity came through in his incredible work as a curator of 12 Minutes Max, the Performance Art Festival, and so much more that happened at the City Library and beyond. Almost every filmmaker, dancer, or musician in Salt Lake City must have a story of Paul opening a door for us to a venue, helping us make a connection that made our thesis performance possible, or of reminding us of why we were artists by making a sly introduction to a peer who would go on to change our lives.
Another image finds him at the bottom of the deep rake of the City Library’s auditorium: jocular, lanky, feet dangling off the edge of the stage. His signature was an understated enthusiasm and respect for whatever artist he was introducing, whether it was his friend the performance artist Kristina Lenzi, a local celebrity like Trent Harris, or, more likely, some taciturn, scruffy-looking, yet shockingly talented almost-teenager up from an obscure corner of Utah County. At the more sublime 12 Minutes Max afternoons, Paul seemed to be leading us down deep into the rich, earthy soil of other people’s unfinished artworks.
Taken out of context, these images of Paul at other people’s shows might belie his own immense talent as an artist. If you’re interested in learning more about his work as a painter, Sidney Hikmet Loe’s 2010 profile, recently reposted by 15Bytes, is one good place to start. (After reading it, I wish I could ask him about his admiration for Cy Twombly.) His later paintings, many of which foreground a singular gesture rendered in charcoal, mean a lot to me as a dancer. They feature a heartbreaking color sense that makes me miss the desert, and, strange as this might sound, also somehow remind me of much less abstract paintings by one of my other heroes, David Wojnarowicz. When I interviewed Paul and Gretchen in 2014, one such canvas, “Around my Back,” was hanging above us as we spoke. “This one,” Paul said, “is the record of me turning around. I change hands, with my back to the canvas, and then continue to the other side without breaking the line.” Re-reading, I can almost remember the joy on his face as he described the way in which what resulted “was a complete surprise.”
Halie Bahr: I first heard of the news of Paul's passing as I was checking my phone quickly at a gas station in Cedar City, Utah. I was about to hop on I-15 to perform at 12 Minutes Max the next day. I had been dragging my feet with the typical pre-performance insecurities, and was making sure a minor sound cue was possible via email request. Similar feelings of shock and hollowed-out-ness surged as I reflected on what Paul and the Salt Lake City Public Library had meant to me as an artist over the years.
As I scrolled through our email threads, our most recent was my reply to his typical friendly check in a few weeks prior to 12 Minutes Max and his prompt-as-always request for a bio/blurb. I scrolled all the way back to our original email from 2018. I had just moved to Salt Lake City from Minneapolis, and was introduced to Paul via email through a former colleague. 12 Minutes Max became a consistent and loving place for me to share creative work over the next six years. I loved that so much art was happening in library spaces, and what that meant for access to ideas — as libraries are one of the only places left to exist still without needing to purchase something before one’s presence becomes illegal.
Paul's work left an imprint on me and what became my core beliefs in community arts access for all. I loved the different people I met at 12 Minutes Max and the kinds of questions about art-making that emerged. When I was too broke to rent studio space for a short project, I turned to Paul. He quickly set up a mini exchange where I was able to use the auditorium on a short term basis. Additionally, Paul and 12 Minutes Max were my artistic support system during the pandemic. Not only did I show work several times in the ether of the public library's streaming platform, but Paul helped me secure an affordable outdoor venue at the downtown library's amphitheater. From there, I was able to self-produce a live, in-person, COVID-conscious thesis work to finish my MFA at the University of Utah. I still remember rehearsing at the outdoor amphitheater in the weeks before the performance. Paul came, literally running, out of the library to say hello and lend his over-joyous support to whatever we were making. Since 2018, he curated my work five times, and I can't help but feel entirely grateful for the deep sense of consistency he provided within the unknowns of the art-making world. Paul made so much possible with the most joyous ease. Thank you, Paul.
You can add to this conversation/remembrance by emailing sam@lovedancemore.org.