ST. GEORGE — There is a little more “magic” on Main Street this week as a Utah native Chris Peterson adorns the wall of a local bar with a colorful Mojave desert tortoise mural.
“As someone who loves Utah’s landscape, I found that the real magic in the landscape is the wildlife — it’s those encounters that are my most precious memories in those places,” Peterson said. “So that’s what I have chosen to direct my art to.”
St. George city officials commissioned Peterson to paint the mural as part of the Utah Wildlife Walls project. According to the project’s website, it is a grassroots public art and engagement initiative that aims to “celebrate Utah’s wildlife diversity and heritage by installing at least one monumental wildlife mural in each of Utah’s 29 counties.”
It was funded by the St. George Art Commission and the Recreation, Arts and Parks tax in collaboration with the Utah Department of Natural Resources, Greater Zion Convention and Tourism and the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, said Lloyd Sutton, St. George City’s active transportation coordinator. The mural is on the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery’s south-facing wall at 142 North Main St.
“Super impressed with Chris Peterson,” he added. “Just because he’s been an awesome partner to work with and really helped us identify the various funding sources we can look for.”
Work on the project began about a year ago, Peterson said. Initially, the art was slated for a local trail but was moved to downtown St. George as the concept evolved. After receiving some local feedback, a tortoise was chosen as the subject.
“Utah Wildlife Walls is focused on a local animal that maybe has a story to tell, whether it’s part of the folklore of the place or whether it’s just something that’s happening right there in terms of the human-animal relationship,” he said.
“And right now, in St. George, in this area — Red Cliffs — there are conservation efforts trying to help a threatened species that has declining populations and is also this amazing part of the culture and community … Today, we’re here celebrating the Mojave desert tortoise,” Peterson continued.
Sutton said the work tied into the city’s art department’s vision for the downtown area: “making it more vibrant,” walkable and a destination locals want to be.
“It’s awesome that we’re also able to celebrate a wildlife species that people associate with,” he said, adding that he hopes residents “just enjoy living in an awesome city that thinks about the residents and what they see when they are walking around their city.”
The artist
Sheltering under an umbrella and decked out in a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses, Peterson worked on the mural downtown as passersby stopped by to observe.
Peterson had loaded his supplies onto a work platform, which he moved around the space as needed to add details to an already recognizable tortoise. He said he’s been working for about three days and hopes to complete the piece by the end of the week.
Peterson grew up in northern Utah and later taught art at Salt Lake City’s Dilworth Elementary. The artist is now the head of Chris Peterson Studio, working on various projects. This includes Utah Wildlife Walls, which began in 2022 when the Utah Wildlife Federation, the Neighborhood Hive Market and Peterson hosted the first Bonnie Ball to celebrate the Bonneville cutthroat trout — Utah’s state fish. Peterson painted a 120-foot trout mural in Salt Lake City’s Sugar House neighborhood.
As a teacher, Peterson said nothing sparked creativity like animals.
“(It) kind of evolved into celebrating animals as being something that is universally appealing to people across the state — urban or suburban — and using my creativity and skills in making murals to put up beautiful pieces of art that can kind of represent some of these feelings locals already have,” he said. ” So it’s about those encounters and the therapeutic value those encounters have.”
The tortoise mural is slightly more complicated than some of Peterson’s other projects due to the level of detail required.
“It’s just if the budget can handle it because it just takes time,” Peterson said. “But if you’re going to do something, I’d like to design it in a way where I think it’s gonna be amazing, and sometimes that includes more details.”
Public outreach
When asked what makes the tortoise mural special, Peterson said that the effort to engage the community in learning about and appreciating the “beauty of the species among us” makes it unique.
“It’s pretty cool that there’s an actual desert tortoise hanging out at the wall with us,” he added.
Ammon Teare, the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve’s outreach coordinator, was at the site at a booth with educational materials and Goliath, the Mojave desert tortoise, which thrilled several children who stopped by.
Teare told St. George News the reserve was “really excited to join in and to offer some of our funds for education outreach, to make sure that this will become a reality.”
“This is going to be here on the wall for years and years, and whether people have lived here for a long time and never seen the tortoise before,” Teare said, “or maybe they’re first-time visitors, and they wanted to see a tortoise on their visit — now we know a place you could say, ‘Hey, I guarantee you can see a really cool desert tortoise.'”
The wall will also feature a QR code that will take visitors to a page on the Utah Wildlife Walls website and information about desert tortoises, where and when people might see them and what they can do to mitigate their impact on the species.
Peterson plans to paint a smaller raven behind the tortoise to “hopefully communicate to people that there is a relationship between those two species,” Teare said. The reserve hopes to educate the public on how humans may encourage raven population growth, which can negatively affect tortoises.
For instance, ravens might feed on trash discarded at trailheads, build nests on human structures or benefit from reservoirs filled with clean drinking water — all of which can cause their numbers to increase or attract them to areas where tortoises live. And for the first three or so years of a juvenile tortoise’s life, their shells are softer and more easily punctured by a raven’s beak.
“We want to restore a natural balance,” Teare said. “While there is a natural relationship there, we want to make sure that it’s preserved and protected but that it doesn’t grow out of control and cause greater harm to the tortoise.”
Teare credited the project’s various partners for getting it off the ground, including Peterson, the Utah Wildlife Federation, St. George city and the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery.
Utah Wildlife Walls is also interested in painting a mural in Iron County, so Peterson said they want to hear from locals about potential locations, partnerships and subjects. Southern Utahns interested in sharing their thoughts can do so at this link.
To get a close-up peek at St. George’s Mojave desert tortoise mural and meet the artist, biologists and others, Teare said they can attend a “mix and mingle” at the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery Wednesday from 7-8 p.m.
Photo Gallery
Artist Chris Peterson with Utah Wildlife Walls was commissioned to paint a tortoise mural on the wall of the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery, St. George, Utah, June 10, 2024 | Photo courtesy of Ammon Teare/Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, St. George News Red Cliffs Desert Reserve's Mojave desert tortoise, Goliath, gains media attention at the painting of a tortoise mural on the wall of the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery, St. George, Utah, June 11, 2024 | Photo by Alysha Lundgren, St. George News Red Cliffs Desert Reserve's outreach coordinator Ammon Teare talks to locals at the painting of a tortoise mural on the wall of the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery, St. George, Utah, June 11, 2024 | Photo by Alysha Lundgren, St. George News Chris Peterson, an artist with Utah Wildlife Walls, was commissioned to paint a tortoise mural on the wall of the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery as can be seen in this conceptual mockup, St. George, Utah, June 11, 2024 | Photo courtesy of Utah Wildlife Walls via the Washington County Habitat Conservation Plan, St. George News Artist Chris Peterson with Utah Wildlife Walls was commissioned to paint a tortoise mural on the wall of the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery, St. George, Utah, June 11, 2024 | Photo by Alysha Lundgren, St. George News Red Cliffs Desert Reserve conducts public outreach while a tortoise mural is painted on the wall of the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery, St. George, Utah, June 11, 2024 | Photo by Alysha Lundgren, St. George News Artist Chris Peterson with Utah Wildlife Walls was commissioned to paint a tortoise mural on the wall of the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery, St. George, Utah, June 11, 2024 | Photo by Alysha Lundgren, St. George News Red Cliffs Desert Reserve's Mojave desert tortoise, Goliath, attends the painting of a tortoise mural on the wall of the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery, St. George, Utah, June 11, 2024 | Photo by Alysha Lundgren, St. George News Artist Chris Peterson with Utah Wildlife Walls was commissioned to paint a tortoise mural on the wall of the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery, St. George, Utah, June 11, 2024 | Photo by Alysha Lundgren, St. George News Red Cliffs Desert Reserve's Mojave desert tortoise, Goliath, attends the painting of a tortoise mural on the wall of the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery, St. George, Utah, June 11, 2024 | Photo by Alysha Lundgren, St. George News Artist Chris Peterson with Utah Wildlife Walls was commissioned to paint a tortoise mural on the wall of the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery, St. George, Utah, June 11, 2024 | Photo by Alysha Lundgren, St. George News Artist Chris Peterson with Utah Wildlife Walls was commissioned to paint a tortoise mural on the wall of the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery, St. George, Utah, June 11, 2024 | Photo by Alysha Lundgren, St. George News Artist Chris Peterson with Utah Wildlife Walls was commissioned to paint a tortoise mural on the wall of the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery, St. George, Utah, June 11, 2024 | Photo by Alysha Lundgren, St. George News Red Cliffs Desert Reserve's Mojave desert tortoise, Goliath, attends the painting of a tortoise mural on the wall of the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery, St. George, Utah, June 11, 2024 | Photo by Alysha Lundgren, St. George News Artist Chris Peterson with Utah Wildlife Walls was commissioned to paint a tortoise mural on the wall of the Station 2 Bar by Zion Brewery, St. George, Utah, June 11, 2024 | Photo by Alysha Lundgren, St. George News
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