“Right here, $300! 325, your turn. 350? 350. Can I get $375? Going once, twice, sold to number 81!”
Onstage before a Wasatch Back mountainscape mural, Braxten Neilsen auctioneered in a red and white striped button-up, blue jeans, cowboy hat and boots, while Gail Warren wore matching red and white stripes and showed the paintings around the floor during the Quick Draw art auction at Midway’s City Hall on July 4.
Two-hundred people sitting in folding chairs included 100 paddle holders, while a hundred more aficionados viewed the displayed art for sale in the building’s front half. A simultaneous silent auction allowed bidding on other pieces.
One artist sketched the scene and a group of young boys noted a painting they had bicycled past during its creation on Center Creek earlier in the week.
The Midway Art Association’s 18th annual Plein Air Paradise is the largest painting event in Utah with over $20,000 in cash and purchase awards. This summer’s festival began on June 21, when the participants brought their blank canvases to town hall for stamping to assure no head starts, then turned themselves loose for 12 days where they were a recognizable sight with their easels around Wasatch and Summit counties.
On July 1, artists turned in their works for the main competition and silent auction. On July 2, each artist submitted a nocturne/sunrise piece along with one focused on Heber. Artists created a Midway-based painting on July 3. All were on display in grouped sections, with one wing featuring the artists’ studio work.
From 130 Plein Air Paradise participants, 30 artists were invited to participate in Friday’s Quick Draw auction. The artists began painting their predetermined scenes before sunrise crowds on Midway’s town square grounds at 8 a.m. with a two-and-a -half-hour deadline. The 31-piece auction started promptly at 11 a.m.
Michelle Nixon is a watercolorist from Logan whose Park City winterscape, “From Where We Stood,” won the blue ribbon in the professional division. Her Quick Draw piece, “Lovely Ordinary,” sold for $775 from a starting bid of $200.
Nixon began participating in Plein Air Paradise in 2017, took a few years off for early motherhood and has returned her attention to painting. She is represented by David Ericson Fine Art in Salt Lake City, which is hosting a gallery focus on her watercolors through July.
She said she appreciates the accessibility and impressionistic nature of the medium well-suited for plein air conditions.
“It looks silly to paint grand things with watercolors, so it forces me to look for gentler, overlooked things,” Nixon said.
Thirty paintings sold in 70 minutes, with a couple winning bids breaking $1,000. The last painting auctioned was a collaborative piece with the proceeds benefiting Midway Art Association’s scholarship fund. The final bid on this Provo Riverscape reached $950, then all purchasers checked in with the auction table to claim their framed winnings.
Nielsen caught his breath and reflected after the auction.
“This was my second year being able to come back and do the auction here,” Nielsen said. “It’s an amazing opportunity to come meet amazing people and see a lot of talent and ability that people have. It’s an honor to be able to sell such amazing art that people have worked so hard on. It’s a privilege to be that spokesperson and be able to help promote it and sell it. It’s humbling to be a part of their art work in a sense. I hope they keep having me come back because this is such an amazing event.”
Crowds stepped into Main Street sunlight, where an artist painted the plain air scene and the Wasatch Back Art Festival offered artists tents filled with paintings, photographs and sculptures for collectors on Midway’s town square grounds.