Muralist takes up monumental task of bringing wildlife art to every Utah county

Despite painting scores of murals over the years, Utah wildlife artist Chris Peterson has not yet hit the wall, and he doesn’t anticipate doing so anytime soon.

There are plenty more walls the Henri Rousseau of Utah muralists wants to adorn with oversized depictions of wildlife — everything from native trout to bighorn sheep and bears to golden eagles.

Of course, it takes money — anywhere from $8,000 to $50,000 — for such murals to get off the ground. Fortunately, aided by the nonprofit Utah Wildlife Federation and its chairman, Brett Prettyman, the artist’s murals are beginning to take flight.

Peterson is well on his way toward reaching his goal of painting a major wildlife mural in each of Utah’s 29 counties.

[Watch: Click here for a video of an interview with artist Chris Peterson.]

There’s the 120-foot-long mural of a Bonneville cutthroat trout cornering fish lovers’ attention at the Neighborhood Hive market near the intersection of 2100 South and 2100 East in Sugar House. Also attracting legions of fans are murals of the Colorado River cutthroat and razorback sucker that recently surfaced in Vernal and Moab, respectively. So is the golden eagle that now perches on the facade of a building in Midvale.

“Wildlife encounters are a big reason why so many of us love living in Utah, and we want to celebrate the unique, local species that create those moments of magic found [in] our state’s diverse landscape,” said Peterson, who studied painting at Brigham Young University and the Kansas City Art Institute and holds a master’s degree in environmental policy from the University of Utah.

Prettyman’s wildlife pedigree is equally impressive. He was The Salt Lake Tribune’s outdoors and environment editor for 25 years, the author of “Fishing Utah,” the former communications director of Trout Unlimited and an Emmy Award-winner for his work on the “Utah Bucket List” TV program.

‘Project of passion’

Together, the two have launched Utah Wildlife Walls, the name for their monumental plan to put Peterson’s massive wildlife murals in every Utah county.

“It’s a project of passion,” Prettyman said. “We care deeply about wildlife in Utah and what it can bring to residents. We want them to see wildlife and be reminded that they live in an amazing place. We want local communities to be invested in Utah wildlife so that they embrace, protect and celebrate it.”

The partnership began three years ago when Peterson told Prettyman he had someone who was willing to fund a mural but needed to make the contribution through a nonprofit. With the National Wildlife Federation board’s approval, Prettyman set up the project as an outreach program.

After scouting out a location for a giant mural of the state fish, the Bonneville cutthroat trout, the pair landed on the Sugar House location. There, in 2022, they debuted Utah Wildlife Walls and the mural at their inaugural Bonnie Ball Street Festival, where acclaimed Utah writer and naturalist Terry Tempest Williams conducted writing workshops, vendors hawked food and removable trout tattoos, and school children swarmed the aquarium inside the Neighborhood Hive for an up-close look at the state’s signature fish.

Since that auspicious beginning, Peterson has finished six more landscape-size murals — two in Salt Lake County and one each in Grand, Uintah, Wasatch and Washington counties. Like the murals, overseeing each one from conception to completion is no small feat.

For starters, Peterson and Prettyman consult with city officials and business owners in Utah towns about where to place a mural and about what wildlife to feature that would best represent the local landscape. Then they have to find people and organizations — typically a combination of government and private sector grants and donations — to buy into the concept and help pay for the murals. Most of the money raised, Prettyman explained, pays for the cost of materials, and the rest goes to the artist.

For his part, Peterson eschews leaving anyone in the dark about the painting process, which often begins with the nocturnal projection of a large outline of what he intends to paint on a wall.

He follows his tracing of that outline with more projections and employs sprayers, brushes, rollers and other tools to apply the background and different colors between the lines. He then adds several layers of paint, the last of which protects the art from fading and makes it easy for workers to wash off any graffiti a tagger might apply to mar the mural.

Turning heads, changing minds

Nighttime projections carry an element of risk. Last year, Prettyman recalled, he and Peterson were projecting the image of a golden eagle on a Midvale building about 11 p.m. when they began hearing a commotion.

Soon, two Spanish-speaking men came into view and began gesturing to Peterson that the bird’s beak was not quite right. But when the artist projected an image of a snake coiled in the raptor’s beak, the men turned from would-be critics to fawning fans.

“They recognized immediately that it was the same image as the one on the Mexican flag and they became so excited,” Prettyman recalled. “They ran over and gave us huge hugs, helped us trace the snake, and one left and came back with a bag of food for us. That was powerful because it helped us realize what we can do with these wildlife murals and the connections we can make to people in Utah communities.”

Peterson’s murals are turning heads and changing minds in other locales, too. The owner of Station II Bar, housed in a former St. George fire station, was so taken with the Mojave desert tortoise that Peterson painted on the south-facing wall of his business, he paid the artist to do another mural of a Gila monster on an adjoining wall. Now, his bar patrons can sip suds and drink in images of wildlife indigenous to southwestern Utah.

Lloyd Sutton, St. George’s active transportation coordinator, helped Peterson find the bar when the original location for the mural on a freeway underpass that spanned the Virgin River fell through.

“Chris was awesome to work with,” Sutton said. “We enjoy working with artists to make something that fits our local area and helps make our downtown a bit more enjoyable place where people want to spend time.”

Weathering St. George’s heat was not easy for the artist, who recalls toiling for 11 days in June to finish the 65-foot-wide mural before the heat finished him.

“When I got back home,” Peterson said, “it took me quite a few days to snap out of it. I was still in sort of la-la land. It takes a toll working in that kind of heat.”

Celebrating sweet Sugar House success

Still, he and Prettyman will likely have to weather more shine or rain to meet their goal. There are already more outdoor murals in the planning stages. One of them is a giant mural of Bart, the famed Heber City bear raised by Doug and Lynne Seus and known for starring roles in “Legends of the Fall,” “White Fang” and other Hollywood films. A mural of the giant Kodiak bear, who died in May 2000, is planned for the city’s historic Avon Theater.

Moreover, a kokanee salmon is planned for the Strawberry Visitors Center next to Strawberry Reservoir. Another, even larger mural, a Bear River cutthroat trout, is expected to pop up in a 100-foot-long tunnel in Logan.

For all the counties on their to-do list, Peterson and Prettyman are intent on celebrating what they have already accomplished. To that end, they are helping host the third annual Bonnie Ball & Neighborhood Bash at the Neighborhood Hive, 2065 E. 2100 South in Salt Lake City, this Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free.

“My hope,” Peterson said, “is that Utah Wildlife Walls will spawn other projects in other places. There needs to be wildlife murals all over so that future generations will look at them and know that wildlife is important to us today.”

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