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StART Smart: Career Advice from Seasoned Professionals
Panelist Biographies
Nick Pedersen will be our moderator. Nick’s an award-winning visual artist and educator whose work blends photography, digital collage, and printmaking to create detailed, photorealistic images exploring environmental themes. He holds a BFA in Photography from the University of Utah and an MFA in Digital Arts from Pratt Institute. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and he has completed artist residencies in Canada, Iceland, Montana, New Mexico, and Utah. In 2025, he was awarded a grant for Wake the Great Salt Lake, a public art initiative in partnership with the Salt Lake Arts Council and Bloomberg Philanthropies to address the lake’s decline.
Kate Ithurralde is the Art in Public Places Manager for Salt Lake County Arts & Culture. She oversees a diverse public art program of over 700 artworks integrated across county facilities, parks, libraries, and community centers. With a background in sustainable design, Kate champions community engagement, curates exhibitions, and oversees both the Visual Art Collection and the Percent for Art Collection.
David Meikle attended the University of Utah and received his BFA in 1994 and his MFA in 2006. He is currently the art director at University Marketing & Communications at the University of Utah. David’s paintings can be found at David Ericson Fine Art and Evergreen Gallery in Salt Lake City as well as Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery in Tucson and Meyer Gallery in Santa Fe. Recently, his paintings were used in Wes Anderson’s film “Asteroid City”.
Zak Jensen is an artist, designer, and teacher working on things like visual identities, books, websites, exhibitions, editions, talks, and educational prompts. He attended the University of Utah, earning a BFA, and Yale University, where he earned an MFA. Until 2022, Zak led the Harvard Art Museums’ graphic design department. Before that, he worked as a designer in various contexts on branding and publishing projects. After many years living in different places around the U.S., he returned to Salt Lake City where he now teaches at his alma mater. In 2025, Zak was awarded a Utah Artist Fellowship by the Utah Division of Arts and Museums.
Laura Boardman is an artist, designer and a teacher, who enjoys working in oil on canvas painting skyscapes. She uses her design background when creating artwork for design and architecture community within homes and buildings. She also hosts, teaches workshops and gathers collaborations for and with Utah’s Arts community, where she combines visual arts, dance, writers, musicians and designers. Laura owned and operated an interior design firm for 25 years, then returned at 50 receiving her BFA in painting and drawing at the University of Utah. Her artwork is known for exploring distant views of current and past landscapes and skies, impacted by pollution, climate and development. She owns and operates Rabbit Studio in Teasdale Utah.
David Ericson is the owner of David Ericson Fine Art in Salt Lake City. A self-described “Art Nerd”, He has extensive knowledge of art history and specializes in early Utah and Western art. David has been heavily involved in consulting for various artists and multiple art committees, including: Governor’s Mansion Foundation Board, Salt Lake County Art Advisory Board, Utah Arts Council Collection Committee, LDS Church Art Committee, University of Utah Special Exhibitions Committee and several others. David Ericson Fine Art has appraised a myriad of important collections throughout the country from personal estates to various institutions in the inter-mountain west. He continues to research early Utah artists and Utah’s unique pioneer art history.
Mary Lambert is a jeweler who works as a sales advisor at O.C. Tanner Jewelers. Her interest in jewelry began with her first metalsmithing lesson in the 1990s. Along with her own artistic jewelry practice, Mary taught adult metalsmithing classes for several years. She has served as a docent at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts since 2013, and in 2024 earned an M.A. in Art History. In both endeavors she has focused on jewelry's function in art and interactions with the body.