{"id":47639,"date":"2025-09-28T04:11:24","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T04:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/47639\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T04:11:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T04:11:24","slug":"mestizos-art-gallery-helped-artists-from-slcs-west-side-and-beyond-get-a-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/47639\/","title":{"rendered":"Mestizo’s art gallery helped artists from SLC’s west side and beyond get a start"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stepping into Mestizo Coffeehouse<\/a> is like entering a small-scale worldwide art museum. <\/p>\n

Works from cultures across the globe reside inside on the colorful walls, in display cases and on shelves. Pieces from India, Egypt and Thailand. Art crafted by creators of Mexican, Guatemalan and Vietnamese heritage. Glance at one wall and you visit Cuba, at another and you\u2019re transported into an Indigenous perspective. <\/p>\n

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Mestizo coffeehouse on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025.<\/p>\n

For more than 15 years, the coffee shop at 631 North Temple has been a launching pad for artists on Salt Lake City\u2019s west side and beyond. But Mestizo closed<\/a> its doors for good Saturday, leaving some creators to worry where emerging artists may get their start. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is unique and not easily replaced,\u201d poet and writer Willy Palomo said. \u201cTo offer precisely what Mestizo offered in terms of a community space, a place for these artists to be able to be recognized in their own communities. I don\u2019t see that existing right now.\u201d <\/p>\n

The coffee shop\u2019s La Galeria de Mestizo<\/a> has not only let scores of Utah artists leave their mark, but it has also left its mark on them. Double doors lead into the space that has housed at least 180 artists\u2019 works over the years, according to Dave Galvan, the co-owner of Mestizo and curator of the gallery. <\/p>\n

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Mestizo co-owner Dave Galvan on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025.<\/p>\n

The gallery itself is minimal \u2014 white walls, black leather chairs, a piano in one corner and furniture where some pieces rest. Really, it\u2019s the art that brings the place to life. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe gallery part of the coffee shop,\u201d Galvan said, \u201cthe art component of it, was [about] people.\u201d <\/p>\n

He recalls exhibits from the shop\u2019s history and the art that has opened his eyes to different lives and perspectives. Among them, a photo exhibit that showed toilets from across Europe, created by an artist who dealt with an affliction that required him to use the restroom often. Another on tattoos before they were so common and widely embraced. <\/p>\n

He remembers when five Muslim women in hijabs came into the shop to look at an exhibition of art from their religion. \u201cYou don\u2019t see that in Utah,\u201d Galvan said. <\/p>\n

Mestizo\u2019s gallery was created for those who weren\u2019t used to seeing themselves or their cultures represented in such spaces, he said. <\/p>\n

The shop\u2019s beginnings<\/p>\n

Mestizo opened<\/a> in 2008 \u2014 a dream of writer Terry Hurst and artist Ruby Chac\u00f3n, along with help from Dan Stanger at Bridge Investment Group, community resident Mary Ann Villarreal and NeighborWorks Salt Lake.<\/a> <\/p>\n

The idea of finding a place for Chicano and Latino artists of all trades to converse and be themselves came from a tragedy. When Chac\u00f3n\u2019s 3-year-old nephew Orlando was murdered in 1996, Chac\u00f3n said she felt that the news media never humanized him<\/a> and that the coverage perpetuated stereotypes. <\/p>\n

Hurst and Chac\u00f3n, who were previously married, were also seeing art and spaces in California and New Mexico dedicated to Chicano painters at the time. This led them to want to recreate a similar space in Utah. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to plant it in kind of a Chicano identity,\u201d Hurst said, \u201cbut also welcome other people who didn\u2019t have a place or a voice, who were looking for a place to express their voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hurst said he and Chac\u00f3n hoped their idea would help \u201cspawn seeds and grow in other places\u201d so others could \u201cadd their color to the tapestry that we were painting.\u201d <\/p>\n

A place to simply be<\/p>\n

Tania Zapata, an artist who has had her work shown in Mestizo\u2019s coffeehouse gallery, said when she reached out to Galvan about a potential exhibit, he \u201cresponded right away that he was willing to do a show for me and wasn\u2019t going to charge me any fees or anything.\u201d <\/p>\n

Zapata is a watercolor painter who focuses on Mexican art so she can share her \u201ctraditions and culture\u201d with others. One thing about Mestizo that she admired in particular is its lack of fees for artists and patrons. It\u2019s why she stopped showing her artwork at other Utah events, she said. <\/p>\n

(Tania Zapata) Artwork from Tania Zapata hangs in an exhibition at the Mestizo art gallery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like the whole purpose of showing my art is to be an ambassador for Mexican culture,\u201d Zapata said. \u201cIn some places like West Valley and stuff, there\u2019s a lot of Latino community, but they\u2019re not in the position to be paying for [admission] fees for the whole entire family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Galvan said the coffee shop never charged anyone to come to the gallery, and oftentimes, the gallery \u201creached into their own pocket\u201d to help fund shows. <\/p>\n

The loss of Mestizo and its gallery \u2014 \u201ca place for the community to gather, not so much like a business\u201d as Zapata puts it \u2014 makes Zapata worry for emerging artists and creators who don\u2019t have connections or money for fees. <\/p>\n

Mestizo, she said, became a place where Latino artists could simply just be. <\/p>\n

\u2018An anchor as a community space\u2019<\/p>\n

Palomo, a member of the Plumas Colectiva<\/a>, a group of eight Latina and Latino poets, writers and digital artists in the Salt Lake Valley, shares Zapata\u2019s concern.<\/p>\n

Palomo was raised in South Jordan but now lives in Chicago, and said Mestizo is the \u201cfirst place where [I] had Latino community around me.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI was in a space where it was predominantly Latino,\u201d they said, \u201cand this was important for the development of my own writing [and] voice.\u201d <\/p>\n

The culture and community of Mestizo became a \u201cformative\u201d part of Palomo\u2019s artistic journey, especially as a poet. One thing they remember from the coffeehouse is its authentic D\u00eda de los Muertos celebrations. <\/p>\n

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Mestizo on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a place where I could go and be in that culture, and not like a museumified version of it, because it was a coffee shop,\u201d they said. \u201cIt\u2019s also the sort of place where you would go on dates and fall in love and study \u2026 it was an anchor as a community space.\u201d <\/p>\n

And it\u2019s community that cemented every corner of the coffeehouse. A bulletin board with all types of flyers for resources. Notebooks scattered around where anyone could leave a message. A guestbook in the gallery, where anyone could sign in. <\/p>\n

If Palomo had to describe Mestizo in three words: it would be \u201ccultura, comunidad and resistencia.\u201d <\/p>\n

Now artists will have to find those things elsewhere.<\/p>\n