One-Night Adventure — Poor Yorick Open Studios September 26

There are few better ways to spend an autumn evening than wandering through a building bursting with artists and their raw, authentic work. Like a choose-your-own-adventure book, Poor Yorick Studios opens its doors to the public, offering you a chance to explore its maze of studios, meet the artists and be fully immersed in their own individual worlds.

Built with blood, sweat and millennial optimism, Poor Yorick was born out of Brad Slaugh’s own need for a place to work. After returning from graduate school in Boston, Slaugh couldn’t find an affordable studio, so he rented a corner of a warehouse and built one himself. “It’s probably the only, maybe one of two or three, good ideas I ever had in my life,” he jokes. With the help of his wife, Tracy Strauss, along with family members and countless artists, that small studio eventually grew into something much larger. “It was all hands on deck,” Slaugh says. That collective effort is still part of Poor Yorick’s identity, with 25 years of labor, creativity, and the weird little corners of its artists’ lives built into the space.

You’ll find no curation here, as the studios are not galleries. With paint and other supplies haphazardly cleaned up before their biannual openings, the place is dripping with unfiltered expression that’s hard to come by anywhere else in Utah. Visitors might find paintings, sculpture, ceramics, photography, fiber work, printmaking, and plenty of things that we dare you to try and categorize. “Everybody’s kind of barking up a different branch of that art tree,” Slaugh says. Instead of walking through a perfectly polished exhibition, visitors get to see where artists actually spend their time making things. “It’s totally a workspace every other night of the year,” he says. 

That distinction is important to Slaugh. Poor Yorick was created as a place where local artists could have their own affordable space without fitting neatly into a commercial system hinging on monetary gain. The open house, hosted each year in spring and fall, gives visitors the chance to talk directly with artists, ask questions and encounter work that might never make it into a traditional exhibition. “The idea was to connect artists directly with the public,” Slaugh says. There is no need to wonder what a piece means from across a gallery room when the person who made it might be standing a few feet away. After 25 years, Poor Yorick has gotten considerably more established, although Slaugh jokes about its humble beginnings. “Well, geez. It’s legal now,” he jests. “It doesn’t leak. Nothing catches on fire.” The building may have matured, but the strange and handmade spirit of the place has stuck around.

At the end of the day, the invitation is for a good time. The open studio has all the ingredients of a proper party: music, drinks, laughter, a building full of people and enough beautiful strangeness to make everyone feel a little more comfortable being themselves. “I want Poor Yorick to feel like a party,” he says. Moving from studio to studio feels a little like hitting shuffle on all the songs you’ve ever liked, with each room offering an entirely different world. There is something freeing about being surrounded by people who have permitted themselves to make whatever they want, and Slaugh hopes that feeling rubs off on everyone who walks through the doors.

For the love of life, find something that makes you feel something – something you love, something you hate or something that sticks with you for years. Make a new connection, pick up a tip from an artist and leave with a new adornment for your home and a fresh bottle of inspiration. For the beautiful sake of being alive, leave the world of screens and enter into this melting pot of passion projects, alternative vibes and creatives sharing things to make sense of the nonsensical of life. Poor Yorick is offering a party and a chance to get pleasantly lost in a plethora of worlds, so just take your pick. Catch the one-night-only open house at Poor Yorick Studios on Sept. 26 from 4–10 p.m. at 126 W. Crystal Ave., Salt Lake City.

Read more artist interviews by Rebekah Shea Parke:
Time to Contemplate: UMOCA’s 2026 Fall Season is Here — “Time, Truth, and Other Immeasurables”
Love Like Blood: The Heart of Utah’s Goth Community

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