The Sands of time

It wasn't a love of art that got local artist Ken Baxter into his first art class but the cute girl in his seventh-grade class — and the fact that he hated sports.

"We become what we are for a variety of reasons," he said.

Baxter's junior high art teacher was one of the strongest influences on his love of art. Winning first place in the state high school art division for his second painting also didn't hurt. He eventually earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Utah.

It wasn't until later when he was teaching high school and earning his master's degree from Utah State University that a major breakthrough came for him. Surprisingly enough, it was a piece of sandstone that helped him discover his niche.

As Ken Baxter held in his hand the stone that originally formed Salt Lake streets in the 1800s, he became fascinated with the idea that at one time all the streets in the city, including the curbs and gutters, had been made out of sandstone.

"It made me feel kind of special that I knew about it and had a piece of it in my hand," he said.

The stone had been removed as part of a reconstruction of the streets in Salt Lake City. Baxter's mother, who worked at Trolley Square, had given her son the piece of stone. His fascination made him contemplate what life might have been like back in the days when Main Street had been made out of sandstone.

Baxter was just preparing to do his master's thesis, which would comprise a series of paintings. He had been doing research on President William Howard Taft's visit to Salt Lake City and had done 13 sketches about that. However, after discovering the sandstone, his focus changed, and he started doing research on history.

His research led him to start painting pictures about the past. All the paintings he did for his master's thesis were about historical events. Through his research, he grew to love history and could imagine himself in the past and visualize what it might have been like.

"I could see myself on the fifth floor of a building looking out and picture what it would have been like and paint it," he said.

Ken Baxter had found a niche he really enjoyed: historical painting. Over the years he has done numerous historical paintings, some of which can be seen in galleries around the valley.