Artistic partnership enriching

His great-grandfather was Utah artist Avard Fairbanks, whose sculptures stand in the U.S. Capitol. But, frankly, Joe Fairbanks isn't the least bit impressed.

What Joe likes is to draw in a lined spiral notebook, his nose right up against the paper. Give him a ballpoint pen and without a moment's hesitation he will draw you one of the people that march continuously through his head. These drawings are at once deliberate and whimsical, part Pokemon, part Paul Klee. Joe, born 24 years ago with Down syndrome, is content to fill notebook after notebook, inspired by the pure joy of putting pen to paper.

But Ruth Lubbers, executive director at Art Access in Salt Lake City, thinks that with some help Joe's art could reach a larger audience.

Earlier this summer, Lubbers paired Joe up with Utah artist Paul Heath. As part of Art Access' Partners Program, the two men have been getting together twice a week so that Paul can help Joe see more possibilities — staying true to Joe's style but adding color, expanding it to clay and wood, and scanning it digitally to make it reproducible.

The established artist and the fledgling artist sit around the dining room table in Paul's Rose Park home, next to the living room that is filled with tubes of paint instead of furniture. Paul's work is whimsical, too, generally taking a nostalgic sense of place and turning it slightly askew. His three-dimensional piece called "North Temple," for example, features motel signs, Wonder Bread and a lariat in a combination that both evokes and caricatures another era.

Joe lives more in the present. On the other hand, he's also drawn to the art of ancient Egypt. Joe can't read, but he loves hieroglyphics and has borrowed some of the images for his own work. On a recent afternoon, flipping through the pages of a tome called "Hidden Treasures of Antiquity," he suddenly was attracted to a photo of an Egyptian tomb and its ancient lettering. He turned to a clean page in his notebook and began copying the markings.

Joe loves the English alphabet, too. Sometimes, on his drawings of creatures that look like cheerful aliens, he will write a random set of letters: "SPLT" maybe, or "ROKS."

Joe is currently serving a two-year mission at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Bishop's Storehouse, where he helps other special-needs workers bag apples and potatoes. He also has a job teaching other adults with Down syndrome how to do chores such as sweeping the floor.

"He's very exacting," says his mom, Julia Koerner.

"Joe doesn't care who he's related to," Koerner says, referring to several noted artist relatives, including great-grandpa Avard and an uncle who once was curator of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. "He keeps us all grounded."