Art Shopping 

• Courtesy Photo

In last week's A&E Essentials section, we drew attention to Finch Lane Gallery's month-long series of "pop-up" stores for local artists and artisans, allowing an opportunity for folks to find beautiful, one-of-a-kind gifts for the special folks on their lists. That is, however, far from the only place that you can bring artistic creations into your holiday gift-giving, all while supporting Utah-based practitioners. While galleries, artists and other creators are too plentiful to name them all, here are just a few locations where you can peruse the work of local artists, and get some distinctive stuff to put under the tree with no worries about supply chains.

Alpine Art: Honoring Utah Artists: The local gallery (430 E. South Temple) showcases more than 100 works by 60 local artists, offering an amazing chance to give the gift of art. alpineartinc.com

Park Silly Sunday Market Silly Bazaar: Park City's regular outdoor summer showcase of goodies and gifts by locals takes on a holiday bent for December indoor pop-up locations. Following a stop in Sandy on the first weekend in December, the bazaar will visit the Park City DoubleTree Yarrow Hotel (1800 Park Ave., Park City) Friday, Dec. 10 (5 p.m. – 9 p.m.) and Saturday – Sunday Dec. 11 & 12 (10 a.m. – 5 p.m.). Parking and admission are free, with lots of specialty items available. parksillysundaymarket.com

Phillips Gallery Annual Holiday Group Show: The stalwart Salt Lake City gallery (444 E. 200 South) represents some 70 artists and creations by all of them are available to peruse on the gallery's three floors of display space, and for purchase. Explore paintings, sculptures, mixed-media jewelry and more by artists including Hadley Rampton ("Blaze" is pictured), Connie Borup, Hyunmee Lee, Maureen O'Hara Ure, John Telford and many more. The exhibition runs through January 14; visit the website for gallery hours. phillips-gallery.com

Utah Arts Alliance Bizarre Bazaar: It's sometimes hard to keep track of all the local artistic pies in which Utah Arts Alliance has a finger, but they're adding an additional one for the holiday season. The Shops at South Towne in Sandy (10450 S. State) hosts a seasonal boutique of unique gifts created by local artists and artisans, from quirky larger pieces to stocking-stuffers. The venue is open through Dec. 31, 10 a.m. – 9 p.m. daily. And if you don't find what you like there, you've still got other UAA spaces like Urban Arts Gallery (116 S. Rio Grande St.) for ways to support its mission and its artists utaharts.org

Utah Museum of Fine Arts Museum Store: Even if you happened to miss the "official" holiday market last weekend, there are still plenty of reasons to make the UMFA store a seasonal shopping stop. Throughout the year, it features textiles, jewelry, cards, books and more, all created by locals and curated with the same care that goes into the museum's exhibitions. Consignment artists include Ron Fehr (framed insects and butterflies), Marsha Christensen (jewelry), Mira Loyborg (pottery) and Don Prys (landscape paintings). umfa.utah.edu

Performing arts gifts: Physical art objects aren't the only way you can support the talented creative artists doing work in our state. You can give the gift of the performing arts as well, by purchasing tickets to performances scheduled into the new year. Arttix.org provides a convenient place to check out the schedules of organizations like Utah Symphony & Opera, Ballet West, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Plan-B Theater Company, Pygmalion Theater Company and many more that perform at Salt Lake County-run venues. From there, you can branch out to many other organizations like Pioneer Theatre Company (pioneertheatre.org), Salt Lake Acting Company (saltlakeactingcompany.org), Utah Shakespeare (bard.org) and more. An evening at a special event can be just the right gift for many of the folks on your list.

Local authors books: Some of their names might be familiar, others not so much, but it's a guarantee that Utah writers are producing literary work in every possible genre, most of which will be a discovery to you or someone you're shopping for. The King's English Bookshop (1511 S. 1500 East, kingsenglish.com), Weller Book Works (607 Trolley Square, wellerbookworks.com) and Ken Sanders (268 S. 200 East, kensandersrarebooks.com) all prominently showcase books by local authors, both online and in their brick-and-mortar locations. Ask an employee for assistance, and they can certainly point you in the right direction.