Poor Yorick Studios
Address: 126 West Crystal Avenue
Telephone: 801-906-0479
Website: pooryorickstudios.com
District: South Salt Lake
“I was always drawing, always creating. My friends and I did it constantly. It was what we knew.” Brad Slaugh grew up in Salt Lake City, the son of parents who, as he puts it, “tolerated” his artistic obsession more than they encouraged it. Still, he carried that passion forward through his undergraduate years in Utah and graduate school at Boston University. After a brief time living elsewhere, including a year in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Salt Lake called him back. It was here that he eventually established Poor Yorick Studios, a creative home that would grow into one of the city’s most vibrant artistic communities.
The idea for Poor Yorick began in 1996, almost by accident. Fresh out of grad school, Brad was looking for a studio space in Salt Lake and discovered how scarce they were. When he finally found a warehouse with leftover stage sets piled high, he banged together flimsy partitions for himself and soon realized he could build more for others. “As fast as I could build them, artists would rent them,” he recalled. He had not set out to be a landlord, but the demand revealed an opportunity. Within a few years, his improvised model turned into something lasting.
By 2006, with help from his father, Brad purchased the building that became the permanent home of Poor Yorick in South Salt Lake. “It was a shoestring operation,” he laughed. “My brother, my dad, and I cut every skylight, built every wall. But we built it to code, and we’ve been here almost twenty years.” Today, the studios house forty working artists, ranging from painters and photographers to sculptors and ceramicists. The community is tight-knit, and turnover is low, with a waitlist of artists eager to join.
The name Poor Yorick comes partly from Shakespeare’s Hamlet - the famous skull in the gravedigger scene - but also from Brad’s reading of Infinite Jest in the late 1990s. “I thought a jester’s skull would make a great logo,” he explained. A fellow artist, muralist Trent Call, sketched the now-iconic design.
Community has been central from the start. In 2002, Brad and the early tenants launched the first open studio event. At the time, many local galleries were not interested in showing their work - it was “too strange” or too risky - so they decided to show it themselves. “We made 300 postcards at Kinko’s, handed them out everywhere, hung a few posters, and hired a band,” Brad remembered. “It was super fun. Each artist did their own thing in their studio, and people just wandered through.” Over the years the parties grew bigger - sometimes a little too lively, with punk bands and martinis flowing - but the spirit of accessibility and experimentation stuck. Today, the tradition continues twice a year, drawing hundreds of visitors into the studios. “It’s lively,” Brad said, “but controlled. A sweet spot between a party and an art show.”
In addition to building and maintaining the studios (and climbing onto the roof to service swamp coolers), Brad continues his own artistic practice. His work, rooted in drawing, ranges from portraits and figures to cars - especially old Volkswagens. He has painted from family photos, created massive ten-foot drawings, and produced large-scale works like Feast, a thirty-three-foot pastel composition inspired by old family pictures and Utah food traditions. He has shown at Phillips Gallery in Salt Lake, Meyers Gallery in Park City, and, most often, within his own studio walls.
Brad’s wife, artist Tracy Strauss, shares a large studio space with him. Her mixed-media paintings brim with texture and experimentation. “It’s pretty great working side by side,” Brad said. “The space is big enough that we can each do our thing, but we’re also there for feedback when we want it.” Married since 2004, the two first met, fittingly, at an open studio event, the kind of gathering that would later define so much of their life together.
Poor Yorick has also fostered long-term relationships with other artists. Sculptor and digital artist Ryan Kenneth Peterson has been with Brad since the earliest days, followed by painters like James Charles and Thomas Aikins. Today, the roster also includes artists such as Stacy Phillips, whose practice spans painting, printmaking, mixed media, woodworking, and more. Together, they form a diverse hub of talent, with a steady stream of new artists joining as space allows.
For Brad, the heart of Poor Yorick is not just his own space but the collective. “I thought this was going to be about me finding my box, just me in my studio,” he reflected. “But instead, it became about community - getting to know artists, being inspired by their work, and keeping it affordable so they can keep doing what they love.”
Looking back, he admits he never imagined this would be his path. “I had no intention of becoming a landlord or businessman. But I wanted a vibrant art scene here, and I hope we’ve helped create that. I’m really lucky it worked out because who knew if it would? What matters most is that this is a place where good, interesting artists can do the thing they’re passionate about. That’s what makes it all worth it.”
