Zion Canyon Mesa
“In a sixty-mile radius, this place was it. If you wanted to cut loose, you came here,” said Logan. “Cowboys, Indians, Mexicans, river runners, rock climbers, National Park Service employees, and LGBTQ folks all found common ground here. The trick was a ripping house band, great food, and lots of dancing.
“Back then, Utah beer bars were built around shame; windowless walls faced the road, with parking and entrance out back. We opened our front to view the canyon, and locals freaked. ‘You can’t do that!’ they said. ‘Everyone will see who’s drinking!’” But Logan and his business partner Marcus, whom Logan describes as “fabulously gay,” preferred openness. And it paid off; within three years it was written up in The New York Times, which declared it to be “The Best Mexican Restaurant in Utah.”
Logan has been a catalyst for integration and change throughout his life. He participated in the Great Peace March, which traversed the U. S.—from Los Angeles to Washington, DC—in 1986 to call for nuclear disarmament. Logan then joined the 1987 Soviet-American Peace Walk, inspired by the U.S. march and which his future wife, Angie, helped organize, that brought together 250 Americans and 250 Soviets to walk from Leningrad to Moscow with the same goal: to end nuclear proliferation.
The walk ended with the first American rock concert in the Soviet Union; it featured James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Carlos Santana, the Doobie Brothers, and, as Logan recalls, “a host of indescribably horrible ‘official’ Soviet rock bands.” He went on to help organize such walks across Ukraine and the U. S.
Based on contacts made during his time in the Soviet Union, Logan founded International Legislative Exchange Inc., partly funded by the Soros Foundation. The Exchange brought delegations from ex-Soviet parliaments, and later the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile, into state legislatures to show them slices of American democracy in action. “The best way to demonstrate how our democracy worked—in 1990 anyway— was to parachute them into a functioning state legislature,” he said.
From 1995 through 2017, Logan worked with the initially wary Southern Paiute tribe to write the book Southern Paiute: A Portrait, which features profiles and photos of contemporary tribal members, allowing them to tell their own stories. This work helped to debunk a 150-year cover-up story blaming the Southern Paiute for the horrific 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, a series of attacks actually perpetrated by Mormon settlers against a wagon train of immigrants moving through southern Utah.
The Zion Canyon Mesa artists’ residency (ZCM), where Logan serves as Executive Director, is his latest effort to bring people together. The residency allows artists to work on an eclectic range of creative endeavors—from music to visual art to writing to virtual reality. I visited ZCM in late January, having taken a day trip from neon-bedazzled Las Vegas.
Elizabeth Randolph
“We’re now officially open, but have already quietly hosted over 60 artists, musicians, poets, writers, and scientists,” said Logan. He reeled off a list of recently hosted guests: New York City playwright Ken Jones, who is writing a play about local Boy Scout leaders who thought it was a great idea to destroy ancient rock formations. Navajo Nation Poet Laureate Laura Tohe, who wrote about her father, a WWII Navajo code talker. The New York Times bestselling author Richard Grant, who used the time to work on a book about prolific author Cormac McCarthy after gaining rare access to McCarthy’s 20,000-volume personal library.
“Working with these remarkable people on their projects, I’m convinced of the power of focused residencies like ours for taking ideas to unforeseen, deeper levels,” said Logan. “I believe in this project, and I believe this is a special place.”
Logan is quick to point out that, while art is important, so is community activism. Much of the event programming focuses on Indigenous rights and connections to the land—from ecological reclamation to spiritual perspectives on whitewater rafting.
ZCM’s podcast, In Site, which Logan hosts, dives even deeper into issues of concern to the region and the world. Downloaded in 68 countries, the podcast features “stories and interviews addressing the intersection of the creative process, community, and place.”
ZCM grew like the arms of a saguaro cactus. Initially founded by a regional humanities council, the residency limped along for years until Logan and others took action to rescue the place and get it back on track.
Logan said the initial crop of allies for the invigorated project came from different parts of his “weird life.” There’s an organizer from his Soviet days; the two-term Chair of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, Lora Tom, with whom he worked closely to expose the Mountain Meadows propaganda; and a microchip physicist. The list of residents, board members, and collaborators has expanded over time, and Logan said he hopes the Vassar community will bring in some interesting projects.
“The ever-increasing madness of our times, on so many levels, calls out for new, creative thinking. We have a wonderful resource for that. I know a lot of my classmates are retiring now, but I’m finding that this project is pulling together the many odd threads of my life as sort of a coda—from my work in the Soviet Union with parliaments, to river guiding, to tech, to the Southern Paiute. It’s incredibly challenging and deeply gratifying. I’d love to honor my gratitude for my Vassar experience by letting folks know that I’m very motivated to support ideas and projects that emerge from our community.”
For more information or to apply, visit zioncanyonmesa.org.