Arches and Canyonlands National Parks have chosen Annie Dalton as their 2024 artist in residence. A Moab-native, Dalton creates two-dimensional art and pottery inspired by the beauty of Utah’s incredible natural landscape.
Raised in Utah by an artistic mother and a miner and driller father, Dalton’s website reads, “This landscape and a love of clay and minerals flow freely in my veins.” Having lived throughout the Southwest, she attended Arizona State University where she studied two of her passions: fine art and biochemistry.
Though Dalton grew up helping her mother sell pottery, she went through a “rebellious phase,” where she turned her attention away from art. “I really wanted to make a positive impact on the world, and I thought medicine would be that answer,” she said.
Dalton trekked between the art and science buildings, which were located on opposite ends of campus. “It often felt, as I was walking across campus, that I was switching to the other side of my brain,” she said. Near the end of her college career, she was accepted to a prestigious and very hands-on internship, shadowing medical professionals and working alongside them.
During the internship, Dalton found an interest in plastic reconstructive trauma surgery while working with burn victims. In a way, she found that the hand-eye coordination skills that she had developed as an artist helped her be effective at her job. However, a part of Dalton still doubted that medicine was the path she wanted to take.
One of Dalton’s mentors was the catalyst to her path changing. “One night, like three o’clock in the morning, both just exhausted, tired from being up all night, he told me the story of how he ended up in medicine. He had wanted to be an artist, and he ended up going into medicine,” she said. This resident was nearing the end of his residency and had spent much of his life working toward this goal. 
“He said that he wasn’t sure he would do it all over again. It was basically twenty years of his life where he had known every single step he was going to take before he took it,” Dalton said. That was the moment that she decided that she wanted to pursue art and a life where her path could deviate in interesting and exciting ways.
When she didn’t get into medical school, she took that as a sign and devoted herself to her art. Now, her background in science helps inspire her art, and a chemical understanding of the materials she works with in her pottery often comes in handy.
Dalton’s website, Desert Edge Design, displays her print creations, such as stickers, postcards and prints. She also showcases her ceramic art through her online studio, Moab Varnish. Her ceramic works are sold in stores in Moab, and once her artist residency starts, some of her art will be sold in the visitor centers at Canyonlands and Arches.
The Community Artist Program includes the national parks and monuments of southeast Utah. Dalton will create art in Arches and Canyonlands, as well as at the Hovenweep and Natural Bridges National Monuments, sharing with visitors her creations and how the parks helped to inspire her art.
Artist residencies like this are not confined to Utah. The National Parks Service has opportunities across the country where artists can apply to live in a park and create art while surrounded by nature. These programs can be explored online.
Author: Lily Brunson
Photos courtesy of the NPS and Annie Dalton
Editor: Lily Brunson
outdoors@suunews.net
