How is the coronavirus pandemic inspiring Utah artists? In at least 21 different ways.

Utah artists are just like the rest of us: Stuck at home because of the coronavirus pandemic.

But they also have their imaginations and their talent, so they have been able to channel the experience into images. That’s what 21 artists did, and I got the honor of curating their images into a “virtual art gallery” for The Salt Lake Tribune.

Click here to see the gallery.

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Here are more stories I’ve written in the last week as part of the Tribune’s coverage of the coronavirus pandemic:

• Crowds flocked to the Utah State Capitol for Easter weekend, to the dismay of officials worried about the virus spreading.

• The Utah Shakespeare Festival announced its plans to carry on for 2020, with a shortened season.

• A “bold experiment” to get Utah visitors to fill out surveys about their travels hit a glitch: Texts aimed at drivers entering the state went far afield.

• The Gunnison Valley Gazette, a small-town paper in southwest Utah, announced it was folding after 15 years — in part because of the economic hit dealt by the pandemic.

• The Sundance Institute is pledging $1 million to artists who have been hurt economically by the coronavirus pandemic.

• Project Protect, an effort to get 10,000 people a week to sew medical-grade masks, launched this week — in what’s being called the biggest volunteer effort in Utah since the 2002 Winter Olympics.

• I had a small piece of Friday’s coverage of Gov. Gary Herbert’s announcement of the state of Utah’s plans to reopen the economy.

I highly recommend you all to read the Tribune’s coronavirus coverage.

Coronavirus, on the home front: How Utahns in self-isolation are working, dancing and making music

I’m continuing to write about the coronavirus outbreak — it’s really the only story in our lives these days — but I’ve sort of landed into a specific subset of virus-related stories: How we, all of us, are dealing with being stuck at home in self-isolation.

Three stories I wrote in the last week for The Salt Lake Tribune cover this aspect of coronavirus life:

• I talked, and emailed, with Utahns about how they’ve adapted to working from home offices, sharing table space with their children, and having pets for coworkers.

• I wrote about a new music video, “Dance Song (for the End of the World),” by the L.A. retro-swing band Lizzy & the Triggermen, that featured 67 swing dancers from 15 countries — including a couple from Salt Lake City doing the Lindy Hop — all performing from self-isolation.

• Also performing from self-isolation, 35 members of the Utah Symphony collaborated on a rendition of the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, for a video that went online this week. (Early in the week, I wrote about how Utah Symphony | Utah Opera has furloughed all 85 of the symphony’s musicians.)

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Here’s what else I’ve been working on for The Salt Lake Tribune related to the coronavirus:

• My colleague, Nate Carlisle, and I tag-teamed on Friday’s briefing from the state of Utah, for two stories: One about a “travel declaration” to get people visiting Utah to provide data to the Utah Department of Health; the other about how the Salt Lake County Health Department is crunching data about the outbreak.

• To wear a mask or not? I asked an expert about what good a cloth mask does. The general feeling among medical professionals is that it’s better than nothing — but people should be aware of the limitations. (The photos came from a donation drive for medical equipment, which I mentioned in the Tribune’s “How You Can Help” blog.)

• Salt Lake County made a list of types of businesses considered “essential” during the pandemic, and a list of businesses that must close down. I tried to answer the question: What about those in the middle?

Be sure to read all of The Salt Lake Tribune’s coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. My colleagues are doing amazing work during all this, and we’re all doing it from home.

Two Ballet West dancers talk about surviving COVID-19, and having fun together in quarantine

Lucas Horns and Josh Shutkind, two corps artists at Ballet West, were among the first 50 people in Utah to test positive for the coronavirus.

They got home from a trip to New York on Saturday, March 14, feeling somewhat sick. They felt worse on Sunday, the 15th, and went to see a doctor. The next day — Monday, March 16 — their fevers spiked, with Shutkind hit the hardest, and the couple (who have been dating for two years) got maybe an hour’s sleep. On Tuesday, the 17th, they heard the voicemail they received the night before, with the news that their tests showed they had COVID-19.

In an exclusive interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, Horns and Shutkind talk about fighting through the illness, and how they’ve spent their time recovering in quarantine. Read it here on sltrib.com.

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This is just one of several stories I’ve written this week about Utah’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Here are some more:

• The “How You Can Help” blog offered details about how to donate to feed Salt Lake City students, fill the Utah AIDS Foundation’s pantry, get toilet paper to the elderly, and get cash to charities in need. And, in the blog, a child psychiatrist gave tips to help loved ones who are dealing with depression.

• The Utah Board of Pharmacy started writing regulations Tuesday to limit who can get chloroquine — an anti-malaria drug that’s been touted by President Trump and Fox News commentators as a possible coronavirus treatment.

• Here’s a list of Utah arts groups who are providing free streaming content for audiences who can’t come see them in person.

• Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute announced it would be moving its programs online for the summer — meaning that the Sundance Filmmakers Lab would not be held at the Sundance resort for the first time since the institute’s founding in 1981.

• Two major Utah hospital groups asked people to stop donating homemade face masks. The masks don’t do enough to filter out coronavirus, though they do have some utility. (I’ll be revisiting this topic next week.)

• A Utah manufacturer has switched its operations from boat canopies and awnings to making vinyl face shields for health care workers.

Read all of The Salt Lake Tribune’s coverage of coronavirus — of which I am just a small part — here.

Utah singer-actress Dee-Dee Darby-Duffin talks about jazz, acting, and the 'Mockingbird' that was not to be (for now)

We can all agree, I think, that we should get a do-over on March 2020.

In the alternate reality March, the one where most of the world wasn’t staying at home as part of the worldwide effort to slow the spread of coronavirus, Salt Lake City jazz singer and actress Dee-Dee Darby Duffin would have wowed audiences in The Grand Theatre’s production of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” She was set to play Calpurnia in Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel — one of the few actors outside of Broadway to have a crack at it. Or she was.

I wrote a profile of Darby-Duffin, who talks about the double disappointment of “Mockingbird” (it’s complicated), and the joys of singing jazz. Find it here on sltrib.com.

Covering coronavirus: My stories from a week without culture to write about

What does an arts writer do when there are no arts to cover? Whatever is needed — which recently has been covering the spread of coronavirus in Utah, and its aftereffects.

Here’s a sampling of what I’ve been writing for The Salt Lake Tribune:

• Utah’s first “community spread” case of coronavirus — a doorman at a popular Park City bar — and how it prompted the state’s ski resorts to close.

• A theater troupe canceling plans to stage “To Kill a Mockingbird” — the second time in two years the company’s production of the Harper Lee story was axed before the curtain went up.

• Utah’s homegrown movie chain closing its doors, and how the movie industry may be changing its thoughts on theatrical windows..

• Utah’s first lawsuit related to coronavirus — which was over before it really started. (It involved a famous rock band, but the band was definitely not the ones being sued.)

But the biggest thing I’ve been working on for The Salt Lake Tribune is a daily blog, “How You Can Help,” where I spotlight how people can channel their time, caring, blood, sweat and cash to help others during the pandemic. Give it a read — and if you’re in Utah and you know of other ways people can help other people, send me a tip; just follow the instructions at the top at the blog.

How do you make a romantic comedy at the Olympics? For 'Olympic Dreams,' it took a one-man crew, improvised dialogue, and cooperative athletes

Nobody has ever made a movie backstage at the Olympics before, so director Jeremy Teicher and athlete-turned-actress Alexi Pappas had a real challenge making “Olympic Dreams” happen.

Pappas, who ran the 10,000 meters for Greece at the Rio summer games in 2016, plays a cross-country skier competing at the 2018 Winter Olympics Pyeongchang, South Korea. When she’s done with her event and hanging around the Olympic Village, she meets Ezra (played by Nick Kroll), a volunteer dentist.

For this article at sltrib.com, I talked to Pappas and Teicher (who are a married couple in real life) about the logistical hurdles filming backstage at an Olympics, and the fun of getting real Olympians to join in the fun.

Two views of Japan — the 20th century clash with the West, and what led up to it — are on display at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts

Two new exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City give a fascinating view of Japan, from two vantage points.

“Seven Masters: 20th-Century Woodblock Prints,” a touring exhibition organized by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, showcases prints made by seven Japanese artists working in the early part of the 20th century. The works highlight the collision of cultures as Japan was opening to European influences, and sometimes reacting by retreating into nostalgia for the “old” Japan.

“Beyond the Divide: Merchant, Artist, Samurai in Edo Japan” features works from UMFA’s in-house collection, and sets the table for the “Seven Masters” exhibition. The UMFA items represent Japanese art and artifacts from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries — notably, the large room dividers that evolved from functional parts of the typical Japanese household to decorative artworks.

“Seven Masters” runs at UMFA through April 26; “Beyond the Divide” is up through July 5. Read more about both exhibitions in my article, posted on sltrib.com.

Can a new opera join the pantheon of classic works? Utah Opera's production of 'Silent Night' tries to crack the canon.

People who aren’t regular opera fans think of opera as old music — usually works by the 19th century masters. But there are efforts to make 21st century operas, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning 2011 work “Silent Night,” about the 1914 Christmas armistice during World War I, is one such opera that is being produced all over the country — including this month at Utah Opera.

I talked to the composer, Kevin Puts (who wrote the opera with librettist Mark Campbell), as well as Utah Opera’s artistic director and some of the singers who will perform the (comparatively) new work. Read about it here at sltrib.com.

Utah authors write about Wonder Woman as an 11-year-old, in graphic novel "Diana, Princess of the Amazons'

Diana is a spunky 11-year-old, loved by all the women in her hometown. She has the run of the place, being the daughter of the queen. But there aren’t any other kids to play with, since her home is Themyscira, the island home of the Amazons.

Someday, the world will know Diana better as Wonder Woman. But in “Diana, Princess of the Amazons,” a new graphic novel written by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale, she’s dealing with problems most pre-teens face.

The Hales, the husband-and-wife writing team from Utah who created the “Princess in Black” series and two books about Marvel’s “Squirrel Girl,” talk about exploring the character’s emotions, working with artist Victoria Ying, and why Wonder Woman endures decades after her creation. Read the interview at sltrib.com.

The best movies of the decade: A girl named Hushpuppy leads the way

Yes, it’s presumptuous to list the best movies of an entire decade. But the days before New Year’s Day — especially when the odometer is about to flip over — are a time for retrospection, and of looking back at what 10 years of movie watching has delivered.

My top 20 films of the 2010s are a grab-bag, and that’s a good thing. A critic should contain multitudes, and appreciate works from all genres and viewpoints. And the choices are ephemeral — ask me again on another day, and some titles would drop out and others would take their places.

So let the conversations and disagreements begin. Read my list here, at sltrib.com.