The whale that watches over Salt Lake City's 9th and 9th roundabout has a brand-new look, and the neighborhood threw it a full-blown party to celebrate. On Saturday, the 9th and 9th Business District hosted Whale Fest at the intersection of 900 South and 1100 East, unveiling a freshly painted mural called Open Your Eyes across the sculpture known as Out of the Blue.
The 23-foot-tall fiberglass and steel humpback whale, created by artist Stephen Kesler and installed in 2022 with support from the Salt Lake City Public Art Program, has become one of the city's most recognizable landmarks, according to Wikipedia. The new mural, painted by artist Jiyoun Lee-Lodge, covers the entire sculpture and was inspired by the Great Salt Lake, Utah's open skies, and the movement of water, using pinks, blues, wave patterns, and colored dots, as reported by ABC4 Utah.
Open Your Eyes is not the first design to grace the whale. The original 2022 mural, Point of Reference, was painted by local artist Michael Murdock, who worked at the neighborhood's Caffe Expresso and drew on local sunrises and sunsets for his design, according to 15 Bytes. The Salt Lake City Public Art Program designed the sculpture to be repainted every three to five years by different local artists, a plan city officials confirmed would continue with this latest refresh.
A Design Built Around Community Input
Before artists even submitted proposals, Salt Lake City asked residents what they wanted to see next. The city's shapeSLC platform hosted the “What's Next for the Whale?” campaign, gathering input from more than 1,700 local residents, according to the City of Salt Lake City. Those survey results were shared with applicant artists before proposal deadlines, shaping the creative direction of the submissions that followed.
Lee-Lodge's design ultimately rose above 35 total submissions, with the Salt Lake Art Design Board and neighborhood stakeholders unanimously selecting her proposal after narrowing the field to four finalists. Her model design was revealed publicly on August 1 during the city's “801 Day” event, giving residents a preview of the eye-themed concept months before the paint went on the whale.
The finished mural features one eye painted open and the other closed on opposite sides of the sculpture, creating a 360-degree visual experience that shifts depending on where a viewer stands around the roundabout, according to the Salt Lake City Arts Council. Lee-Lodge, a Korean-born artist based in Salt Lake City whose work explores identity, immigration, and adaptation through her ongoing Waterman series launched in 2018, said in a statement that the support of 9th and 9th neighbors kept her spirits high while she painted the sculpture. She added that Open Your Eyes calls people to embrace difference, invite change, and celebrate everyone who makes the city special, a message tied to an online exhibition of her Waterman paintings hosted by Modern West Fine Art timed to the mural's October unveiling.
Costumes, Whale Calls and a Mayoral Snow Forecast
Whale Fest ran from 2 to 7 p.m. Saturday, with check-ins for the costume and whale call contests starting at 1:30 p.m., according to Visit Salt Lake. Organized by the 9th and 9th Business District alongside the Salt Lake City Arts Council, the festival also featured a parade, crafts, local vendors, live music and food trucks drawing residents to the roundabout for the afternoon.
Remarks came from Mayor Erin Mendenhall, Erika Carlson and Lee-Lodge herself during the celebration. Mendenhall said the public art has inspired community events, marathons and even a baby lookalike, while also joking that the whale may signal a significant snow season if the pattern persists, according to the same ABC4 Utah report. That baby lookalike referenced a miniature replica of Out of the Blue that a local resident placed beside the main sculpture in July, sparking viral online attention and chalk messages dubbing it a “miracle baby whale,” per KSL-TV.
A Roundabout With a History of Whimsy
The whale's quirky lore runs deeper than this year's festival. Before the sculpture existed, the roundabout's center mound was covered in wood chips when the intersection was completed in 2018, prompting residents to spontaneously decorate it with garden gnomes ahead of any formal public art commission, per Wikipedia. Since the whale arrived, residents have left offerings at its base ranging from Swedish Fish and tuna cans to Utah Jazz shirts.
The mural unveiling also lands amid a period of change for the surrounding commercial corridor. The 9th and 9th district has seen recent business turnover, including the closures of Spilt Milk cereal bar and Barbacoa Mexican Grill, alongside the August arrival of Knoops, a British chocolate chain, according to Hoodline's earlier coverage of the neighborhood. Against that backdrop of shifting storefronts, the whale remains a constant gathering point for the community, drawing neighbors back to the roundabout for Saturday's festivities regardless of what's changed around it.
