The whale does not move, but it has a way of making people talk.
It rises out of a roundabout at 900 South and 1100 East in Salt Lake City's 9th & 9th neighborhood — a 23-foot-tall humpback, breaching toward the sky as if the pavement were open ocean. Since it landed there in 2022, the sculpture known as "Out of the Blue" has been photographed, argued over, decorated, and mythologized. Now it has a new coat of paint, and the neighborhood threw a party to mark the occasion.
Whale Fest, held at the roundabout itself, celebrated the unveiling of "Open Your Eyes," a new mural by Salt Lake City artist Jiyoun Lee-Lodge. The event was as singular as its subject: a costume contest for the best-dressed whale, a competition to determine the finest whale call, and a parade — all gathered around a piece of public art in the middle of a traffic circle. It is, by any measure, one of the more unusual civic rituals in Utah.
The whale's story begins with a question no one expected to be controversial: why a whale? Salt Lake City is, after all, hundreds of miles from any ocean. But the artist who made it, Utah sculptor Stephen Kesler, saw the logic clearly. He grew up in Midvale and remembered the first time he visited 9th & 9th as a teenager — the culture, the music, the coffee shops, the vegetarian restaurants. "It was out of the blue for me for Salt Lake," he said. That phrase became the sculpture's title. The whale, in Kesler's telling, stands for a community "where people from all backgrounds, beliefs and ideas migrate and feel a sense of belonging."
Not everyone was ready for it. Before the whale, the roundabout's woodchip-covered center had been colonized by gnomes — a slow, organic accumulation of the pointy-hatted figures that neighbors brought from their gardens. There were blue gnomes and silver gnomes, wizard gnomes, female gnomes, one with a mushroom for a cap. They came to symbolize a kind of well-wishing for the neighborhood, a folk art project curated by whoever happened to walk by. When the city announced the whale, residents chose sides. As Mayor Erin Mendenhall put it at Whale Fest, "We had whales versus gnomes, if you will, and there were loyalties."
The debate played out for years, on social media and in living rooms. Some saw an eyesore; others saw the neighborhood's quirkiness made visible. Paula Fowler, who lives less than a block away, told KUER in 2022 that she had loved the gnomes — "I am not anti-whale, but I sure loved the gnomes" — even as she admitted she was "determined to like" the newcomer. Kesler himself was humble about the reception. "I know it can be controversial dropping a whale in the middle of someone's neighborhood," he said at the 2022 ribbon-cutting, "and I hope over the years, people love it just as much as I do."
Then something strange happened. The whale went in, and the snow came. The winter that followed was a record-breaker, and a legend took hold: that the whale had brought the water. It is the kind of story that a city tells about itself, half-joking and half-not. Mayor Mendenhall addressed it directly at Whale Fest with a straight face and a wink. "Salt Lake City to date has never found the scientific evidence to verify, undisputedly, the connection between the installation of 'Out of the Blue' and the snowfall that followed it," she said. "But I also know better than to question the whale."
The sculpture was never meant to stay one color. From the beginning, the Salt Lake City Arts Council intended the whale to serve as a canvas, repainted by different local artists every few years to reflect the neighborhood's transformation. The first mural, "Point of Reference," was painted by artist Mike Murdock when the whale debuted. Lee-Lodge's design replaces it.
Her "Open Your Eyes" wraps the whale in gradients of pink and blue, flowing wave patterns, and playful dots of color — a 360-degree design that looks different from every angle, rewarding a walk around the roundabout rather than a glance from the car. The waves evoke the movement of water and the people coming and going from the city. The Great Salt Lake and Utah's vast skies supply the palette. And the eyes give the mural its name: one painted open, one closed, a wink aimed at the district. The rainbow of dots, a recurring motif in Lee-Lodge's work, stands for the many different groups gathered in the city.
The selection was unusually democratic. The city opened a public Request for Qualifications to artists based in Salt Lake County, and before the call even went out, the Public Art Program asked residents directly what the whale meant to them. Through an online engagement campaign called "What's Next for the Whale?", more than 1,700 people weighed in. Lee-Lodge's design was chosen from that process, and the artist — Korean-born and Salt Lake-based, working across painting, drawing, installation, and public art — unveiled her concept at the city's 801 Day celebration, where a crowd chanted "Whale! Whale! Whale!" as a banner unfurled.
Painting began in September and was finished by the last week of that month. By the time Whale Fest arrived, the whale had a new face.
For all the debate it once stirred, the whale has become something like a neighborhood mascot. Mendenhall noted at the festival that it has inspired other artwork, marathons, churches, and events — "even a baby whale was born." Attendee Serah Schmit, who came to Whale Fest with her husband, said the couple had loved driving past the sculpture over the years while attending events in the neighborhood. "I love the eye opening," she said. "It just reminds us to take time and enjoy art and our community."
That may be the whale's real function. It is not a monument to anything grand — not a statesman or a battle or a pioneer. It is a 23-foot humpback in a traffic circle, painted pink and blue, winking at passersby, presiding over a festival where people compete to make the best whale noise. It is silly, and it is beloved, and those two things turn out to be the same thing. The gnomes are mostly gone now, or at least outnumbered. The snow, whatever the legend says, keeps its own counsel. What remains is a city that decided, eventually, to love the thing it had argued about — and to throw it a party every time it gets a new look.
Whale Fest is free and open to anyone who walks up to the roundabout. Bring a costume, if you have one. Practice your whale call. The whale, as the mayor might say, is not to be questioned.