Once a week, I write about 800 words for this column. It’s a job I feel lucky to have — mostly because I really, really love words. Words matter. They can make our day. They can break our heart. They can tell us where to go. And how to get there. They can lift us up. They can piss us off. They can change our minds. They can change the world. Or at least our own little corner of it.So when I thought about doing a series about how art can transform a community, I immediately thought of my friend Kent Youngstrom, a nationally known local artist who paints with words.Kent’s work resonated with me from the day he walked into Park City Fit carrying a mysterious cardboard box. At that point, he was just the new guy — a buff crossfitter who rolled into the gym every morning, his hair all crazy like he’d just stumbled out of bed. I don’t think any of us had any idea he was also a gifted, albeit somewhat tortured, artist.After the workout, I saw him covering a wall of the gym with the contents of that box — his own original artwork. Each piece was painted in white on black paper with various mantras like “Love hurts, sucks, never fails,” “Find out what happens when you don’t give up,” and “No risk, no story.”Seeing me eyeballing the wall, Kent said “Take one. No, take two and give one to a friend.” By then, other gym peeps had wandered over, curious about what was going on. Kent told them all to help themselves.We’re used to post-workout endorphins from things like squats and burpees. But we were all taken aback by the jolt of seratonin from these unexpected gifts of art. Kent invited us all to come and see the once-abandoned barn on the edge of Kamas that he’d reincarnated into an art studio.Originally from the Chicago area, and having lived all over the Midwest, Kent decided to move to Utah. “I’d visited a few times before; staying with friends who were willing to host an artist with big dreams and small bank rolls,” Kent said.One day, his Realtor told him there was an old barn in Kamas that no one really knew what to do with. Eighteen months later, he was in the red barn in Kamas — with broken windows, no heat, no air and no working overhead doors. He kicked out the former tenants, mostly snakes and raccoons, and went to work transforming the space.His neighbors in Kamas didn’t quite know what to make of the guy who painted the red barn black with a huge rainbow trout and a paintbrush logo with octopus tentacles. Who is that? What is he doing in there? Why is there an octopus on the front? These were all actual questions he overheard in the local diner, the pizza shop, the Ace Hardware store.Suspicion gives way to fascination when you’re welcomed into the studio by Kent’s receptionist, a spotted dog named Acrylic whose coat is as bold and graphic as one of Kent’s paintings. There’s artwork all over the place. Some of the pieces are big enough to cover an entire wall. Huge overhead doors open to breathtaking views of the Kamas landscape. Peek inside one of the design magazines casually tossed on a table and you’ll see stories about Kent’s work for top interior designers with celebrity clients and brands like No Bull, Wayfair and CB2 — for whom he’s painted more than 8,000 original pieces over the past 12 years.Kent is a street-smart storyteller. He trusts his gut. He does his research and still questions everything. “I feel like I’ve lived enough to judge a book by its pages as opposed to its cover quicker than most,” he said. His own pages are filled with epic tales he somehow manages to convey in five words or less.He paints his word-stories in a uniquely Kent way. “‘Live, laugh, love’ would be more like ‘Live, laugh, lube,’” he said. The rainbow trout on the side of the barn is a story between he and his son. A painting featuring a chess king and queen is a story about equality in a relationship. Another one with the cheeky “I want hotel sex,” well, Kent just says it’s not the story you think it is. And my personal favorite: “Oh my God are you still talking?”When I asked if he though art has the power to transform a community, he replied with the perfect tortured-artist response: “Well, gentrification almost always starts with the starving artists moving in and creating a visually pleasing environment that drives prices up to the point that the starving artists can no longer afford to live there.”But he’s not at all cynical about the number of locals who stop by the occasional studio nights he hosts in the space. “They’re like, ‘We can’t believe something like this exists in Kamas; thank you for bringing it to us.’”Kent shared with me a long letter to his 15-year-old self. He wrote it for a local soccer team he coaches — mostly 15-year-olds themselves. “Never be afraid to do things in a different way than others,” he wrote. “Everything has a different answer than the obvious one. … Be the guy no one knows about until you show up. And when you do show up, show up. Take over. Be a force.”Words from coach to player. Words from father to son. Words between friends and lovers. Words on a canvas. Sometimes the words that transform one life do just that for the rest of us, too.Since moving to the area, Kent has hosted studio nights and shown his art at Park City’s Silly Market. View his work on Instagram @kentyoungstrom and at ROMY boutique on Main Street in PC, or in his studio in Kamas by appointment.The post Betty Diaries: Words with friends appeared first on Park Record.