Fans of Rockwell the Rock Snake may be sad to see he’s no longer where he resided since he started one year ago. But don’t be dismayed—Rockwell has a new home—two new homes, actually. Part of Rockwell now decorates the garden behind Draper’s Senior Center, and the other part has moved to the Art Castle located at 915 W. 100 South in Salt Lake City.

Rockwell is a community art project created and maintained by Kelsee Sellers, her mom, and her children. They started Rockwell along the abandoned train tracks near where Boulter Street and the Porter Rockwell trail connect. Since the project began last June, Sellers and her children have been pleasantly surprised by the rapid growth of their creation. That growth had Sellers and her kids setting new goals for Rockwell and painting rocks with number milestones and signs to encourage people to continue to make additions. Their most recent goal was for Rockwell to reach all the way to 1300 East across from Draper Park. 

Rockwell reached a total of more than 4,000 individually decorated rocks contributed by members of the community. Then UTA said the project had to be moved for liability reasons and they helped make the move happen. 

“UTA did need to work with the local community to find the Rock Snake a new home as it was residing on UTA property in an inactive rail corridor. That area is not maintained as a pedestrian pathway and the ground is uneven over the old rail ties—we did not want folks getting injured. In addition, UTA does need ready access to the property for maintenance and upkeep and we did not want to create conflict. The public’s safety is a priority for UTA and we are excited to see the Rock Snake flourish in its new homes with better community access,” said UTA spokesperson Mike Varanakis.

Before Rockwell’s big move, Sellers packed a few fragile rocks herself and moved others that needed to be placed in a particular order. She also painted a new head for the Draper location. 

“I was really surprised and impressed with UTA for doing it. They moved it May 17. They had a crew of at least 10-20 people with bins. They wrapped the rocks and even had a truck on the tracks at one point. They were able to move it all in one day and delivered them to each location,” Sellers said. 

According to the UTA Community Engagement team, it will be “part of a magical Art Sculpture Garden” at the Art Castle which is managed by the Utah Arts Alliance.

This isn’t the end of the line for Rockwell, at least not at the Draper Senior Center. Rick Dykhuizen, the center’s program coordinator, said he hopes people continue to add decorated rocks to the project at its new Draper location. “We are happy to house it,” he said. “It’s colorful and fits our center very well. It’s a great conversation piece and a little part of the people of Draper we can have here at the senior center.” λ