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Episode 210: An artful testimony at the Church History Museum’s 200 years of Latter-day Saint art exhibit

‘Work and Wonder: 200 Years of Latter-day Saint Art’ showcases works created by individuals connected to the Church around the world over two centuries

As The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints nears the bicentennial of its founding in 1830, the Church History Museum and The Center for Latter-day Saint Arts have come together to celebrate nearly 200 years of the rich doctrines, history and culture in artwork.

In the new exhibit entitled “Work and Wonder: 200 Years of Latter-day Saint Art,” a wide variety of works are presented, having been created by individuals connected to the faith around the world over two centuries.

In this episode of the Church News podcast, we take you behind the scenes of the exhibit, which includes 118 pieces of art, organized not in chronological order but thematically. Together, we discuss with organizers and artists the many ways faith and testimony of the Savior Jesus Christ are represented through art.

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Transcript:

Laura Paulsen Howe: Putting together an exhibit like this, reading stories of Church history, they serve as landmarks to me of just people worldwide doing their best to become like Christ. And I see examples throughout the world and throughout time which give me a place, an identity and a confidence that I can continue doing my best to make covenants and grow closer to the Savior. And so we hope people will come and see and ask, “What does this mean?” Because the answer, I hope, will uplift them and help them become closer to Christ.

0:49

Jon Ryan Jensen: This is Jon Ryan Jensen, editor of the Church News. Welcome to the Church News podcast. Today, we are taking you on a journey of connection as we discuss news and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

As The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints nears the bicentennial of its founding in 1830, the Church History Museum and the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts have come together to celebrate nearly 200 years of the rich doctrines, history and culture demonstrated in artwork. In the new exhibit titled “Work and Wonder: 200 Years of Latter-day Saint Art,” a wide variety of works are presented, having been created by individuals connected to the faith across the world over the last two centuries.

Eva Koleva Timothy’s “Come Unto Me” is displayed during an exhibition organized by the Church History Museum and the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts featuring art created by, for, and about Latter-day Saints between 1830 and the present, in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. The exhibition will be open through February 2025. | Brice Tucker, Deseret News

In this episode of the Church News podcast, we take you behind the scenes of the exhibit, which includes 118 pieces of art organized not in chronological order but thematically. Together, we discuss with the organizers and artists about the many ways faith and testimony of the Savior, Jesus Christ, are represented through art.

We start with my conversation with Riley Lorimer, director of the Church History Museum, as she offers some insight into what goes into curating such a large endeavor and why it is she feels art can be an important medium in representing one’s faith.

2:08

Jon Ryan Jensen: First off, I want to start with 200 years of art. I think it would have been really easy for the Church History Museum to say, “Hey, let’s just do this linear. We’re going to start at this year and end at this year,” but you didn’t do that. Can you talk about why you didn’t do that, and what the experience is for people who are going to come see it?

2:26

Riley M. Lorimer: Yeah, absolutely. So, actually, I think that would have been really hard, and I’ll tell you why. Because there are periods where we have less art — the very early period, we have less art — and not because the experiences of that time are less important, only because we had fewer trained artists, and they were working really hard to make cities and settle, and so we have less.

Jon Ryan Jensen: It was sustainability. It was staying alive.

Riley M. Lorimer: That’s right. So there was less in the very beginning, and then there’s a period mid-20th century where we have a little less again. And if you do it chronologically, I think the curators would have felt an obligation to include certain artists because they were important in the time, or whatever.

And then there starts to be a question of “Who do you include? Who do you not include?” which is already going to be a big problem in 200 years of art. And so I think choosing to do it thematically allows pieces from different time periods and different parts of the world to be in conversation. That’s another piece of it, is that if we had done it chronologically, we wouldn’t see as many international artists, because the Church’s internationalization happens later, right? And so there would only be one little part of the exhibition that would have conceptual room for international artists. And that’s not what we wanted. So we wanted to show the Church’s internationalization, because that’s a really important part of Latter-day Saint art.

3:50

And so the exhibition is divided into four themes. And so there’s an introductory space that has one piece from the 19th century, one piece from the 20th century, one piece from the 21st century, which is really great. People should not miss that. And then there are four themes as you walk through. So, there’s a theme of identity; there’s a theme of the individual and the Church; there’s a theme of sacred space; and I’m missing one, and it is memory and archive. And each of those themes helps us explore pieces that are from different time periods, different parts of the world, in conversation with one another.

So, if you look at this wall, you’re seeing portraits of Christ, paintings of Christ, and a sculpture — don’t want to leave Kirk Richards out — from different parts of the world in different periods of time. So the James Harwood on the end is quite early. Walter Rane is contemporary. Michael Malm and these two, you would have seen before. It’s been reproduced all over the place. This, Mike Malm painted for his family. It is on the wall of their family home, ordinarily, and he painted it for them as a reminder of Christ as a source of joy. You see that brilliant light from behind Him. And so that’s different; this is a really private sort of view of the Savior, whereas these have been quite public, right?

5:12

Jon Ryan Jensen: And they’re unique as well, because you talk about the light coming from behind Him. He Himself is in a moment of peace and reflection, and the other two that you’re looking at, one, He’s actually doing the ministering and a healing.

Riley M. Lorimer: Exactly. And this one, He’s calling, yeah.

Jon Ryan Jensen: And we are called as well. So there’s three different views of Him.

5:29

Riley M. Lorimer: Absolutely. But all of these are giving sort of a different view of Christ. I love this piece by Julie Yuen Yim. Julie Yuen Yim is a contemporary artist working in Hong Kong, living and working in Hong Kong, and her artistic language is different. When you look at a piece of Western art, it tends to be as though you are looking through a window directly at the action, right? That’s what this one is. In this one, you’re quite high in the plain of vision. You’re sort of looking down at the action. And the figures in a Chinese brush painting tend to be smaller, as they are here, whereas you see they’re taking up all the space in some of these others, right?

A detail of Jesus ministering to people of all stratum of society is depicted in “Partake of His Goodness” by Julie Yuen Yim during an exhibition organized by the Church History Museum and the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts featuring art created by, for, and about Latter-day Saints between 1830 and the present in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. The exhibition will be open through February 2025. | Brice Tucker, Deseret News

And so, this is not a scripture story. This is, in fact, a meditation on the character of Christ. It’s called “Partake of His Goodness.” And so you see Christ painted in a traditional Chinese medium, and also in a traditional Chinese style. And then you can see different figures around Him representing different sorts of people that Christ interacted with in His life. So you have the centurion from the New Testament, but he is in the armor of a Chinese general. You have a leper, you have — and some of these people in a Chinese painting vernacular; for instance, this man’s skin tone is a little bit darker. It signifies of being in a different socioeconomic class. This man wears a beard, where Asian men usually do not wear a full beard. And so, again, it’s signifying this man is poor. A woman being sort of on the margins of society.

So, this is Christ ministering to people who are not in the mainstream. He seeks out the one, right? This scene didn’t happen in the New Testament, but it’s a reflection, it’s Julie Yuen Yim’s likening the scriptures to herself. That’s what this painting is, which is different from what we have over here. All of these are really different — stylistically, in terms of medium and materials — and they’re all telling the same story, essentially, which is a witness of Jesus Christ. We think about this as almost an international sort of fast and testimony meeting throughout time and throughout the world, that in their different artistic languages, all of these artists are bearing common witness of Jesus Christ.

7:43

Jon Ryan Jensen: Love that. For you, when you see this, I know you get to see and feel from artist statements, what their testimony is, how their testimony has been affected by this moment that they’re trying to capture as well. But for you, what do you come away with when you see these all put together?

7:58

Riley M. Lorimer: I think — years ago, Elder [Dieter F.] Uchtdorf gave a talk. He was sort of pushing back on the idea that Latter-day Saints should all be the same, and he said that that “would contradict the genius of God.” And I think about that a lot, and I think about that as I walk through these galleries. Elder [Quentin L.] Cook also said in a general conference a couple years back that “unity and diversity are not opposites.” They’re not opposed to one another. And I see that here, reflected here, because what we have is a huge diversity through time and across the whole world of artists and their experiences, but they are unified in common purpose, and that, to me, is Zion.

And so I walk through these galleries, and I see a reflection of the quest for Zion, for being of one heart, that we’re all different and we bring our different perspectives and our different skills to the project of building the kingdom of God. And it’s because we all bring those different experiences and perspectives that we’re able to make it whole and to build up Zion.

8:55

Jon Ryan Jensen: Another difference between them is that some, like Ricardo Rendón, this is a type of installation that he has been doing his whole life, and he feels drawn to that, versus something like Avard [Fairbanks], which is commissioned by the Church.

Do you see, you know, a difference in approaches by the artists when it’s something they’ve done for themselves, versus something that they’ve done because someone else asked for it?

9:18

Riley M. Lorimer: Sure, yeah, I think not least because when someone commissions you, they get a say in how it comes out. But certainly, we have some pieces in the exhibition that were commissioned by the Church, and in many of those — I don’t know a story about that for this piece in particular — but many of the pieces that the Church commissioned, the Church asks for changes, or they want things to be done a slightly different way, whereas something like the Rendón piece or Michael Malm that hangs on the wall of his home, those are different kinds of expressions of faith that proceed just forth from the artists themselves, not in conversation with the institution of the Church, but certainly in conversation with their own internal witness.

10:03

Jon Ryan Jensen: So, I was thinking about this specifically in this room, because we live the gospel every day in a way that we feel led and guided by the Spirit. But we also have a commission, literally a great commission, right? We have covenants and ordinances that we are asked to participate in and do them a certain way.

Do you see a tie-in, when you look at art like this, to artistic expression and what we do as members of the Church?

10:31

Riley M. Lorimer: Absolutely. I mean, we actually have a whole section of the exhibition that’s “individual and Church,” that’s thinking about that same idea, that both of those things, neither one sort of takes over the other, right? Those are both important. We need an individual witness of Christ, and we need the organization of the Church to provide us with priesthood authority, to provide us with ordinances and to help us be in community with one another, right? Both of those things need to exist at the same time.

I think that’s the kind of tension that we see represented in the Rendón piece, right? That these things are not opposites, but they are different, but they have to both be there to make it work, right? And I think even if you look at the Harry Anderson “The Second Coming,” Harry Anderson was not a Latter-day Saint, he was a Seventh-day Adventist, and he was commissioned by the Church to make that painting in the late 70s. And even though Harry Anderson was not a Latter-day Saint, he put his own witness of Jesus Christ into that painting.

Kyra Sutherland from the Church History Museum views Harry Anderson’s “The Second Coming” while on display at an exhibition organized by the Church History Museum and the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts featuring art created by, for, and about Latter-day Saints between 1830 and the present, in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. The exhibition will be open through February 2025. | Brice Tucker, Deseret News

Jon Ryan Jensen: It didn’t diminish his witness at all. It’s a great testimony.

Riley M. Lorimer: It didn’t diminish his witness. It didn’t diminish his witness, and it doesn’t diminish mine or any other Latter-day Saints’ that Anderson wasn’t a Latter-day Saint, right? We can have individual witness that is strengthened and made different sometimes by the communal expression of that individual witness.

11:50

Jon Ryan Jensen: I love that. That Harry Anderson hung in my bedroom as a little boy and until I left for my mission.

Riley M. Lorimer: Oh, there you go, see?

Jon Ryan Jensen: So I love that piece. And again, it’s another one that you don’t have any idea the sense of scale of that.

Riley M. Lorimer: Yeah, it’s huge.

Jon Ryan Jensen: I don’t even know how tall that one is.

Riley M. Lorimer: Definitely, yep. The visual culture binds us in a real way.

12:10

Jon Ryan Jensen: For people who aren’t sure if this is a place for them to come, if this is a show for them to see, why would you tell someone else they need to come and visit this exhibit?

Riley M. Lorimer: I would say, in any art exhibition, not everything may speak to you, and that’s OK. Sometimes people come to an art museum and they feel unsure, or they feel like, oh, they maybe don’t know enough to understand. But art isn’t judging you. It’s not testing you. You come here, and you look at different pieces of art, and maybe this one doesn’t speak to you, but maybe this one does, and that’s fine.

And so I would say come. You’re going to see types of art and pieces of art that are different from anything you’ve seen before in a Latter-day Saint context. Some pieces will be familiar, and I hope they’ll evoke positive emotions and associations for Latter-day Saints, but I think also there is surprise and delight to be found in this exhibition from pieces that you won’t be familiar with. And for me, when I come and I see a piece that is different from what I see normally, and it’s an expression of faith by a brother or sister from somewhere else — even here in Utah, but throughout the world — but their experience leads them to create something that wouldn’t come out of my brain.

That, to me, makes me feel closer to the family of God. And I think people can have that experience the same way that in a testimony meeting, not everything that somebody says is going to resonate with you, right? But you can feel love and unity in what binds you, which are, you know, these covenants and this covenant community that we’ve created, and our covenant to, you know, our obligation to reach out to the whole world. I think that’s what I see when I come here, and I hope that people will come and feel no pressure to like everything, and instead come and be open and discover something new.

14:11

Jon Ryan Jensen: One of the artists referenced in that conversation was Mexican artist Ricardo Rendón, who, along with his wife, Georgina Bringas, both have works on display in this exhibit. I spoke with Ricardo as he was installing his artwork in the museum for the exhibit, and he shared how art helps him ask and illustrate answers to his questions about his own divine identity.

14:32

Ricardo Rendón: Well, for me, art is a way of knowledge. It’s a way of getting to know the world around you in different aspects. I mean, it can be socially, can be political. For me, I think it has to be more in a way to put myself into space. “Where am I? Who am I? And where am I living?”

14:56

Jon Ryan Jensen: It’s interesting that you talk about your place in the world. President Russell M. Nelson has talked a lot about understanding our divine identity. Do you find that you understand your divine identity better with the work that you do?

Ricardo Rendón: Well, as an artist, you have a lot of questions, and sometimes you don’t find the answers, but you have to keep going and researching. I’m trying to find out that place in divinity. I was talking to the co-founder of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts about what is it to be an artist. And I like to think of being as a child every time, or becoming a child again, as Jesus Christ told us to be, to be as kids, as pure as to reflect on nature, to be amazed of the world and, in this case, of the forces of gravity, what keep us here all the time. These forces are here around us all the time, and we just live with them. We didn’t notice.

16:04

Jon Ryan Jensen: What I hear you saying is, like, the art is never completely finished, and you are never completely finished. You’re both always trying to find your purpose.

Ricardo Rendón: Yeah, I’m trying. I’m working on that. For me, the work is an ongoing process, where you have materials, you have research, you have concepts, and you are working on them. And these works are possibilities of this research environment where I am constantly working and trying to figure out a form or a shape, which is always like trying to be defined, but it’s never, never fixed, never finished. And for me, that’s the art practice.

16:51

Jon Ryan Jensen: I would love, if you can, to talk about this particular piece and maybe the materials that you used and how you had to start somewhere. How did this start?

Part of a Artist Ricardo Rendón piece that is part of a new exhibit at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

Ricardo Rendón: For me, it’s really important to reflect on the idea of work and labor as a way to try to gain knowledge of my own practice. And in this case, it’s based on the plumb bob. The plumb bob, as you know, is this ancient tool which has been found in the Egyptian pyramids. I mean, the starting point to build something straight.

17:30

Jon Ryan Jensen: My father was a surveyor. He would look at the land and survey the land for something to be built. And he used to use these all the time. For me, I would just play with it. But he taught me the same thing: It’s the beginning, having the weight set.

Ricardo Rendón: Yeah, it’s the beginning because it draws a line. We think it’s straight, but what it does, it draws a line to the center of the earth. It’s connecting these two points, the place where I am standing now and the center of the earth. So it’s connecting both sides, working all the time, you know? So for that, for me, it amazes me how this tiny tool can reflect on this idea of beginning. And, you know, this work works with that idea of tension and the forces that are involved in this particular tool, which works with gravity, right? So if I take this out, the plumb, everything falls down.

Jon Ryan Jensen: It’s holding this entire piece together.

Ricardo Rendón: The whole drawing, which is a drawing, it’s also a sculpture, it’s an installation, and it’s a drawing. And if you take out the weight that it’s holding, everything, it falls down. It’s like the foundations of the temple.

18:52

Jon Ryan Jensen: And it’s not just holding one other piece together. How many anchors are there?

Ricardo Rendón: I think 36.

19:01

Jon Ryan Jensen: Thirty-six. And each one is crossed multiple times. But you losing that small anchor, all of it would come apart.

Ricardo Rendón: Yeah.

Jon Ryan Jensen: When I hear you talking about this, I look at these anchors, and I think about different principles of the gospel and how there are more of them than we maybe understand, but having all of them gives us that continuous growth and lets each other piece also be strengthened and connected.

Ricardo Rendón: That sounds beautiful. That’s what I’m trying to go back to, your first question, is this work helps me to gain knowledge in divinity. It’s beautiful.

Artist Ricardo Rendón, talks about his piece that is part of a new exhibit at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

19:39

Jon Ryan Jensen: One of the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, said once: The more we learn to “trust and rely upon the Spirit, the greater [our] capacity to create.” Do you find that the closer you are to Heavenly Father, the closer you are to feeling the Holy Ghost, that that has an influence on your ability to do art?

20:01

Ricardo Rendón: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I was lost without my wife and without the Church. I had a really bad time. My mother died, I was alone. And without my wife and what she taught me, I wouldn’t be here and doing these works. It also makes me think about that and what we are becoming and what we have done here and what we can do also to improve, to improve the world, to improve our life, our families and our existence, no? I was talking to my wife yesterday of why they want me here, and I was thinking that it’s good to know that our Heavenly Father has. I’m in a good place for Him. I don’t feel special, but for this opportunity to be here and to bring my work and show it here, it means for me that the Lord is interested in me somehow. And I love that.

21:13

Jon Ryan Jensen: Executive director of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, Mykal Urbina, reflected on how the art in this exhibit weaves the themes of faith in Jesus Christ and many other principles of the gospel across time and through different experiences of building and expressing a testimony.

21:29

Mykal Urbina: Any individual piece of art on the walls speaks to the story and experiences of an individual artist. I love that this show is organized thematically as opposed to chronologically, so that when you see these works next to each other on the wall, you understand that there’s a thematic purpose for them being there; you start to think more collectively about what these experiences mean universally. So you can dive into one piece, understand what that artist was trying to convey, then you can zoom out and try to understand what this means for our faith and for our community more collectively.

Executive director of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts Mykal Urbina talks about different pieces during an exhibition organized by the Church History Museum and the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts featuring art created by, for, and about Latter-day Saints between 1830 and the present, in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. The exhibition will be open through February 2025. | Brice Tucker, Deseret News

And we hope artists of all levels will come and see the show and be inspired in the work that they’re creating. It’s satisfying for us to see, you know, a 10-foot-tall original Harry Anderson next to a contemporary piece from an artist like Madeline Rupard, contextualizing that depiction of the Second Coming into the environment in which we see it in our chapels and our Church buildings today. And so to reflect on, you know, the historical importance of our art plus our contemporary experience with it is a lens through which, you know, we may not have experienced our own faith before.

22:37

Jon Ryan Jensen: Having worked on this project over the last few years, what is it that you know now that has bolstered your faith in the Savior?

Mykal Urbina: What I know now after working on this show with these curators for the past few years is the time and effort and intentionality of every artist with a piece in this show. And to have spent time with them, learning about their process, understanding what it is that they’re trying to depict, increases my faith and my testimony of the doctrines and beliefs that I hold most dear. They have spent the time on their craft and on their works to display things that many of us wish we could articulate.

And seeing that in a global sense in this exhibition has increased my testimony, increased my spirituality and truly made me grateful for those who are masters at their craft. The more time that you’re able to spend with the piece, the more you let it reveal itself to you, the more you will see the intentionality of the artist, of their own testimony, of their own faith, and it can enhance yours.

23:47

Jon Ryan Jensen: I love that you share that, because I think about that in terms of the scriptures. And we’re coming up on the end of a year where we’re studying the Book of Mormon, and there were some prophets who it was, you know, their writings are more like a journal, and there are some who write more in the allegories and in the visuals and in the visions and “Here’s what I saw,” and then you have to take away something from that. Do you feel like sometimes this experience can be similar to that?

24:08

Mykal Urbina: Absolutely. And we don’t want to be too prescriptive in explaining what a piece of art is or how you’re supposed to interpret it. We hope that people will come and see their own experiences reflected in this art, that they will draw from it what they need and that, you know, through some of these pieces, they’ll be able to navigate conversations and complex issues that otherwise can be really challenging to articulate.

What I love about this show is that there really is something that will resonate with everyone, and I hope that everyone will find something really unexpected here, that you will walk away with a wider perspective of what it means and what it looks like to be a Latter-day Saint, and that there is a pride of belonging that can come from seeing these depictions of who we are and where we’ve been as a people. And letting those works speak to each other and speak to us is the most fulfilling way we can experience this exhibition.

Emile Wilson’s “Confirmation in Sierra Leone” is displayed during an exhibition organized by the Church History Museum and the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts featuring art created by, for, and about Latter-day Saints between 1830 and the present in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. The exhibition will be open through February 2025. | Brice Tucker, Deseret News

25:01

Jon Ryan Jensen: Laura Paulsen Howe, Church History Museum art curator, helped me explore a specific tapa cloth created by a ward in Tonga and a quilt made by Salt Lake City’s 14th Ward Relief Society, both from many decades ago. The two pieces highlight similarities across cultures where stories and sacrifices are represented in artwork created by unified groups, like a ward’s Relief Society or a ward family. And we let Howe have the final word in this episode.

Different pieces are displayed, including a Tongan tapa cloth, during an exhibition organized by the Church History Museum and The Center for Latter-day Saint Arts featuring art created by, for, and about Latter-day Saints between 1830 and the in present Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. The exhibition will be open through February 2025. | Brice Tucker, Deseret News

25:28

Laura Paulsen Howe: Oh, in 1936, 17-year-old Rudy Wolfgramm was a Tongan youth, and he was going to Salt Lake. And of course, there’s some fear and trepidation that is going to go with leaving your home country and heading to Salt Lake. So his Relief Society sisters, the Vavaʻu Relief Society, got together to make this huge tapa cloth so that he could have a little piece of home to remember as he embarked on this new journey in life.

The mission president had postcards of Salt Lake in his office. And so this Relief Society got together, and they did images of the Salt Lake Temple, the Tabernacle, Eagle Gate and the organ, and so he has essentially this huge expression of love from the community of the Relief Society that he took with him as he started this new journey.

26:21

Jon Ryan Jensen: So when you say it’s huge, I can see that part of it is rolled up. How big is the actual piece?

Laura Paulsen Howe: So, the actual piece, if I remember, it’s about 13 feet wide. So we have two rows of it. And so what we want people to really see, especially with the two rows, is that each of these images is hand painted, and you can see the individual style of each of those sisters. And so I think often of getting together with my Relief Society growing up and, you know, putting our own tide quilts or whatever it is to send off that expression of love. And how universal that role of Relief Society has been throughout ages.

Curator Ashlee Whitaker Evans from the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts talks to media about the Fourteenth Ward Album Quilt piece behind her, at an exhibition organized by the Church History Museum and the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts featuring art created by, for, and about Latter-day Saints between 1830 and the present, in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. The exhibition will be open through February 2025 | Brice Tucker, Deseret News

26:57

Jon Ryan Jensen: Is this just a piece of fabric?

Laura Paulsen Howe: So, it’s a tapa cloth. So, tapa cloth is a traditional Tongan art form that they use in order to create — it’s kind of one of their main art forms in Polynesia, but especially in Tonga.

27:11

Jon Ryan Jensen: And what did they paint that with? I mean, this is 80 years old, and so to be able to last this long, and you can still see the texture and see the vibrance of what they were trying to do with it.

Laura Paulsen Howe: Yeah. So, the tapa itself is bark cloth, so made out of barks of the trees, and then painting with natural materials.

27:31

Jon Ryan Jensen: For you, when you look at this, why do you feel like this is something that they would do as an expression of their faith? What was it about this that helped them build their faith in the Savior and in the truthfulness of the Church?

Laura Paulsen Howe: So, one thing I like to think of is we are a global Church, we’re a multilingual Church, and that applies visually as well. We have a multilingual visual tradition, and so you have a lot of artists — and you’ll see that in this whole room — expressing faith in the language that makes the most sense to them. And so here we have Tongan sisters expressing their love, expressing their support, expressing their community in the visual language that makes the most sense to them.

28:17

Jon Ryan Jensen: You mentioned how it ties together with what we do with, you know, again, more North American centric, more Utah centric, perhaps, with quilting. And we’ve got a quilt on the other side of the wall where we’re standing right now. Can you kind of compare the two and maybe things that tie the two of those together?

28:34

Laura Paulsen Howe: Oh, I love that. I find the themes very, very similar. In making this tapa cloth, in making the 14th Ward album quilt, you have a group of Latter-day Saints — in these cases, both Relief Societies, both women — who are thinking how they as a community can do good in helping people. So for the 14th Ward album quilt, they wanted to raise money where they could clothe the poor, help the needy, and here just trying to express support for one young man, let him know that he has a place, a home. So the purpose is to serve, and you have lots of people coming together as a Zion community to make that happen.

29:11

Jon Ryan Jensen: I was really interested when I came through as this was being set up to see that cloth is actually frequently used as a medium of art to express testimony. There’s some from Japan. There’s another from Indonesia.

What is it about cloth, and whether it’s the painting or the dyeing or the tying and stitching, about fabric that lets artists express themselves?

29:35

Laura Paulsen Howe: That’s a beautiful question. I think when we sit here in Utah, we often think of oil paintings when we think of art and don’t realize that’s just one language in a global Church. Outside of a Western tradition, you see cloth is kind of a go-to medium in a lot of places. And so you have batik you’re referencing in Indonesia and in Western Africa, and that’s just because that’s their oil paint, that’s their go-to medium. I do like referencing these two quilts. There’s something just comforting in cloth, in that idea of wrapping something around you.

Joni Susanto’s “The First Vision/Joseph Smith’s First Prayer” is displayed during an exhibition organized by the Church History Museum and the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts featuring art created by, for, and about Latter-day Saints between 1830 and the present in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. The exhibition will be open through February 2025. | Brice Tucker, Deseret News

Jon Ryan Jensen: Protection, warmth.

Laura Paulsen Howe: All of those ideas that I think are just beautiful ways to carry a message too.

30:22

Jon Ryan Jensen: One of the things that I look at, you mentioned how we frequently see oil paintings, you know, or acrylic or watercolor, those are easily replicated. And so you can go to Deseret Book or somewhere else and purchase those, but to see stitches, it’s so different, because you can’t just go and mass produce that kind of a thing.

30:43

Laura Paulsen Howe: Yes. I always think, you know, we do the best we can and be economical with our resources, and so reproduction is great. And to some extent, you can reproduce a quilt, and you can reproduce a tapa cloth. Especially if it’s a two-dimensional object, you can do a decent job. But there is always power in seeing art in person. And I’d argue here this is acrylic, and this is actually an aboriginal piece from an aboriginal Latter-day Saint, and we can reproduce a giclee from this for you, but seeing the texture of the dots that come off, seeing those stitches on a quilt, there is something about seeing art in person. So we hope people will come and see and feel that power and that space to think about their faith.

31:28

Jon Ryan Jensen: When you get to see that kind of art, any of this kind of art, can you feel the uniqueness of an individual’s testimony?

Laura Paulsen Howe: One hundred percent. Yes. I mean, this is, I guess, that’s the same thing; when you sit in fast and testimony meeting and you hear someone, and there’s an immediacy to what they are saying, and you know them, and you know a little bit of who they are and their faith in Jesus Christ, I feel that in an exhibition like this.

31:58

Jon Ryan Jensen: Yeah, something to be said for proximity.

Laura Paulsen Howe: Yes. And this feels like an international fast and testimony meeting. So you’re going to expect a variety of styles, a variety of media, because it is an international fast and testimony meeting. And so here, Colleen Wallace Nungari, I feel her faith in the Savior in this painting. For the Vavaʻu Relief Society, I feel their love that they’re sending forth with young Rudy Wolfgramm, and that lasts because of the piece they created.

32:28

Jon Ryan Jensen: So my last question for you is: What do you know now? What part of your testimony has grown by putting together this exhibit?

Laura Paulsen Howe: Putting together an exhibit like this, reading stories of Church history, they serve as landmarks to me of just people worldwide doing their best to become like Christ. And I see examples throughout the world and throughout time which give me a place, an identity and a confidence that I can continue doing my best to make covenants and grow closer to the Savior. That’s what we do in the Church History Department, is we collect stones. And so when I have here the faith from 1936 of these women, as people walk by, they’re like, “Oh, what’s this about? What mean these stones?” then we can have the Vavaʻu Relief Society testify to love, to community, to a place that they’re creating so that people can become like Christ. And that’s what putting together an exhibition is, is it’s a collection of stones. So we hope people will come and see and ask, “What does this mean?” Because the answer, I hope, will uplift them and help them become closer to Christ.

Walter Rane’s “He Anointed the Eyes of the Blindman” is displayed during an exhibition organized by the Church History Museum and the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts featuring art created by, for, and about Latter-day Saints between 1830 and the present in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. The exhibition will be open through February 2025. | Brice Tucker, Deseret News

33:48

Jon Ryan Jensen: Thank you for listening to the Church News podcast. I’m your host, Church News editor Jon Ryan Jensen. I hope you learned something today about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had your faith in the Savior increase by looking through the Church News window as a living record of the Restoration. Please subscribe, rate and review this podcast so it can be accessible to more people. And if you enjoyed the messages we shared today, please share the podcast with others. Thanks to our guests; to my producer, KellieAnn Halvorsen; and to others who make this podcast possible. Join us every week for a new episode. Find us on your favorite podcasting channels or with other news and updates about the Church on TheChurchNews.com or on the Church News app.

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