C. C. A. Christensen: Mormon Iconographer (feat. Jennifer Champoux)

Religious imagery—from Greco-Roman sculptures to The Chosen—has influenced the spiritual self-conception of generations of religious practitioners. But what innovations and contributions have Mormon artists made in this field, and how has it cultivated a distinct religious identity?

Art historian Jennifer Champoux asserts that it was Danish-American artist C. C. A. Christensen who exerted the most influence over the visual trajectory of Mormonism. On this episode of Scholars & Saints, Champoux discusses her new book, C. C. A. Christensen: A Mormon Visionary (University of Illinois Press, 2026) with host Nicholas Shrum. Together, they explore Christensen's artistic style, his scriptural depictions in the 1890 Book of Mormon series, and his representation of Mormon experience and trauma in his Mormon panorama. More than just art history, Champoux dives deeply into how communal memory of trauma and shared religious identity are formed and communicated to Mormons by artistic visionaries like Christensen.

Jennifer Champoux is the director of the Book of Mormon Art Catalog and scholar of Latter-day Saint art. In addition to her recent publication on Christensen, she is also the author of Approaching the Tree: Interpreting 1 Nehi 8 (Maxwell Institute, 2023) and co-author of Picturing Christ: Understanding Depictions of Jesus in History and Art (Deseret Books, 2026).

Transcript

00;00;02;02 - 00;00;32;03

Nicholas Shrum

You're listening to Scholars and Saints. The UVA mormon studies podcast. I'm your host, Nicholas Shrum, a PhD candidate in American religions at the University of Virginia. On this podcast, we dive into the academic study of Mormonism. We engage recent and classic scholarship, interview prominent and up and coming thinkers in the field, and reflect on Mormonism relevance to the broader study of religion, scholars, and saints is brought to you by support from the Richard Lyman Bushman Endowed Professorship of Mormon Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia.

00;00;32;09 - 00;01;00;07

Nicholas Shrum

The podcast goal is to discuss some of the most pressing issues in cutting edge methods in Mormon studies, and put them in conversation with scholarship from the discipline of religious studies. While the podcast content explores Mormonism, the views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any organizations they represent or study, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints and the University of Virginia.

00;01;04;22 - 00;01;31;17

Nicholas Shrum

Today on the podcast. We look into a visual tradition that has shaped the cultural imagination of millions of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. The early pioneer artists who crafted this imagery are often overlooked or dismissed, however, from the sweeping narratives of the Mormon migration across the West to the foundational stories of the Book of Mormon, early Mormon visual representations functioned as a powerful tool to instruct the saints, codify their beliefs, and preserve the communal memory of a persecuted people.

00;01;31;19 - 00;02;10;11

Nicholas Shrum

The development of this religious visual culture is a subject of exciting new scholarly analysis by art historian Jennifer Shampoo in her recent book Christensen a mormon visionary, published with the University of Illinois Press. Drawing on detailed art, historical analysis of style, symbolism, and composition, Shampoos Book explores the formal elements and European influences present in Christensen's work. Shampoo argues that Christensen transformed the visual trajectory of Mormonism through massive projects like the Mormon Panorama and his 1890 Book of Mormon series, acting as a visionary who helped construct a distinct religious identity, establish scriptural iconography, and process the collective trauma of persecution.

00;02;10;12 - 00;02;30;23

Nicholas Shrum

It's a deeply insightful conversation about art and theology, memory and community building, and the profound ways that visual images subconsciously influence our reading of Scripture. I hope you'll enjoy with Jennifer Shampoo.

00;02;30;25 - 00;02;57;14

Nicholas Shrum

Welcome to another episode of Scholars and Saints. The University of Virginia mormon Studies Program podcast. I'm Nicholas Shrum, and today I'm very honored to have Jennifer Shampoo on the podcast to talk about her recent publication, K Christensen, a mormon visionary with the University of Illinois Press, published in 2026. Jennifer is an art historian and currently the director of the Book of Mormon catalog.

00;02;57;15 - 00;03;22;20

Nicholas Shrum

She's also recently the coauthor of Picturing Christ Understanding Depictions of Jesus in History and Art, which was published with Deseret Book also this year. It's been a busy year of publications. She's also published widely in other Mormon study spaces such as the Maxwell Institute, Wayfair Magazine, BYU Studies Quarterly, and The Religious Educator, which is a Bayou publication. So welcome to the podcast, Jennifer.

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Jennifer Champoux

Well, thank you so much for having me. And thanks for that introduction.

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Nicholas Shrum

Absolutely. I just wanted to to get started. It would be great if you could do a little bit of a bio of who you are and how you've gotten into this space and researching the kinds of things you've done, your education, and that kind of thing.

00;03;41;06 - 00;04;05;06

Jennifer Champoux

Okay. Well, it's really fun for me to talk with you because I grew up in Virginia. So to be on the UVA Scholars and Zanes podcast is really a treat for me. I live in Colorado now, but still feel like for is home in a way. And then I went to BYU for my undergraduate degree. I thought I was going into political science.

00;04;05;06 - 00;04;32;11

Jennifer Champoux

I actually majored in international politics at BYU, but also did a study abroad for art history, and then ended up minoring in art history and wrote my honors thesis there on a couple of little 15th century Flemish panels of art. And then that was at the point where I just decided, this is really what I love to do.

00;04;32;11 - 00;05;00;08

Jennifer Champoux

And I just found it very exciting. So I decided to do a master's in art history, did that at Boston University, and then worked as adjunct faculty in art history for a number of universities for about a dozen years, some in person and some online. And then in the past ten years, have just started thinking more about latter day Saint visual culture.

00;05;00;08 - 00;05;31;09

Jennifer Champoux

And I'm really interested in thinking about why our religious images look the way they do, and tracing the development of the tropes and motifs that we see, or these kind of standard approaches to depicting Scripture that we tend to see. And then also considering the outliers, why do some people choose to depict things differently, and why do most people not depict it that way?

00;05;31;12 - 00;06;02;27

Jennifer Champoux

And I think kind of the theme that runs through a lot of my work is how visual images influence our reading of Scripture, and it's this dynamic interaction where, you know, we grow up seeing certain images. And I think that even subconsciously can affect the way we think about Scripture or figures from characters, from the stories. But then also, how do we take our beliefs and our Scripture and visualize them?

00;06;02;27 - 00;06;20;14

Jennifer Champoux

And there's this dynamic interplay there. So I think art can really do theological work in a way that we don't always give it credit for. So that's been kind of a driving motivation for my work, is thinking about those questions.

00;06;20;17 - 00;06;44;11

Nicholas Shrum

Excellent. And I really appreciate you, you know, telling the audience about your background in art history, both at BYU and then at Boston, because I, you know, listeners that go pick up this book about Kay Christiansen will readily see the kind of contextualization, the way that you're able to bring the broader field of art history to bear on these latter day Saint Mormon studies topics is very, very helpful.

00;06;44;11 - 00;07;02;18

Nicholas Shrum

And I just also wanted to to ask and also introduce listeners. We mentioned in the intro, but this book, Picturing Christ, which was published with Deseret Book that you coauthored with Daniel Mark Ellison and Matthew Gray, who I believe are all at BYU.

00;07;02;19 - 00;07;04;28

Jennifer Champoux

They are, yeah, in ancient scripture.

00;07;05;00 - 00;07;24;17

Nicholas Shrum

In ancient scripture. So they they so you coauthored this and you have a chapter that's called Portrayals of Jesus in Latter day Saint Art, which is interesting given what you've what you just discussed in comparison with the other chapters that are envisioning the historical Jesus, imagining Jesus in Christian art, and, you know, the value of diverse representations of Jesus.

00;07;24;18 - 00;07;36;23

Nicholas Shrum

I'm just wondering if you could briefly kind of tell us and the listeners about your chapter, about the portrayals of Jesus in latter day Saint art, kind of what was what was your main argument? What was your contribution there?

00;07;36;25 - 00;08;15;26

Jennifer Champoux

Yeah. Thank you. That was a really fun project. I had amazing coauthors on that project and learned a lot from from them and reading their chapters, too. But it was fascinating for me to try to methodically trace the development of images of Jesus and Latter day Saint art. And there is there are kind of these shifts over time where the in the very earliest 19th century images, they're mainly just copies of famous European images of Jesus, but sometimes being done by a latter day Saint artist in Utah, but copying those.

00;08;15;27 - 00;09;11;18

Jennifer Champoux

So we see a lot of those familiar kinds of European symbols and facial types of that kind of Western Jesus. And then in the early 20th century, there really is not a lot of art being produced of Jesus by Latter day Saints. There are a few people like Minerva Teichert, Arnold Freiberg, and then we we get actually this moment where latter day Saint artists are being told by church authorities that they should not depict Jesus, that that it's somehow not reverent or we're not exactly sure why this directive was given, but it's David McKay who tells Arnold Friberg not to paint Jesus in his images.

00;09;11;20 - 00;09;47;23

Jennifer Champoux

And yet the church wanted images of Jesus, so they were going to non, non latter day Saint artists to to get the art that became so popular in the 60s and 70s in latter day Saint art. And then it was really not until the early 80s that when the church commissioned some work from Del Parson and the famous Christ and the Red robe that he did, and then, you know, then it was became acceptable for latter day Saints to portray Jesus.

00;09;47;23 - 00;10;20;09

Jennifer Champoux

And then we just see in the 80s and 90s, this explosion of work done by latter day Saint artists on imagining Jesus in Scripture and even a historically or the resurrected Christ. And and then, you know, today we're seeing more and more tempts at diversifying the image of Jesus or thinking about portraying him in in new ways, sometimes with cultural markers.

00;10;20;11 - 00;11;03;08

Jennifer Champoux

So we have like a Cambodian Jesus or, a Jesus that looks more like his, like a historical, you know, first century Jewish man would have looked in that area. So I think they're starting to be a shift away from that traditional European looking Jesus. Right. To think about, okay, what what would Jesus actually have looked like? But also, how can we create art that shows a resurrected living Savior that that speaks to people around the world in our global church?

00;11;03;14 - 00;11;12;27

Jennifer Champoux

And and so I'm seeing more acceptance from church leaders and also just from artists and the church trying to to think about it in new ways.

00;11;12;29 - 00;11;40;13

Nicholas Shrum

Now, thank you for that. Very, I mean, brief but comprehensive kind of history of how Jesus has been represented and in latter day Saint culture and art over the last two centuries. And I'd love to return to some of your thoughts on kind of the the place of representations of Christ or religious subject matter in art as it relates to kind of the study of religion generally towards the end of our conversation today.

00;11;40;13 - 00;12;06;18

Nicholas Shrum

But you did touch on at least, or it was a good introduction to who is the subject of your your biography with the University of Illinois Press, Christiansen, who also did representations of important scriptural subjects to help shape and form latter day Saint ideas of what these stories and figures look like. I'm curious what led you to your study of Ka Christiansen?

00;12;06;20 - 00;12;42;21

Jennifer Champoux

Yeah, you know, I, I this was back in 2018. I was just I had just finished I had just published my first article in BYU studies on the portrayals of women in latter day Saint biblical art. And I was kind of thinking, you know, what, what I wanted to tackle next. And the amazing thing about LDS art history is that there has been so little done on it, and the field just feels like it's wide open for exploration and analysis.

00;12;42;23 - 00;13;12;21

Jennifer Champoux

And and that feels very exciting. And I happen to have this little catalog of Ka. Christensen's work. This was published by the Church History Museum in 1984. Richard Ullman and Richard Jensen worked on this as part of the the exhibition that actually opens that museum when it opens that year. And, and I had a copy of this that I had inherited actually from my grandparents.

00;13;12;21 - 00;13;43;18

Jennifer Champoux

And as I looked through these images they had of cars work. I just was really fascinated with the way this early latter day Saint was portraying their beliefs and also their history. And I wanted to learn more about him and why his art looked the way it did. So I started doing some research, and I was shocked to find that there really was very little published on him.

00;13;43;20 - 00;14;07;19

Jennifer Champoux

There have been a few exhibitions he's sometimes used in in arguments as part of a larger project, but there's been very little attention focused on him individually, and he's just an absolutely fascinating character. And the more I started working on him, the more I found that there was to dive into.

00;14;07;22 - 00;14;43;00

Nicholas Shrum

Oh, he's a fascinating character, and I and imagine that many latter day Saints and even, frankly, maybe even some non latter day Saints might recognize some of the images that he produced. I'm thinking about, especially some from the The Book of Mormon series that he did. There are some that I don't I couldn't pinpoint exactly where people may have seen them, but I just feel like there are some instances of, you know, Jesus before the Nephites or some of those that I feel like have kind of gone beyond the Mormon corridor and Mormon thought.

00;14;43;05 - 00;15;10;04

Nicholas Shrum

But thank you for talking about, you know, kind of what work had been done. I'm curious if you could tell us about what kind of sources you did use, because, you know, early on in the book that some of the previous scholars largely uses paintings as a springboard to discuss Mormon history. Right. So. And this Mormon panorama painting about persecution, this is an opportunity to talk about the history of Mormon persecution in Missouri or Illinois.

00;15;10;06 - 00;15;29;27

Nicholas Shrum

But you want to provide a detailed art historical analysis of style and symbolism and composition. So I'm wondering if you can elaborate on kind of the approach that you bring to this book. In this I should also mention and please feel free to, to talk about this as well at any point, but this is part of a series with the universe of Illinois Press called the Mormon Thought Series.

00;15;30;03 - 00;15;31;15

Jennifer Champoux

Introductions to Mormon thought.

00;15;31;16 - 00;15;46;05

Nicholas Shrum

Introduction to Mormon Thought. So it's usually around a particular figure, but it's a way of getting that, you know, movement's ideas within Mormonism. So I'm just curious if you could talk about kind of that methodology and how you wanted to approach a biography of.

00;15;46;06 - 00;16;30;12

Jennifer Champoux

Yeah, sure. Yeah. And this series from UIP is so great because it allows for a room for these different kinds of voices that we might not think of as, right, the famous Mormon figures. But but people who have contributed in significant ways to the culture and thought and belief of the latter day Saints. And each of the books in the series follows a pattern where it starts with a chapter that's a kind of short biography, and then there are three chapters that are more thematic essays, each one kind of looking at a different theme in this person's work.

00;16;30;12 - 00;16;58;19

Jennifer Champoux

And then it always ends with the final chapter. That's a bibliographic essay. So in mine I have an annotated list of cars, art and his writing, and then some analysis of their use and critical reception. So these are great, great books, I guess I would say a great entry point for someone looking to to start to learn more about these figures.

00;16;58;22 - 00;17;26;13

Jennifer Champoux

In terms of my approach, my methodology here as an art historian, for me, I feel like it's always first important to just sit with the art and just I mean, that's always the first thing I'm going to do is just spend a lot of time just looking, looking at the art, comparing the pieces to each other, thinking about ways they might echo other pieces, thinking about the formal elements.

00;17;26;15 - 00;17;41;27

Jennifer Champoux

Right. So actually like reading the language of art, thinking about how Ka is using things like color or shapes to create meaning in his art.

00;17;42;00 - 00;18;13;09

Jennifer Champoux

Just as an example, in his Mormon Panoramas, I've written about how over the course of those 23 images, we see the the saints being pushed into the wilderness by, you know, by religious persecution. And they the movement into the forest is always from right to left. So we always have the forest on the left and the settled kind of cultivated land on the right until you get to the very last scene.

00;18;13;09 - 00;18;37;01

Jennifer Champoux

And then as they enter the Salt Lake Valley, they come out of the forest on the left, and they move into the right, into this sort of open valley. And so there's and that's just an example of how he's using these kind of visual symbols to create a meaning of in his art. I'm also thinking about historical context.

00;18;37;01 - 00;19;28;10

Jennifer Champoux

So you know, what's happening in 19th century America, in Utah in particular, but also in the broader society. And with Ka, you also have to think about the contemporary European context, because he does grow up in Denmark. It's trains there as an artist and then goes back several times as a missionary. And then styles, I thought a lot about how I saw Kay drawing on art history styles like French Orientalism, the Hudson River school, sort of Protestant religious narrative art, the the realism that was so popular in Dutch art at the time.

00;19;28;12 - 00;19;44;01

Jennifer Champoux

This trend of panoramas that was sweeping America in the mid 19th century that he draws on, and then how he's combining all of these things in really unique ways with his latter day Saint beliefs.

00;19;44;04 - 00;20;15;17

Nicholas Shrum

Thank you for that. It is, I think, such a cool series that because it's it's not just it's a little bit reductive to say that it's just a biography, not that the biographies are reductive or not worth, you know, being academic projects in and of themselves. We recently had Bryan Cannon on the podcast to talk about David McKay and his recent biography, but one of the great things about biography is that you are able to delve into these different parts of these people's lives that tell a much bigger story.

00;20;15;18 - 00;20;40;16

Nicholas Shrum

And one of the big stories that you tell in this book comes from Christiansen, but it's also a product of Christensen's time and his life and his missions, his his migration to to the United States and then to Utah. You talk about his vision, right? And this is evoked in the title of a mormon visionary. I wonder if you can comment on his figure and his legacy.

00;20;40;19 - 00;21;07;09

Nicholas Shrum

One of the things that you talk about a lot is how he transformed the visual trajectory of Mormonism. So I'm wondering maybe, for instance, you could talk about how there's a series that he does, a Book of Mormon paintings in 1890, which is a very significant year in Mormon history. How did that, for instance, how did that series shape the way that generations of latter day Saints visualized the Book of Mormon as this new World scripture?

00;21;07;12 - 00;21;47;04

Jennifer Champoux

Yeah, that's great an idea I love. I love this title of calling him a mormon visionary, because I think it gets at two things one, the way he's visualizing their scripture and history artistically, but also how he does have this vision for the Zion community that he believes he's a big part of building. And and that's just a theme throughout his whole life, from the time he joins the church in the 1850s up until his death in 1912, we see him having this vision for what he thinks the Zion community in Utah can be.

00;21;47;07 - 00;22;18;04

Jennifer Champoux

The 1890s series is so interesting. He made these images from the life of Nephi in response to a call for art from the Desert Sunday School Union, and they actually had a contest where you could submit pieces they wanted. 12 images. Christensen ends up being selected for ten of ten of them, and the two others are by George Ottinger, and they were widely distributed.

00;22;18;04 - 00;22;52;13

Jennifer Champoux

They were sent. They were actually the paintings were made into lithographs, and then those lithographs were distributed to all Sunday schools at the time in America and even abroad. I found records of them even being shown in Samoa in the 1890s in Sunday schools there. So so these were widely viewed. They were one of the few images of the Book of Mormon that existed at that time.

00;22;52;18 - 00;23;29;12

Jennifer Champoux

There were a couple other artists like Ottinger, Reuben Kirkham, who made a few, a few images, but I would say these were the ones that that were most broadly disseminated. And what's interesting about them is they, I think, set this precedent for a preference for religious art that is realistic, that's detailed, that is historically accurate, or at least presents itself as historically accurate.

00;23;29;14 - 00;24;02;21

Jennifer Champoux

Right. And it's very narrative. Right. So it's showing a story. It's illustrating a moment, a scripture passage. It's less psychological. Right. There's usually a whole group of figures doing something, you know, talked about in the scriptures, and it's less focused on an individual's psychology. There's not a lot of like abstraction or heavy symbolism. It's meant to be easily read and understood.

00;24;02;21 - 00;24;17;11

Jennifer Champoux

And then it his style also draws on this kind of naturalized neoclassicism that was popular in Danish art at the time.

00;24;17;13 - 00;24;46;04

Jennifer Champoux

I don't know, he he he the images, the moments that he picks were mostly decided by the desert at Sunday School Union. They told him which images they wanted. The original paintings are owned by the Church History Museum. Sometimes they're displayed at the Grand and Print Shop, one of the church history sites. So you may have seen them there.

00;24;46;06 - 00;25;21;29

Jennifer Champoux

And I think the church had intended to do more of these kinds of images. There was another 1 in 1897, but that seems to be the only other one they were. They were done as both flip charts, like kind of larger. Yeah, maybe like ten by 14 or 11 by 14 kind of size. And then also as small cards, kind of like a baseball card size card that would have the image on the front.

00;25;21;29 - 00;26;01;00

Jennifer Champoux

And then, kind of a short paragraph and Q&A on the back. And they were also printed in Juvenile Instructor, along with a little explanatory essay. I think that was George Reynolds that wrote those essays. So, yeah, I think, you know, for, for decades, these were the images of the Book of Mormon that were available. And it really wasn't until we get to 1950s and 60s that we start to have that we start to have more that are that are viewed widely.

00;26;01;00 - 00;26;21;06

Nicholas Shrum

And those would be maybe Arnold Freebirds that that Mormons might be more familiar with Arnold Freebirds Book of Mormon paintings that I was actually going to ask, were any of Christensen's paintings ever included alongside scriptural text that you know, of? Just curious.

00;26;21;09 - 00;26;36;06

Jennifer Champoux

I mean, on on these flip charts they did underneath the image, they would have the reference to the scripture and the specific verses. They didn't print the text of the Scripture itself. No.

00;26;36;07 - 00;26;43;09

Nicholas Shrum

Okay. Well, it's just I think this is such an he's obviously set the precedent for what somebody like Freiberg would do.

00;26;43;10 - 00;26;43;26

Jennifer Champoux

Labor.

00;26;43;29 - 00;27;08;15

Nicholas Shrum

Freiberg Freeburg would do later in, in the 1950s that, you know, I think to this day, proselyting copies of the Book of Mormon include images from Freiberg. And and I just want listeners to kind of take a moment to think about the work that this does, because Christiansen sets the stage for this. Right. For the first time, you have a text that is telling a story, right?

00;27;08;16 - 00;27;38;07

Nicholas Shrum

That people are able to place their identity, their their religious beliefs, their their sense of belonging onto, into a story, right into a narrative that has significant meaning to them. And for the first time, they're able to visualize it, they're able to see it, which is so significant that to this day, I think most people, when they think of like King Noah from the Book of Mosiah, they think of this large man surrounded by jaguars, you know, and that comes from Freiberg.

00;27;38;07 - 00;28;05;28

Nicholas Shrum

But that, that, that intimacy between image, between the visual and this very spiritual identity that comes from from a scriptural text. Christiansen starts that very, very early. The other thing I just really quickly wanted to mention, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as well, if you'd like to share that. He draws from these movements in the 19th century, especially this new classicist historical painting style, right?

00;28;06;00 - 00;28;28;18

Nicholas Shrum

That in the American context we might think of somebody like Trumbull or some others, but especially these European greats, that that whether it's Greek mythology, if it's Christian history or from the Bible or from military warfare, like all these different kinds of things that are telling a story and they're instructive. They're not just trying to tell history, they're also trying to instruct morally.

00;28;28;19 - 00;28;48;26

Nicholas Shrum

Right. So I'm curious on if you could tell us a little bit more about how Christiansen employed this history painting into both. I mean, we'll get to the Mormon Panorama, which is another really important series, but what the Book of Mormon paintings, when it comes to how did I put it, shaping kind of this trajectory of Mormon visual culture.

00;28;49;01 - 00;28;55;00

Nicholas Shrum

How did this history painting and moralizing kind of play a part of of his Book of Mormon series?

00;28;55;01 - 00;29;31;03

Jennifer Champoux

Yeah, that's a really great insight. And I think you're exactly right that there was this, I mean, in European art in the 19th century, at least in the first half of the 19th century, this academic history painting was the epitome of fine art. This this was the highest level, the highest expression of art. And that meant portraying scenes from the Bible or mythology or history, but done in a really grand manner, with often, often pretty theatrical

00;29;31;05 - 00;30;05;05

Jennifer Champoux

Telling a story, but having this moralizing meaning, like you said, where it's it's easy for the viewer to read what's happening and what the message is. Right? The, the good guys and the bad guys. It's obvious who's who and it's clear what's happening. But yeah, then this, this beautiful kind of neoclassical anatomy and drapery. So it's, it's based on, on scripture or history, but but but made sort of beautiful in this way.

00;30;05;07 - 00;30;34;07

Jennifer Champoux

I, I think is the word I want to use their kind of idealized, and I think we do see that that trend continue after, you know, Christiansen certainly employs that approach in a lot of his religious art and in this 1890s series. And then I think we continue to see a preference for that kind of approach in latter day Saint scriptural art.

00;30;34;09 - 00;30;56;07

Jennifer Champoux

You know, and to some extent that may be also attributed to, you know, latter day Saints at the end of the 19th century as they're trying to assimilate and show that they're good American citizens and the bringers of culture to the West that they want to show, hey, we know, we know how to make good art.

00;30;56;09 - 00;31;15;09

Jennifer Champoux

We know what fine art looks like in Europe, and we can do it just as well. And we're bringing that kind of civilization to the West. And so there's partly that to trying to to emulate what were the acceptable highest styles of the time.

00;31;15;11 - 00;31;33;11

Nicholas Shrum

No. Excellent. Thank you. I realized that maybe listeners at this stage, if they're not familiar with Christiansen, they might be missing a little bit of his biography. So maybe it would help if we just took a moment to kind of if you could, if you could situate them a little bit, you know, when is he born? You mentioned he joins the church in the 1850s.

00;31;33;17 - 00;31;51;04

Nicholas Shrum

But, you know, when does he come to the United States? And this is kind of a silly question, but what kind of Mormon was he like? What did what what did it mean for him to be a mormon during the time periods that he lived? Because I think that will inform kind of how we discuss something like the Mormon panorama from the 1870s.

00;31;51;10 - 00;32;28;23

Jennifer Champoux

Yeah. That's great. He lives at such an interesting moment in both Denmark and and America. He's born in 1831. He he joined joins the church in the first wave of Danish converts. I think it's 1853 that he joins the church. And immediately he's all in on the church. He he gives up. He's he's in the middle of training to be a fine artist at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, which was very prestigious.

00;32;28;23 - 00;32;49;24

Jennifer Champoux

And he just sort of limps through the rest of his training there and barely graduates because he's just and he writes this in his own journal, that he just was all in on the church, and he immediately was reading the Book of Mormon and reading.

00;32;49;26 - 00;33;34;06

Jennifer Champoux

Latter day Saint periodicals that were being published in Denmark. He helps translate hymns into Danish, and then he goes on a mission. As soon as he's done, he graduate school, he he serves a mission in Norway and has some pretty tough experiences. There is this interesting moment in Scandinavia where they were starting to have more acceptance of religious pluralism, where it been traditionally Lutheran, and Denmark is the first to adopt rules about allowing other non Lutheran denominations.

00;33;34;06 - 00;34;07;06

Jennifer Champoux

And that's how the missionaries end up in Denmark first. But but Norway is a little slower there. And so when he goes to Norway he's not. Mormons are not considered Christian Christian dissenters at that time. And so he's he's persecuted. He's attacked, he's arrested. He's put in jail. He has people follow him home at night. And, you know, so he goes through this kind of religious persecution himself.

00;34;07;09 - 00;34;35;15

Jennifer Champoux

In 1857, he immigrated to Utah with his new wife, who's from Norway, who's joined the church. They come across the plains as handcart pioneers and settle in Sanpete with a lot of other Danish and Swedish converts there in Sanpete. Then for about 20 years, he's just kind of a farmer, kind of eking out a living, starting a family.

00;34;35;15 - 00;35;12;19

Jennifer Champoux

He's doing odd jobs painting around town. In 1865, he got called on another mission. So he goes back. Back to Scandinavia. And this is I should mention that's 1865. That's right. During the Black Hawk War years. So his own family is dealing with some skirmishes with with the Ute people there in San Pete. He comes back with, with another young lady who he takes as his second wife.

00;35;12;24 - 00;35;46;23

Jennifer Champoux

Right. So he's, he practices polygamy. And then in 1875, he starts doing some artistic projects. He starts with this little he's commissioned by Dimock Huntington to make a little panel of images to use as he proselytes to Native Americans in, in the area. And then shortly after that, Christensen starts his Mormon panorama that that he takes on tours around the settlements.

00;35;46;26 - 00;36;17;01

Jennifer Champoux

He paints murals in the Manti Temple. In 1887, he goes on another mission. He's called back and he goes to Denmark this time. And you know, this isn't in the record, but he's probably this he's probably partly being called because, Mormons were being arrested for unlawful cohabitation. And going on a mission was one way to avoid getting arrested.

00;36;17;04 - 00;36;41;18

Jennifer Champoux

He knows it's clear from his letters home before he arrives home that he knows he will be arrested when he arrives, and that that does come to pass. He's arrested in 1889, just I think a couple of days after he gets home ends up, you know, going to trial and his trial doesn't happen or he has to appeal it.

00;36;41;18 - 00;37;16;18

Jennifer Champoux

And by that point, it's 1891 and the manifesto of 1890 has already happened. So he never ends up serving jail time in America for that. But but yeah, he has he sort of experiences all the things. Right. Like being an immigrant, being a handcart pioneer, being a missionary, being persecuted for his religious beliefs, polygamy. Right. Like he's he and and his interactions with the Native Americans in the West.

00;37;16;20 - 00;37;24;00

Jennifer Champoux

So he sort of he sort of has this really interesting view of a lot of things happening at that time.

00;37;24;03 - 00;37;56;22

Nicholas Shrum

Thank you for for detailing that, that biography. It's important because as you mentioned so, so often, his his, these milestones in his life coincide near perfectly with, you know, really important moments in Mormon history. So again, he's born in 1831. So a year after the church is founded in upstate New York in 1830. And he emigrated to the United States in 1857, which is the high point of the Mormon War, where federal troops are sent to Utah.

00;37;56;22 - 00;38;34;07

Nicholas Shrum

So, you know, the combined with his mission persecution. And he comes to the United States at this time where there's this heightened, animosity towards Mormons and then, you know, going on missions during this time when there's increased federal scrutiny against people coming to the United States is Mormons because of polygamy and those various things. So it just makes a lot of sense that the subject material that he would paint about the way that he that he paints it and then the way that he this is the other important thing that goes along with one of the main arguments that you make about kind of shaping this Mormon imaginary or visual imaginary, right, is that

00;38;34;07 - 00;39;06;13

Nicholas Shrum

he then takes the art and brings it to the people. This is kind of a very maybe it's a foreign concept to us now. It's now we have memes, I guess, that kind of instruct us about important moments in Mormonism that are making fun of general conference, you know, things or whatever. But he brings these images to to people, not just to help them appreciate art, but almost to kind of ingrain in them a certain religious sentiment or approach to life.

00;39;06;16 - 00;39;15;12

Nicholas Shrum

I'm wondering if you can talk about that with the Mormon Panorama. I think that this kind of this role of history, especially with this up and coming second generation of Mormons, it's really fascinating.

00;39;15;18 - 00;39;49;23

Jennifer Champoux

Oh, thanks. Yeah, I know these are so interesting. And these might be some of the images that are more familiar to people. Among his artworks, the Mormon panorama was it ended up being a series of 23 scenes. We have 22 of them existing still. The first one is lost, but he these were done on massive linen scrolls. I think I want to say ten feet wide by six feet tall.

00;39;49;23 - 00;40;29;25

Jennifer Champoux

And they were stitched together and so he could roll them up, put them in a cart and carry them around to different places and set it up. And he presented it. This was mostly in the 1880s, I think 1878 is when he starts doing these presentations. He presents it as the theatrical event where he would usually use the schoolhouse of the local, you know, settlement he was in, and he would set up the panorama.

00;40;29;25 - 00;41;03;21

Jennifer Champoux

It would go across horizontally, he would put curtains around. There were lanterns on the floor, like stage up lights. And he had a prepared script that he would read along with each image. He would talk about the history. He would and there's one scene, of the the Hans Mill massacre. And he in his script, he talks about the names of the people that he's depicted there.

00;41;03;21 - 00;41;43;00

Jennifer Champoux

So he he does this research, he reads eyewitness accounts, he reads publications and like Millennial Star people who were there. So he wants to make it look as accurate and historical as possible. And. And then they also sing hymns in between the scenes. He'll lead the, the group in singing hymns. So it's very emotional and theatrical and creating this sort of communal experience that for some of the people viewing it, they would have lived through it.

00;41;43;00 - 00;42;16;19

Jennifer Champoux

But for many of them, this is thinking about events that happened, you know, 40, even 50 years earlier. And, and so a lot of them are the sort of the new generation that was born in Utah that didn't go through these early moments of persecution. Christiansen actually wrote about this, and he published this quote that said, history will preserve much, but art alone can make the narrative of the suffering of the saints comprehensible for posterity.

00;42;16;21 - 00;42;53;08

Jennifer Champoux

And so it's through this, this sort of presentation and shared communal experience that they're learning about their history in a very emotional way. You know, I think Christiansen was probably influenced by his own experience of religious persecution. And throughout his life he often wrote in his journals his thoughts on political and religious liberty. And, and I think some of that comes, comes across in this Mormon panorama.

00;42;53;10 - 00;42;59;29

Jennifer Champoux

One of my chapters sort of focuses on this theme of.

00;43;00;04 - 00;43;44;29

Jennifer Champoux

The duality of the forest or the wilderness that's represented in many of these scenes, this duality of it being a place of like persecution and being forced out of society, but then also a place of finding divine protection and providence and ultimately the promised land on the other side. So definitely thinking about, you know, the Exodus story and, and seeing the saints as, you know, reliving this sort of modern day Exodus experience and thinking about ideas about restoration and building Zion and a promised Land.

00;43;45;01 - 00;44;12;13

Jennifer Champoux

But yeah, for sure, for sure, he's not only just tapping into ideas that already existed about persecution and sort of otherness that the Saints had, but he's really solidifying that and then presenting it to communities all over Utah, Wyoming, Idaho as sort of the definitive retelling of their history.

00;44;12;13 - 00;44;53;25

Nicholas Shrum

It's so fascinating to me because the way that the way that religious traditions and and groups tell their history matters a great deal. Right? And today, contemporarily, if people were to say, hey, what are the 23 most important moments in Mormon history and that you were to paint? I think many would say, well, the first vision, first of all, then maybe Moroni appearing to Joseph Smith with the plates and then maybe the translation of the Book of Mormon, certainly the founding of the church, maybe something that has to do with the Kirtland Temple, temple ordinances, the establishment of the Relief Society.

00;44;53;26 - 00;45;18;19

Nicholas Shrum

Okay. And that's all just within the first like ten years or 15 years or so. Right. What's so fascinating is that the series that he does is 23. I think 22 exists or survive, right? Maybe 3 or 4 have anything to do with things that aren't related to persecution, right. There's I mean, it's the hill camera. So Moroni appearing, the angel Moroni appearing to Joseph Smith.

00;45;18;22 - 00;45;50;13

Nicholas Shrum

There is an image of the temple, quickly followed by an image of the Nauvoo Temple burning. Right. There's a missionary preaching to the Indians, and then entering the Salt Lake Valley. And maybe that's that's it. The rest of them, I mean, like more than three quarters of them are about persecution. And so, I guess kind of maybe my bold question for you is this is this was Christensen kind of pushing a mormon persecution complex in the, you know, mid to late 19th century?

00;45;50;16 - 00;46;33;19

Jennifer Champoux

Yeah, I think so. And, and it's so important to remember, right, the context of when he's doing this in the 1880s when, you know, Utah has been like they've been applying for statehood and they're being rejected. And there's, you know, crackdowns on unlawful cohabitation. And Mormons are being arrested. So there's still this like, there's sort of this there was a moment where the saints were sort of isolated in some in some way, not completely, but but now by the 1880s, we've got the transcontinental railroad.

00;46;33;21 - 00;46;40;21

Jennifer Champoux

We have this sort of renewed moment of.

00;46;40;24 - 00;47;16;22

Jennifer Champoux

Tension between the saints and and the American government and American people and, and so that must certainly be on Christensen's mind as he's painting these. And I think you see that come across in how he's imagining these earlier moments that that he didn't witness. Right. These all happened before he even arrived in America. But he's using that earlier story to to probably say something about the moment they were facing in the 1880s.

00;47;16;24 - 00;47;47;01

Nicholas Shrum

Well, it's a it's a fascinating series. And your analysis of it, where you bring in all these tools, these methods, you know, methods, thinking about different styles and symbolism is is really important. I wonder if we could just switch gears, you know, as we get towards the end of our, of our conversation. But I would love for you to kind of to tell the audience about Christensen's role in the development or the implementation of latter day Saint, Latter Day Saint, and one.

00;47;47;01 - 00;48;10;25

Nicholas Shrum

One of the best analyzes in the book comes when you're talking about one of the images from the Book of Mormon series, which is Nephi's vision of the Virgin and Child. So it's this image from a passage in the Book of Mormon where the prophet Nephi sees in vision Mary with Jesus. I wonder if you could talk about what's going on in that image.

00;48;10;27 - 00;48;22;19

Nicholas Shrum

You talk about, you know, this going against this European convention of winged angels and also kind of what does it say about embodiment and what is he? What is he doing there?

00;48;22;21 - 00;49;07;11

Jennifer Champoux

Yeah, I really enjoyed thinking about this too. It's such a fun image because it's so different than what we're used to seeing in latter day Saint art. I mean, it looks it looks kind of Catholic, right? Because you have Nephi's having his his vision of Mary and the Christ child. And so you see Nephi and the angel that's with him pointing out this vision and then sort of up in the sky, in some clouds, you see a sort of icon like portrayal of Mary holding the baby Jesus that looks very much like art we'd see in like, Italian Renaissance art.

00;49;07;13 - 00;49;38;17

Jennifer Champoux

There was actually another artist, John Held senior, that had done a similar image of this in 1888, in in a book by George Reynolds called The Story of the Book of Mormon. So CCA is definitely drawing on held composition, but with some important differences. And and like you said, he's, he's he's walking this fine line where if you have if you have a scripture that no one's ever seen before.

00;49;38;22 - 00;50;11;02

Jennifer Champoux

No one's ever seen an image of it. How do you show it in a way that makes sense? That that people, that viewers could read it like, what are the symbols that they would recognize? So he's using recognizable elements, but adapting them for latter day Saint belief. I think if you look at Karl Blocks annunciation scene from the late 1880s, the angel there, I think has some similarities to the angel here, but but with some important differences.

00;50;11;06 - 00;50;36;16

Jennifer Champoux

And of course, Karl Block was a Danish artist who Christensen, on his third mission, saw Blocks Life of Christ series when he was over there and then came home and did his Life of Nephi series. And there's. I talk about this more in the book, but I think there's some really interesting parallels there. So sorry. Going back to the Angel.

00;50;36;19 - 00;51;18;23

Jennifer Champoux

Where in in maybe like European art, we would see an angel that looks more like it has wings or it's hovering off the ground. Christensen removes the wings. There's no halo. The angels not holding lilies like these are kind of common symbols we would have seen. So he takes out all that kind of traditional symbolism. He, you know, let me just mention, in 1883, George Shannon gave a talk where he talked about how latter day Saints should not be painting angels with wings.

00;51;18;23 - 00;51;47;27

Jennifer Champoux

And so that's just a few years before this. And so that may have an influence on thinking about what to write, what a latter day Saints believe about how angels look. And so he's he's using European motifs but adopting them, he shows the angel not floating on, on a cloud, but actually really grounded with like, this heavy weight of the robes falling down around his feet.

00;51;48;00 - 00;52;22;28

Jennifer Champoux

He's he's not a spirit, but he's very clearly like an embodied personages personage. Sorry. And he's a real person in a historical moment. He's not just a dream that Nephi is having. And that's really, I think, revolutionary that that Christensen is portraying at that in that way. Then the final thing, Christensen was so interesting, and I think he was often trying to figure out trying to figure things out for himself.

00;52;22;28 - 00;52;56;19

Jennifer Champoux

And it's interesting reading some of his journals and his essays, because I think he felt comfortable doing some theology, just kind of on his own, just. And so in 1888, he publishes this essay called The Immortality of the soul. And, and basically he just tries to think through what, what a soul looks like when it leaves this world and goes back to the spirit world.

00;52;56;19 - 00;53;46;13

Jennifer Champoux

And, you know, he he looked at some scriptures, including in the New Testament, in revelation and where it says the spirits will be handed a white robe by their friends. And so he's he's like, great, I like that, that that feels right to me. And so right. He has the angel and this kind of white robe. And I just think that's fascinating that he's just that he feels comfortable enough, like thinking about Scripture and what scripture might mean, that he can sort of come up with his own thoughts about it and publish them, like here, here's some of my thoughts about, you know, sort of he even writes about that, thinking about this

00;53;46;13 - 00;54;08;29

Jennifer Champoux

passage of, of Mary that she was sort of for ordained to this role. And he takes that further and thinks, okay, well, maybe all of us kind of chose our roles or were assigned some kind of role for mortality. That's part of this essay as well. So just fascinating how like these were still questions that there weren't really answers to.

00;54;09;00 - 00;54;16;16

Jennifer Champoux

And he's just always exploring and trying to learn and figure out how it might apply to him.

00;54;16;18 - 00;54;40;22

Nicholas Shrum

Oh, thank you for talking about that particular image. It was one of the I mean, I'm quite familiar with the story and I, you know, if I hadn't seen it before, given my, my background, my my immersion in Mormon studies, I would still probably recognize the story just based upon its constituent elements. Right? But then I was like, I don't know if I would recognize this as an angel in any other context.

00;54;40;23 - 00;55;06;04

Nicholas Shrum

Right? It's the largest figure, right? It's the what you say about embodiment, I think is just so fascinating because it's the largest it's the largest figure in the painting. It looks just like just a normal person. But with this, this theology behind it that I just find is really, really fascinating. The last chapter, and we probably don't have enough time to go through it, but I just want to put in a plug.

00;55;06;04 - 00;55;34;14

Nicholas Shrum

It's a really excellent chapter that we used together, these narratives of, of assimilation topics that we've we've touched on so far, relations with indigenous peoples, especially in Utah. And then kind of as like a nice bookend to Christensen's life as having been born and raised in Denmark. The the efforts that he employs in Scandinavian nostalgia. And this was a really interesting chapter for me personally.

00;55;34;16 - 00;56;09;02

Nicholas Shrum

My on in my own Mormon ancestry. You know, I have people coming from Denmark during the second wave in the 1870s that are coming to Utah. And so it was really interesting to think about even my own ancestry, kind of how they would engage with this kind of nostalgia that Christensen's engaged in. So just to plug for that chapter, but I did want to move into our concluding questions, because I think this book, as part of this series of An Introduction to Mormon Thought, I'm really interested in how you will answer these.

00;56;09;02 - 00;56;17;09

Nicholas Shrum

So first is, why would people that aren't necessarily interested in Mormon studies read a book like this?

00;56;17;11 - 00;56;20;05

Jennifer Champoux

Well.

00;56;20;07 - 00;56;57;17

Jennifer Champoux

A few things, I think. Right. As an art historian, I think Ka is an important and understudied figure. He's not very well known. I've talked with, you know, a well known American art, you know, professors who have never heard of him. And, and those that do know of him consider him kind of a folk artist, just kind of maybe a hobbyist, someone just kind of picking up some painting on the side, but very naive style.

00;56;57;17 - 00;57;10;13

Jennifer Champoux

That's not really that, sophisticated. You know, obviously, I don't think that's true. I think his style is very sophisticated, and I think he's.

00;57;10;15 - 00;57;39;20

Jennifer Champoux

Doing things that are really interesting in the way he's combining European and American and Latter day Saint styles and symbols and beliefs. So, you know, for Ka it's not he's not just a mormon artist. He's an American artist in, I think it tells so much about the priorities and the context of latter day Saints at that time when we look at his art.

00;57;39;23 - 00;58;04;26

Nicholas Shrum

No, thank you. And I completely agree. I think that that's one of the great things about Mormon studies as a not necessarily a field, but kind of as an academic interest or enterprise is that it is such a sometimes niche, but very focused, oftentimes very nerdy way of getting at really important parts of various fields. So in your case in art history.

00;58;04;27 - 00;58;38;18

Nicholas Shrum

I mean, there's a lot to say about the development of American art in the 19th century in a religious minority community out in the West that is intersecting with all these various forces of westward migration, contact with indigenous peoples. It's just it's there's so much there that's very, very rich. And I think the way that you bring in in your analysis, you know, the relationship with landscape, landscape painting and French Orientalism and I think is it the golden age of Danish Golden Age?

00;58;38;20 - 00;59;07;13

Nicholas Shrum

Yeah. Danish art. Right. These are really important moments that he's, you know, he's he's central to in many ways. The last question that I'm actually very, very interested in your thoughts. And because in your introduction, you say that Ka Christensen's art and writings tell the story of a man with a vision of how the world could be and a willingness to dedicate his life to making it a reality.

00;59;07;13 - 00;59;32;09

Nicholas Shrum

It is the kind of it is the kind of discipleship. Discipleship, excuse me, I aspire to. And I just think that that's a really I mean, it's a very it's upfront declaration that maybe we're not accustomed to in academic writing, but I think in religious studies, it's actually a really interesting statement. You go on to say that there are parts of his life that make you uncomfortable, which is totally fair.

00;59;32;09 - 00;59;57;07

Nicholas Shrum

And that's what history writing does often. But I am interested in this question of how what this project did for you when it comes to your approach to the study of religion. And I think that art is such an a rich place to investigate these questions of how we study religion. How do you see it working in this book?

00;59;57;07 - 01;00;21;07

Nicholas Shrum

What does it mean to Christensen? And kind of, you know, how is that inflected maybe on you because you're writing from a community and then kind of to tie it to your picture in Christ chapter, you know, the way that people represent these significant figures in their religious or in their their worldviews, such as, you know, an important figure like Christ, right?

01;00;21;10 - 01;00;33;13

Nicholas Shrum

That means something for for what religion means and what it does and what it looks like. I'm just curious, your thoughts on this question of what did religion look like in this project and in the book?

01;00;33;15 - 01;01;17;11

Jennifer Champoux

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I guess that was kind of up front of me to say that, but I think that was in my acknowledgments, not in the actual. So I think I felt more free to be slightly more devotional or like some personal reflection there. And. Yeah, and I think I wanted readers to know my own. Right? I'm also descended from Scandinavian immigrant pioneers and and I guess in a way then it feels kind of personal to me to I think, I think Khas art is this really interesting.

01;01;17;14 - 01;01;39;29

Jennifer Champoux

Well, in his writing to is this interesting case study of, trying to figure out religious pluralism in 19th century America and how to make space for different cultures and different beliefs. And.

01;01;40;01 - 01;02;14;00

Jennifer Champoux

You know, Ka didn't compartmentalize his religion. I think I really enjoyed reading his journals, just getting to know him through his journals. And he just he lived his religion in all aspects of his life. It wasn't like just something he did on Sunday. It was he built his whole life around, beliefs and, and sometimes faced really real costs or sacrifices because of the choices he made to live those beliefs.

01;02;14;02 - 01;02;50;21

Jennifer Champoux

But his, his faith influenced how he saw the world, including his his thoughts about families and his thoughts about politics and history and teaching and education. And all of that shows up in his art and writing. I was interested as I did the project, I noticed this shift in his perspective over time, where in the early days of his conversion and immigration, it's just this sort of exuberance and this excitement about, you know, the world is ending.

01;02;50;22 - 01;03;17;10

Jennifer Champoux

We've just got a few years left. We've got to get to Utah and build Zion. And and then that's it. Right. And they're just all in on this. And and over time, then he gets older. His kids grow up. He has several several of his babies die when they're young. He has a son who tragically dies when he's around 21.

01;03;17;13 - 01;03;43;18

Jennifer Champoux

And you know, the world doesn't end. And and then I see this shift in Christensen's focus of thinking about, okay, this is going to be a more long term project, and how do we build a religion and, and an actual community of people that can carry on these beliefs and, and continue to build for the future?

01;03;43;18 - 01;04;20;25

Jennifer Champoux

And like you said, part of that is this Scandinavian nostalgia, that right, it's not just teaching the religion, but it's, he doesn't want his children and his grandchildren to forget where they came from. And so he he teaches Danish at the local school. He he organizes annual Scandinavian celebrations. He writes poetry. He paints these beautiful rural scenes of Scandinavia when he's an old man.

01;04;20;27 - 01;04;44;17

Jennifer Champoux

I do, and I just have to add, I hope this is okay. Just a little plug for for the women in his life. He did have these two wives. He had, by all accounts, an amazing mother who did the best she could for her family, who actually was the first one in the family to to join the church.

01;04;44;19 - 01;05;22;26

Jennifer Champoux

And, you know, no one's written their story. Maybe that's a project I'll tackle one day. I loved learning about these ladies. And, you know, there are some letters between them and Ka, but I know less about them. Right. They've left less of a record, unsurprisingly. But I know that they, you know, from the documents we have I know that they, also lived their religion in spite of real sacrifices.

01;05;22;29 - 01;05;57;11

Jennifer Champoux

And I actually I dedicated the book to, to these ladies because I don't want them to be forgotten in the story. One of the most poignant moments for me in my research was reading an oral history interview with one of Kas descendants who in 1970, when his Mormon panorama was going to be exhibited at the Whitney in New York, I mentioned the scroll.

01;05;57;12 - 01;06;29;13

Jennifer Champoux

The scenes had been stitched together so they could wind around these scrolls. Well, for the Whitney Museum, they wanted it in individually framed pieces. So this descendant was in. A few other female descendants were invited to the Bayou Museum of Art to take apart Elisa's stitching that she had, you know, 100 years earlier. Elise was the one, his first wife, who had stitched these scenes together.

01;06;29;13 - 01;06;52;00

Jennifer Champoux

And that just that felt very plain to me to think about 100 years later, undoing her stitching, like removing any mark that she had so that they could display Christensen's art. And so I just I don't want to forget the women here who who made his story possible.

01;06;52;03 - 01;07;15;04

Nicholas Shrum

Thank you so much for those thoughts. And you're absolutely right. First of all, thank you for the correction. On the acknowledgments. I will say that people should know that the acknowledgments is always one of the most important parts of a book. Yeah, especially I mean, it's you get so much insight from the acknowledgments. But you're right. And I appreciate you bringing up this, this gendered aspect of the story that is so important.

01;07;15;04 - 01;07;42;07

Nicholas Shrum

And you do mention this in the acknowledgments that these individual women that you dedicate to the book to, they're the ones that made Kas story possible. This came up recently in another interview, again, the David Omak biography, that when you read these stories and we often think about it in the persona, the figure, the legacy of these male figures, that quote unquote, kind of make Mormonism go right.

01;07;42;07 - 01;08;06;07

Nicholas Shrum

And that's similar in this case as well. But when you get into their lives, you realize very quickly how their ability to do the things that they do or are, only because there are these, these female figures that are not just on the side, but oftentimes central to the work that they're doing. But it often goes most of the time goes unnamed.

01;08;06;07 - 01;08;40;13

Nicholas Shrum

So I do appreciate you discussing that and including that in not just in the acknowledgments, but throughout the text of your book. And thank you also for your your thoughts on on religion here. One thing that your book does such a great job of, and I will plug it again for the audience, is it shows through the life of this individual that you say that he lived his religion, or that he was all in on his religion, which sometimes we might, you know, from a devotional and say he was, you know, he was 100% in he was committed Mormon, which is true.

01;08;40;13 - 01;09;12;06

Nicholas Shrum

But it also meant what you said about that. He he didn't compartmentalize. And I think that that was the case for most people of this, of this generation and the work that he does and the way that he writes about it and the way that you write about it to me shows so much about how, you know, this is an element of religion, but it's about the cycles of crises from, you know, one moment to the next, how people face their situation, their scenarios when things are suddenly called into question.

01;09;12;06 - 01;09;34;12

Nicholas Shrum

And so even though the world didn't end, the world ended multiple times, I think for Kate Christensen and and for many of these people and, you know, for them religion and for him, art and this narrative there was about people building that was about remembering certain generations and tenets of that. There were aspects he wanted them to remember.

01;09;34;12 - 01;09;44;10

Nicholas Shrum

That's in so many ways a religious project that this book captures quite powerfully. So kudos to you on on an on an excellent book.

01;09;44;11 - 01;09;45;22

Jennifer Champoux

Oh, thank you.

01;09;45;24 - 01;10;05;02

Nicholas Shrum

Listeners again. This has been Jennifer Shampoo, who is the author of Christensen a mormon visionary, published with the University of Illinois Press in 2026. I hope that people will pick up a copy, along with the other installments of this excellent series from the University of Illinois Press, but thank you so much for being on the podcast.

01;10;05;03 - 01;10;08;19

Jennifer Champoux

Thank you for having me.

01;10;08;21 - 01;10;25;08

Nicholas Shrum

I hope you enjoyed this episode of Scholars and Saints. Please be sure to come back to hear more conversations soon. A special thank you to Harrison Stewart for production, editing, and to Ben Allington for providing music for this episode. To hear more, visit Mormon Guitar. Thank you for listening.