The Center's Studio Podcast
The official podcast of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts with interviews of artists and scholars on topics of art with host Glen Nelson.
The Center's Studio Podcast
The Center’s Studio Podcast’s 100th Episode: An Audio Exhibition, Pt. 4
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Part 4: Emotional Moments -- In the finale of our celebration, we revisit clips from guests: Jamie Erekson, Samuel Evensen, Laura Allred Hurtado, Mauli Bonner, and Valerie Atkisson. These moving discussions become teary and include family tragedy, real-time stories happening during Covid, the highs and lows of careers, and complex social challenges. Finally, Glen Nelson summarizes some of the lessons he's learned from 100 episodes spread out over nine years.
Music: "Please Only Tell Me Good News” by Stephen Anderson; used with permission.
The very first interview of the Center Studio podcast on March 21st, 2018, included a heartbreaking story of death and lingering trauma. If you think about all that you've experienced since 2018, it's been a pretty crazy time. The list of recent events is the kind of thing that history books are made of: wars, plagues, political upheaval, social turmoil, all of the biggies, death, destruction, collapse, and recovery. It's kind of amazing to me, though, how art documents all of this so wonderfully, and how art thrives during such difficult eras. I think of a couple of quotes from artists in times of trouble. One is from the performer and activist Paul Robeson, who said, artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization's radical voice. And the second comes from a German artist I greatly admire, Katha Kulwitz, who lost her son in World War I and whose work documents human suffering in the most visceral and extraordinary way. She said simply, the artist must bear witness. I don't spend all of my time online, but so much of the digital content I see and read today feels expendable, disposable. It's all well and good in the moment, but its value for me fades quickly. But as I was going over nine years of these podcasts, now over a hundred episodes, I see them as a collection of importance, an oral history of what LDS artists were thinking and feeling during a dynamic, chaotic, and sometimes tragic era not seen in a century. When I was a kid, I loved reading interviews with LDS artists. These were mostly appearing in church publications, and almost without exception, they were short uplifting profiles. I don't remember much of anything in greater depth, certainly nothing to help me understand what their art meant and why they meant it, and I craved more. Even now, as commercial press publications have vastly reduced or eliminated altogether coverage of the arts, schools have cut back on art's education drastically, and digital forums edge closer to one-sentence posts than deeper appraisals or simply opinion pieces generated with all the deliberateness of a post-it note. There are fewer venues to ask an artist to really open up, to share what matters most and why, and to help others really see them as artists and as people. I love that the Center Studio Podcast is a platform for artists to sit down one-on-one for an hour and just let go. I think you'll enjoy these final five clips that talk about world events and personal events of disruptive change. And yes, the guests get emotional about it. I do too. In today's episode, we'll be telling the story of one of the great what-ifs of Mormon arts, the life and music of composer James Wilson McConkie. Sitting in the studio with me, and by studio I mean my studio apartment, is Jamie Erickson, grandson of McConkie, who's currently being to light the music of this forgotten LDS composer. McConkie is almost completely unknown now, but in the 1950s, he was poised for a major career in American classical music. He earned a PhD in composition at Columbia University, 1950, and then went to Paris to study with the legendary teacher, Nadia Boulanger. Then tragedy struck at the age of 32. So welcome, Jamie. I'm really excited to be with you here today. How does James fit into the McConkie family? So as I understand it, Bruce R. McConkie is his brother, is that right?
SPEAKER_07Yes, his older brother. So James was the third child. Bruce is the oldest, and then there was Brit France Britain, actually, named after you know her allies in World War I. And then James was the third child, and he had um a younger sister, Margaret, and two younger brothers, uh Oscar and William.
SPEAKER_05Okay. James was born in 1921. Yes. You know, I don't really think of the McConkie family as a musical family.
SPEAKER_07No, no, it was uh pretty clear almost from the beginning that he was a family anomaly. His mom used to tell Bruce five bit stories at bedtime and change his wanted music. Um, no one in the family could even hold a tune, so they'd they'd turn on the Victrola and he'd stand in his trumble bed and he'd just listen attentively until eventually laying down and falling asleep.
SPEAKER_05I once went to a state conference and Elder McConkie was the visiting authority, and he didn't sing any of the hymns. Like I was the organist, and it really struck me. And then somebody mentioned it to him, and he said, Oh, you don't want to hear me.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Let's get an overview of his life. 1944, he married Gwendolyn Worthlin, who was the sister of David Worthlin, and then he served for, I don't know how long. He served in the military, is that right?
SPEAKER_07After his wedding. It's before and after. So after his mission, he enlisted because he felt the moral obligation to fight. So he had, he actually had the opportunity to have a safe job as a chaplain in the States, but he decided to go for the job as a radio operator and Gunnar on a B24 because he wanted to be in there and fight. So he enlisted, and then on a brief leave of absence that was slightly extended by him going A-WOL for a day. Okay, he married Gwendolyn Bitnerworth.
SPEAKER_05Oh, those McConkin.
SPEAKER_07By the time he was 10, he was studying composition at town at the McCune School of Music and Salt Lake. He was also teaching his own private studio at that time when he was 10 years old. And there's this story where I guess he would get pretty frustrated with he was known to get frustrated with his students. And so his mom would come in during the lessons and she'd pull his ear to remind him to be patient. So he was teaching at a young age, and then by the age of 18, he graduated with a master's in composition from the McCean School of Music.
SPEAKER_05Then he came to New York.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. So then he went on his mission at first. So that was actually a really formative musical education for him, too, because missions were different back then, not quite so structured. You know, he was far from his roots as a young boy in Moab in Montecolo. This now he was walking around the streets of New York City. He was going to concerts, he was exposed to some of the greatest performers of his time. And so he would also actually write a fugue every week that he'd then perform on the radio at the local radio station. So that he was he was still composing while he was on his mission. He was honing his musicianship. After his mission, he he came back to Salt Lake City, actually got a BA in philosophy at the New. Then he went to Columbia.
SPEAKER_05You know, before we get too far into his Columbia school, it kind of mirrors your pattern. We haven't talked about you at all. So who are you in connection to this guy and why are you in New York right now?
SPEAKER_07I'm his grandson. So I'm his youngest daughter's son. And I'm studying music in New York. I'm studying composition. Okay. And your name? It's Jamie. James. It's named after him.
SPEAKER_05When you were growing up, how aware were you of your grandfather's music and his story?
SPEAKER_07I was very aware. I mean, it's a it's a story that's always been present and that isn't often told.
SPEAKER_05He came here in the late 40s. Uh his PhD thesis at Columbia was titled The Keyboard Suites of Bach: A Consideration of the Horizontal and Vertical Elements Found Therein. Yeah, real page turnips. Super page turnips. Have you ever seen that dissertation?
SPEAKER_07I I have. I haven't read it yet. I feel like now I could I could actually understand it.
SPEAKER_05Listening to his music, do you get a Bach in the case?
SPEAKER_07Oh, definitely. I think every piece of his that I've heard harkens back to Bach. Bach was his greatest influence. Obviously, he yeah, he wrote his his dissertation on Bach's keyboard suites. He also, there's this entry in his journal when he's going off to war, and he's, you know, wondering if he's gonna die or not. And then he's uh he writes, Well, if I die, I I hope I'll be able to sing in box choir.
SPEAKER_05After Columbia, then what happened to him?
SPEAKER_07So it was a really interesting time because he had his second child a year before he he received his PhD. And then they decided to move to Europe to their to their parents' dismay, right? Because this was a very it was an unstable time. 1950. Yeah, so the Korean War was about to begin, you know, and Europe was still struggling to get over the devastation of World War II. But James had received a Fulbright to study, to study in France. So they moved their family to a little villa outside of Paris, and there he'd spent the next year of his life in intense study with two of the most revered musicians of the 20th century. So it was Arthur Onika and Nadie Bouloget.
SPEAKER_05I mean, for people who don't recognize Nadia's name, she was a pianist and studied with Gabriel Farre, and she was a close friend of Stravinsky too. But get a list of these, some of her students. Aaron Copeland, Mark Blitzstein, Philip Glass, Roy Harris, Elliot Carter, Virgil Thompson, David Diamond, Astor Piazzola, Michelle Legrand, Burt Baccarac, Giancarlo Minotti, Thea Musgrave, long, long list. To imagine American music without those people is kind of a radical thing. I can't imagine what it must have been like for this American who had some exposure to things, but you know, you have to remember that in the 1950s, it's not like you could go to iTunes and hear an unlimited amount of music. So I I suspect that everywhere he went, he just was exposed to more and more, more music. And then to be in this circle all of a sudden, he must have thought that, you know, he was on the edge of something big, right? I mean, do we have an idea of how ambitious he was as a composer?
SPEAKER_07He was ambitious. They actually, On again, and boulogy, I wanted him to stay longer to take another year of study, because um they had some Oniger had some ideas for performing his music in Europe, but James decided it was time to stop procrastinating. He, due to the unstable world situation, he called it, and so he wanted to get back to the States and be employees. And when he came back from Paris, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed some of his work, and he different different ensembles in Minnesota were into teaching. They performed his work. He was just starting to become a a well-known figure in the Minnesota region.
SPEAKER_05So he's in Minneapolis now. He's a professor. All three children are born. Yes. And then church-wise, this is sort of strange to me. Now I was doing a little bit of research about your family and especially the uncles and aunts. It seems like James was sort of the spiritual one of the family. I mean, we think of of elder Bruce Armakonkey as being the spiritual one, but I was told that James was sort of the hope of the faculty spiritually.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, well, and I I I think they thought James would be the one who would really put the family on the map. He'd be the famous one.
SPEAKER_05In 1951, he was serving in the church as the district president. So in me in Minnesota, that's the North Central State's mission. Now let's talk about the tragic part of his uh life. What happened to him next in Minnesota?
SPEAKER_07During the polio epidemic of 1953, his his two daughters, Kathy and Michelle, they disregarded their parents' instructions and they went out to visit a neighbor boy who'd fallen ill. Both daughters contracted polio, followed quickly by um by Jamie, this his seven-year-old son. Um Jamie's health plummeted and he was quickly hospitalized.
SPEAKER_06And uh everyone was careful to keep their distance, but uh before Jamie left for the hospital, James uh hugged him and gave him a kiss. Jamie would eventually recover after months of rehabilitation and he learned how to walk again.
SPEAKER_07Two weeks two weeks later, James passed away after after spending the last few days of his life in an iron lot.
SPEAKER_05Oh my goodness. Whenever we talk about composers, especially composers who pass away young, my thought is always what is their musical legacy? So let's talk first about what the that means in your family. I mean, here was this person that they thought very highly of, obviously, as a human, but as a composer, I'm sure they all loved what he was doing or the trajectory of his career at least. And then suddenly when it stops, what did they do with physically with the scores and all of his papers?
SPEAKER_07I don't believe a lot was was done for for a while. I think in the 80s, my uncle he he donated scores to the library of BYU.
SPEAKER_05But they're in boxes. You know, I've talked with families of composers, and this idea of what to do with their scores and papers is really complex. Like they want to keep them, they want to protect them as part of their part of their inheritance in a way, but they don't know what to do with it. But I would imagine in in your family, an extended family, it was more complicated because they were grieving for it. And so as I understand it from your mom and aunt and uncle, they kind of boxed away all the music and put it aside, and you know, they didn't try to get it performed much and it kind of disappeared.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, that that's true. It's like I said, it's it's a story in the family that everyone knows, but you don't talk about it because there's still so much pain. And it was really interesting actually doing the research for this. And as I was researching and as I was going through his journals and as I had this constant dialogue with my mom about her memories, and I was writing it up when I started writing about his death, I just started sobbing. It was really interesting because I never, you know, I've never met him, but I still feel this connection to him, and I still feel this pain. And I think partially it's because I know how much pain my mom feels, and I love her, but also part of it feels like my own pain, this man who was my granddad, and I never knew him. That's not fair. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Is there something lasting that you'd like to leave with listeners about your grandfather and his music?
SPEAKER_06I guess he had a lot of love.
SPEAKER_07He loved his family, he loved the gospel, he loved his music. And I I think that's something that you can feel it's something that I feel when I listen to his music, especially when I listen to the song that he wrote for my mom.
SPEAKER_05Now let's chat with painter Samuel Evanson. Samuel received an MFA from the New York Academy of Art and a BFA from BYU. His exhibitions include galleries in New York City, Philadelphia, Beijing, and Provo, Utah. He has taught at the Pratt Institute at the New York Academy of Art and the International School of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture in Umbria, Italy. Hello, Samuel. Hello. You are a painter in New York City. I think your experience during the pandemic is probably similar to mine since we live on the same island, but with the big difference that I don't have children at home. So tell us, how are you all coping through this? What's your home life like right now?
SPEAKER_04Home life is uh I'd say stressful. See, I have two kids, a four-year-old and a seven-year-old. And uh I think, you know, my wife and I are are stressed generally about the pandemic and health and finances. Uh and then add to that the uh additional obligation that we now have to be teachers of our having two young kids at home. And so my experience is that for me personally, everything kind of collided all at once. In the first few weeks it became clear that I was going to lose ninety percent of my dependable income. Um and so that became, you know, obviously a big stress. Uh in addition, um uh it became clear that we were gonna have much less time to work, my wife and I, who she's a a freelancer as well.
SPEAKER_05What what kind of work does she do?
SPEAKER_04She's a writer. And and the first two weeks were just I'd say kind of a disaster. We were just surviving. You know, it and it didn't it also didn't um help that we were just trying to um kind of make sense of of the new reality. I th the image that kept coming to mind was that you know, there's there's certain things in life like you live in a an a you exist in a space, an apartment or a home, and there's certain realities that are constant. Uh gravity uh keeps your your rug on the floor and your lamp in the corner and your silverware in the drawer. And it's like someone has suddenly come by and deleted gravity and all the things in your life are are still there, but the rules have all changed dramatically. So th those first few weeks especially, we were just trying to figure out how do we adapt to this. And then frankly, a few weeks into it, I um started having COVID-like symptoms. Um that thankfully were mild. But then, you know, that meant that I had to isolate myself from my family. So my wife was doing all the schooling and all the parenting. And I was resting in a in a bedroom in our apartment trying to get feeling better and all of us crossing our fingers that um things weren't going to uh take the turn for the worse. So so the whole thing has been really super disruptive. My symptoms um subsided enough that um I've returned to regular life. I still have pain in my chest, I still have some wheezing, and I'm tremendously exhausted. And we're this is on like I think week three or four. Yeah, it is. And and and I appreciate you saying that. And and let me be clear that you know it's been a stressful time for us, but there are people who are really suffering. Um I take my boys out um outside uh almost um every day. Um and we find a secluded part in uh a nearby park um to just dig in the dirt and and be outside for a little bit. But um yeah, it's it's very surreal to be outside in New York right now and uh there's uh near constant sound of sirens and ambulances passing by. And so there's there's these constant reminders that um there are a lot of people who are are suffering and dying. And uh, you know, we're we're grateful that that so far we've uh even though we've been affected, uh you know, we have we still have blackness accounts.
SPEAKER_05Um you know you know that leads right into my second question though, is uh how does this pandemic affect contents? It sounds like for you that for it to be meaningful and to be in the moment, you're having you're wanting to engage with what's going on around you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I and I think that's um a bit out of uh desperation. Um, you know. I mentioned my anxiety. I I've you know had anxiety for years and years and and um this is a pandemic is, you know, terrible time for all of us anxiety uh folks. And probably if you didn't have an anxiety disorder, you got one now. So uh but but kind of out of desperation, I feel like I'm I'm trying to make work to just process what's um happening, it's happening to myself um and and what's happening to our world.
SPEAKER_05As you're working through things, is it like you're trying to make works that are ultimately going to be finished work that you'll want to exist? Or is it more process-driven where you're just trying to figure out what what things mean to you right now through the mechanisms of making art?
SPEAKER_04That's a that's an interesting question that I'm not sure I have a a clear answer to. I anticipate that the work that I'm making uh I would show, but I suppose I recognize that it's possible that years from now I'll look back on this work and say, you know, this that work was really self therapy and maybe doesn't have a need to be uh shown publicly. So I don't know. I but but you know, my intention at this point is to make work that is, you know A way for me to process my own experiences, but but um that I anticipate sharing total. None of us knows how long the COVID-19 cloud will be over us.
SPEAKER_05As I'm speaking, five hundred people a day are dying in my city. We all pray for return to global help. I'm here at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art with Lara Alred Hertadl, the newly named Executive Director of the Museum in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. Previously, she worked for six years as the global acquisitions curator of the Church History Museum. Over the years, you've given a number of interviews and presentations about your work at the Church History Museum. The comments that strike me the most are from artists and colleagues who speak about change in church culture, specifically visual art culture, and they all reference your influence. I don't want to make you blush, but I'm sure that you've heard comments about you and influence and uh the church. So I have a surprise for you. I don't know how how much you're gonna like this, so I think you will. I wrote to a number of your colleagues and artists and asked them a simple question. How has Lara made a difference? Right. So that was the question. Uh and I I didn't uh go beyond that at all. Just though just those simple words. How have you made a difference? All right.
SPEAKER_02Well, these are overstated and and before I even hear them. You have no idea.
SPEAKER_05These could be negative.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's true. That's true.
SPEAKER_05What is the difference? She made me feel tall. Like you have no idea what they're gonna say.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's true. I do that to everyone.
SPEAKER_05All right. So uh I think our best strategy is to I'll say who it is, the person, and then why don't you say a little bit about who this person is? All right. The next quotation is from Walter Rain. Who's he?
SPEAKER_02This is embarrassing.
SPEAKER_05It's a victory lap.
SPEAKER_02Walter is a very talented, bright, amazing illustrator who's influenced the church visual culture, does these beautiful paintings that I I call broke because they have this, well, Mott, I don't know if you'd like that term, but they have this theatricality to it. They have this motion to them all the time. And he he was a beloved painter with a great relationship with Robert Davis and my predecessors. So he's done tremendous work for the church.
SPEAKER_05So Walter said this: Laura has certainly opened up and broadened the range of visual expression that the church will consider and acquire. This has sent a message to artists to be more adventurous and creative in their approach to work that they might present to the church, the hope being that this work will connect to a wider range of viewers and expose church membership to new and exciting ways of expressing spiritual feelings and themes. This is a significant service to the church. So that's an interesting statement. Were you aware at the time there that you were sending a message to artists to broaden what they were going to make?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, yes and no. Yes, because I had a lot of conversations with artists that would say, I don't think the church would do that. I don't think the church goes in that direction. And I remember even when I was a young kid, I had this best friend that I would say, oh, let's do a sleepover tonight. And she'd say, I think my mom would say no. And I would always say, I had this thing in me that I would say, well, it doesn't hurt to try. We're gonna try this. Okay. They may say no, but we're gonna try this. And and I do think that that is an attitude that I have. So artists would say, you know, the church, the church doesn't do that. And and I remember using the exact same verbiage, it doesn't hurt to try. Why well they're gonna say no if you don't try. So let's let's try it. What what's what's gonna happen?
SPEAKER_05And um, I think I think that's all really fascinating. And for him to say, yeah, it she wanted us to to push ourselves a little bit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And he has been one in his career who has constantly pushed himself to do new kinds of work.
SPEAKER_02Um Here's a piece in the international art competition right now of Christ that his body is really broken down, is there's no kind of skeletal uh structure within it. And there's so much on the on the um on the plane, on the visual plane that is abstract and broken down and visceral, and it's so powerful and it's a real um I mean it it's a natural continuation of what he's working on, but it it's a He's not coasting. That's right. It's a step forward or a step, it's in it's another step.
SPEAKER_05It's an evolutionary step.
SPEAKER_02I don't mean to say step forward, because that sounds like that. That's right.
SPEAKER_05And and and he might decide next year to do something that's a different thing.
SPEAKER_02But it is a step in a in a different direction, and I think it's really so interesting.
SPEAKER_05All right. Next up, Valerie Atkison.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Ross Powell Valerie is an old friend. My parents live in her parents' old house. Did you know that?
SPEAKER_05No.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um here's what she said.
SPEAKER_05I don't think I know even a fraction of what Laura has done to make a difference, but I'm aware that she has spent a lot of time educating the leadership of our church about contemporary art. It's very rare at this day and age to be able to have that kind of access and ability to make an impact within the church. Let's talk about that. So, do you think that you had opportunities to engage with church leadership and try to, you know, show them a little bit more about what contemporary art's like?
SPEAKER_02I certainly had way more access than the average person. Yeah. You know, one of the c conversations I had quite frequently is I would show a piece and their reaction would be, well, this wouldn't fly for temple. This wouldn't fly for the temple art. And I I had a speech prepared for that. So and it's a true one, actually. Uh um, you know, the scope of what how art functions in the temple is is very different than how it functions in the museum. In the temple, it's supposed to be scene-setting and uh ephemeral, it's part of the atmosphere, but the core mission of what you do at the temple is the ordinances.
SPEAKER_05It doesn't draw focus in a way.
SPEAKER_02No focus, right? It's it's um, it can be it can be wallpaper in some ways. Like it it it it creates an environment, it creates a spirit, but you you know, you're really not asked to have a dialogue.
SPEAKER_05Is part of was part of your job selecting artworks for temples?
SPEAKER_02I was on the temple art advisory committee, but and that did help me understand how it functioned and how it uh what the goals were for the temple. But what the goals are for art in a museum is very different. It's yeah, you go there to look at the art, you go there to have a conversation with the art, you go there to um to be asked questions, to have a dialogue, to to have questions answered, to participate within a a looking process. And so the art that you collect for a museum is very different than the art you collect for the temple or for magazines. They all have very different functions, they serve different functions, and as such, you have to collect different art.
SPEAKER_05So access then to some of these general authorities. So let's say uh the President Iring show that just came down. So what kind of access did you have with him working out in that show?
SPEAKER_02Oh, you know, he was really generous with his time.
SPEAKER_05It's a watercolor show.
SPEAKER_02Watercolor show. We had a thousand works to go through. Wow, that's a lot. And um, and trying to narrow it down, especially, you know, without at first having access, we were kind of just sorting it in terms of subject matter. And I had a few, you know, kind of early meetings with him where he'd talk about the work and there and uh also read his biography. And I I just had a real strong uh, you know, reading of the work that they were so much about feelings and about memories and about people. So I asked him if I could have, you know, maybe maybe an hour of his time and to ask a few questions. Uh, and that turned into about nine hours over three days. And he was so generous. And and each one had this own little memory of it. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't just a boat, you know, it was about learning how to sail on on in Bar Harbor as as a bachelor and joining a lot yacht club, or so many of them were about his wife. And I I really, you know, just got a sense of his strong love of his wife and of his family. And it was so powerful on a personal level. I mean, you you hear people's talks and um, you know, you maybe get an impression of of someone, but it was a powerful experience to me to to meet someone that that committed and that devoted to to his wife.
SPEAKER_05But so many general authorities and leaders currently and historically have also been creative artists.
SPEAKER_03It's true.
SPEAKER_05And I I felt like it was almost reclaiming that tradition, which is I would I don't know enough to say if it's singular to our culture, but it's deeply embedded in our culture from its earliest days.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and for him it's really tied to devotion. You know, um, when we first started working on the project, people would say, Oh, he's a general authority and they're so good. And I I thought um, I thought in some ways, you know, that was a little unfair kind of reading because A, the expression that they're good is like, well, I didn't expect him to be good, you know. Um, and and they are good. So I, you know, uh I don't mean to undermine that, but I thought what was more important in them, um, you know, they're they're visually interesting to look at. But here's a man that has kept a journal every single day for 50 years. There's almost a compulsion there to really remember things. And and the watercolors were an extension of that. We're an extension of sorting through memories and and understanding memories and trying to capture memories and or reclaim memories that have gone by. And that seemed like a real human experience, but also a very sacred and devotional one and and very powerful.
SPEAKER_05Aaron Powell I think an artist in the church looking at those also has a sense of validation. Because, you know, they believe in what they're doing and they're seeing these people they admire who are leaders doing it too. And I I can't imagine that they wouldn't form a stronger emotional connection to those leaders too.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell Well, and and one thing that struck me is you know, you can't use this excuse that you don't have time, right? Who has less time? Who has less time?
SPEAKER_05Annie Poon is next, a stop motion animator, lives in New York, has recently done quite a lot of work that's deeply personal. And uh she says this. Again, this was to the question how has Lara made a difference? I treasure the path Lara has sent me on. Lara intercepted my path early on in my career by buying the church's first video piece, My Piece, and brought it to an LDS audience. Elated, I sensed the freedom I suddenly had to continue delving more deeply into my own spirituality. It became a circle of feedback and changed the course of my career and ended with me being a more spiritual person. I've had the question many times, asking whether I was a religious artist or a person who made art about religion. Lara cultivated me into a religious artist by giving me the space and support and confidence to probe issues that really mattered. She gave me the confidence that my message would be understood even when it dealt with my most sensitive and unsure experiences. I never felt I had to safeguard myself for my audience because of Lara's encouraging curiosity. To me, that's a very powerful statement. Um and because you're tearing up, I think that it might be the same for you. The thing that strikes me then is her comments about not the professional side of it, but how your influence affected how she thinks of herself, how she developed her own sense of being a spiritual artist, and how her own spiritual development changed. Were you aware of any of that? Well, you have to say you have to through the tears say something.
SPEAKER_03No, I wasn't. That's really powerful.
SPEAKER_05You know, it's funny, we we don't know the influence we're gonna have on people, do we? So you have to say something else. I'm not gonna let you go off the hook.
SPEAKER_03Um Yeah, that's that's really touching. You don't know.
SPEAKER_05You're you know, when you're curating something, you're giving someone permission in a way. And in her case, I think you gave her permission to say, you know, myself is good enough. You know, I can put myself out there.
SPEAKER_03That's a powerful thing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Okay. I feel, I feel like I'm like the Barbara Walters of interviewers with a goal of making my subjects cry. Yeah. The last one is Jason Metcalfe. Who's Jason?
SPEAKER_02Jason is a very smart artist who's shown a Kagosian and several biennials and whose work I've collected and uh has shown in the last two international art competitions, lives in LA.
SPEAKER_05Here we go. Jason said, I would say Laura has certainly shifted the visual culture of Mormon art in a monumental way through helping expand their collection and exhibitions outside of traditional figurative work with all the contemporary work she has brought into the church, et cetera. I've talked to a few people about this, and I have gotten a lot of feedback from people who have expanded their minds on what Mormon art can be. And they feel transcendent, feel the spirit type of experiences with works that aren't just literal depictions of Christ or church type beliefs. For me, for sure, I am very grateful that my work has been included in the Church History Museum. So many of my family that I don't think would respond to it normally find it validating and opens their mind up to seeing what I'm doing, pointing minds and souls to divinity and the light and the love of God. My Mormon grandmother said she really felt the spirit strongly when she saw my paved work of pure gold piece at the museum, at the last jury's show, and it brought her to tears. She's Pioneer Heritage, the head of the temple workers at the Salt Lake Temple. It was a way for us to connect with divinity in a way that I don't think would have happened if Laura hadn't encouraged that work to be brought into the exhibition. Although it wasn't her decision, she encouraged me to submit it. So I suspect that you didn't think that it was going to go that way. Yeah. His comment. So there are many things in here, but the thing that struck me is how his own family hadn't really got him or or got the connection of his work and religious belief until you gave them permission to see him and that work like that. Is that how you would read his comment?
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So what do you think about that? What's your reaction?
SPEAKER_02I don't know.
SPEAKER_05I mean You're not angry at hearing this.
SPEAKER_02No, I'm not I'm not angry. I I do think that there was a level of acceptance, that there was a stamp of acceptance for artists when they got into the Church History Museum and when their work was on on display. Um especially if they felt like their work was, you know, nothing like the kinds of work they thought would show there. And that acceptance um I think has impacts for one's career, but also has impacts more broadly.
SPEAKER_05Well, I guess I I I hope that you're hearing this and really internalizing it. The work that you've done has affected their lives a lot more deeply than on the surface. Well, a lot more than their bank account, let's say, or, you know, braggied rights. All of these artists, I uh I have to say, when I decided to I could have written to, you know, 50 or 100 different artists, and I wanted to choose artists who are stylistically all over the place, different ages, uh, different genders, and people outside of the art world and inside of it in a way. And each one of them said that you really made a difference in their personal life, which I think is pretty much the highest compliment they could have given.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Are you feeling happy?
SPEAKER_02I'm feeling I'm feeling humbled, actually.
SPEAKER_05It uh job like that comes with lots of pressures, as you've described, and and vulnerabilities and so on, but it just has so much possibility too.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_05I have the great pleasure of to meet interesting creative artists who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and ask them about themselves and their work. Now, Molly Bonner has a problem. He does so many things in different artistic disciplines that it's hard to pin him down. He writes for Grammy Award-winning artists, he works on television singing competitions, he scored music for future films and TV, he's a motivational speaker, a children's book author, he writes and directs films, and he's the founder of a nonprofit organization, Lift Up Voices Foundation. Welcome, Molly. How are you today?
SPEAKER_00I am great. And when you listed all those things, I'm like, okay, I gotta cut some of this stuff out.
SPEAKER_05You just made me, I didn't realize I was doing so much. Has being a dad impacted your urgency uh to address issues regarding race and inequality?
SPEAKER_00It was more about um the questions that my kids and other children would ask me because I I I seem to be approachable by little people, you know? And so they'll come and say things and ask things, and I'm like, oh gosh. There needs to be somewhere or something, you know, and so my children are part of that, not necessarily because I'm their father, but because there are children who have questions. One question that stood out to me was my son when he was looking at the ark on one of the walls in the chapel, and he said that Paw Paw, his grandpa, wasn't gonna be in heaven. He can't be an angel. And I said, Of course he can. No, he can't. And he points to the picture. See? And it was all white angels. And and if he looked closely, he would say, and no brunettes, and no whatever, because it was just blonde angels, right? And I was trying to explain to him that that wasn't the case, that that was just art, that someone drew. And so I I realized that instead of waiting for something to change, I just wanted to be a part of it.
SPEAKER_05You know, Molly, I have to tell you, I've heard I've heard that story before. I've retold it so many times, I should practically get a royalty. That that one story is so impactful for people who hear it. They're like, well, of course, you know. And if if they were part of that group of previously documented angels, that was their moment of illumination to hear a young kid say that. So so hooray for him and hooray for you, being in the right place at the right time, and also to to share it and to make to make that moment feel uh like it was a a universally valid moment because it is. So I really appreciate that, Mason. Okay, so everybody listening to this interview will know that this is a crazy time in the world regarding people simply unwilling to listen to each other or uninterested in understanding each other. How are you dealing personally with attempts to turn back the clock on issues like of race in society and to roll back diversity initiatives? Is that something that's keeping you up at night? Like how is how are you managing?
SPEAKER_00I really appreciate that. I I do love having discussions about it because I I just love talking about it, what's happening in the world, and so what are you thinking and why and what if? I love that, right? But at the same time, the weight of it, I'm not feeling the weight of it because I feel honored to be here. Like you guys, we have the opportunity to be the ones that we looked to the generations ago and we're like, they did it, they overcame it. Those who were walking with Martin Luther King, and you look at all the races and denominations, right? And generations before him, like we have an opportunity to be who we think we are. Now is the time. And so, of course, there's going to be those who feel differently, and things are not going in the direction we want them to go, but we have an opportunity to be a part of the positive change we want that to be. I love it. I love that we have this opportunity. Instead of just talking about them, it's here right now.
SPEAKER_05I was saying to you before we started our interview that I really uh was hoping that you would move uh to New York, even now more than ever. Should I look in my apartment building to see if like there's an empty apartment? I love what you're saying. You know, I have a difficult time with the with the morning newspaper. And I'm struggling these days to try to figure out how to process what I'm reading. And should I delve into it? Should I follow? Should I know all the players? Should I try to affect that? Should what is it doing to me and my psyche to do that? I mean, this is maybe a weird question, but do you have a strategy for digesting the news?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I think it's a wonderful uh question. So this I'll I'll answer this for white people, um, or people who have not been a part of a minority group. That has had to navigate these discomforts. And you might be like a majority of my white friends, uh have never experienced these uh feelings, right? Or seen these things. And I'm like, You guys, this is this is just life. What is wrong with you? You know, like you just navigate it. You know, I I me as a as a child, I've had experiences that were similar to things that you see online that makes you your heart ache and share and and rant. But if you're someone who has experienced it your whole life, you have um the weight of it is not so heavy. Doesn't mean that it's not as serious, doesn't mean that it doesn't need our attention. But if you're new to navigating these spaces, you have to be able to step away. Doesn't mean that you don't care, but you do have to turn off certain things. And that doesn't mean that you're pulling away from things that need your attention. But you in your mental health have to step away. Turn it off. Don't deal with it this way. I'm gonna spend this week focusing on the thing that I want to do that can help and see if I can make some progress, progress that you can measure. And that progress might be just a simple email. I'm gonna write this email to this politician, whether they read it or not, but I'm gonna do this, or I'm gonna reach out to this person that I know their family is impacted by something I saw. I just want to take them to lunch, spread some love on them, let them know how whatever that thing is, you have to pick and choose. Don't do it all. You can't fire hose the thing if you're not used to the water. You can't.
SPEAKER_05Um, with these interviews, Molly, I often make people cry. You're making me cry because I've had friends who have been um so overwhelmed with this stuff that they've shut down, they're medicated, they're not living the kind of life that they thought they were going to. Um it's it's really taken over, taken over their lives. And so I I love what you just said. I I feel really honored to have uh uh asked the question there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I'm I'm gonna re- I'm gonna reiterate something because I have a dear friend who was just came to me and up in arms, just can it's just the the out over what's happening, and I just have to say, okay, okay, it's happening. So what do you want to do? What do you want to do? What can we do? So we know what's happening, and we'll go back and tap in to see if anything's changed in a little bit. But tell me, what do you want to do?
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00What's something we can do today?
SPEAKER_05Valerie Atkison Demora's installation artworks are showstoppers. In her most famous works, many generations of her ancestry are represented in huge cascading arrays of tiny connected paper triangles, each with a family member's name and dates. It's a visualization of a family tree turned into sweeping ceiling-to-floor conceptual artworks. At the simplest level, you're an artist, and if you're meeting somebody for the first time and they ask you what kind of art you make, what do you tell them?
SPEAKER_01I tell them that I use a variety of media and that my work is mostly based on family history. And I do some sculpture and some painting.
SPEAKER_05I remember really clearly one afternoon walking into artist space in New York, which is a kind of an incubator of emerging artist projects primarily. There you were, scribbling on the walls, doorways, ceilings, floors, every available surface all over the place. And all of this was your genealogy. And you were drawing lines from like one ancestor, oh, that loops over to another. It was kind of messy sometimes. Oh, yeah. Um, in these loopy, complex diagrams. And I can't recall if I went by myself or if if somebody else was with me, but there were a lot of gallery visitors there, and they were totally fascinated by this exhibition that was kind of both installation art and performance art. And it really resonated with them. Yeah. It was funny though, because I remember saying, wait a minute, people, like you're not supposed to love this as much as I do. Like I'm an insider. I'm supposed to get it. But of course, it was universal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05What are your memories of that piece and others like that back then?
SPEAKER_01My memories of the piece was it just it took a lot of time, right? Three weeks, morning to night. And then people would come in and they would ask me about it, what it was, and I'd tell them, and they would be like, oh, wow, you know, and and then they would start telling me about their own family and their own ancestry. And so I exchanged stories with many people during that time. And that was a really neat thing. A lot of people actually were very um cautious or just disbelieving, like, no way that's possible, you know, to know that that, yeah, that many people. But one man came in and we were talking about it, and he told me that he was adopted. And he said that he doesn't have any idea who he comes from and that seeing this piece was interesting for him. But actually, even to him, it had an emotional reaction. It's it's emotional reaction for a lot of people to see that and to realize that they are also made up of that many people, even if they don't know it.
SPEAKER_05At some point, I became aware that you were ill and had a serious health diagnosis. Do you want to talk about that?
SPEAKER_01Sure. So I when I was working for uh the social media company, it was just a lot of stress. And at one point, I had an episode of a vertigo and didn't feel well. And um, and then it happened. I went to a doctor to I didn't have time to go to a doctor. So I went by the time I was getting better, I finally went and she's like, Come back if this ever happens again. So I it did happen again, maybe you know, six months later. And um and also at that time, I was typing, I was trying to type just on the computer, and I was typing gobbledygook. Like what my brain was telling my fingers to type, it wasn't typing. And I still do have that problem today. So a little bit, not so much. It was very pronounced. So we had this vertigo, and so I went to the doctor and I was diagnosed with MS. And that was a pretty, pretty shocking thing for me, and especially the fact that my mother had MS the whole time growing up, and we she never told us kids. So yeah, that was a big shock. So I had this really difficult thing happening while I was working there, and it that happened. My diagnosis was like in August or so, and then I think it was in March, I was laid off from that job. And then a month later, my mom died. And then a almost a year in that September in 2010, I was hit by a car and had a traumatic brain injury. So it was like the year, like the ridiculous year. And then that's also also when I started my business. So I was doing all that. Um, so yeah, and it it was the, you know, the priority in my life became health. You know, how do I make my brain work and how do I make my, you know, body get the rest I need. And and the injuries, all of that, it was mostly in my head. And um, I looked normal. I looked, I mean, I had a couple problems when I was hit by the bike, but they cleared up, you know, soon. But it was it was a long healing time.
SPEAKER_05But but when you say it was in your head, you had a whole you had many lesions on your brain. That's what you mean?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I had over 80 lesions in my brain from MS. But then when I was hit by a car, um, my head hit the windshield and I was thrown 40 feet and on landed on the side of the road. So I the major injury was was a was a head injury. And so I didn't even have, and my mom had died, and so I didn't and I didn't have time a lot of the time to talk to her about MS. And so I didn't know what was MS, what was a brain injury, did it matter?
SPEAKER_05What has the process of conceiving and creating art taught you? I'm wondering, having thought about your ancestors and learned about them and traveled and documented them and thought deeply about them, have you ever felt that they were assisting you in some spiritual sense, maybe urging you on or more literally helping you in some way?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure. Um I had a specific experience in BY at BYU when I was in a painting class and I was there in the group studio before I had my own studio, and I was making work and I had a really hard time. It was back when I was back from my mission, and that was one of those times when you're like, okay, you've done this thing and you had this transition to like, how do I live life? Everything I was doing was so important, and now it's not. And I was just like, what am I doing making these pays? I knew they were horrible, but I just didn't know what else to do. And so it just was kept doing them. And then I had this feeling that I was surrounded by people who appreciated it, you know, and who were with me, you know? That was before I was doing any artwork on Assisters. And um that has kept with me the whole time. Yeah. Like just keep going, you know.
SPEAKER_05As I finished this audio exhibition and look back over these 100 conversations, I realized that the podcast has changed me as much as anyone who's listened to it. When I started in 2018, I thought I was creating interviews about artists and their work. But over time I discovered that art is never just about art. It's about memory, faith, identity, grief, hope, community, exile, beauty, longing, and joy. Again and again, artists trusted me with their stories, and I've come away from these conversations, believing more deeply in the value of openness, vulnerability, and human creativity. I hope that this series becomes a documentation of our time. One thing I've learned is that artists are invaluable record keepers. They notice what others overlook. They preserve emotions and experiences that might otherwise disappear. They help make sense of difficult moments and remind us of what is still worth loving and protecting. As much of the digital world is screaming, notice me, notice me. Many artists I've interviewed are more focused on simply doing good work. It can't be in a vacuum, but they keep their heads down, their shoulders to the wheel, and they hope that someone will come along and connect with it. I honestly can't imagine the last decade without these conversations. As wonderful as this is, it doesn't feel like an ending to me. It feels like a beginning. There are still so many artists to meet, so many stories left untold, so many parts of the world we haven't explored yet. The creative life of Latter-day Saints is far richer, larger, stranger, and more beautiful than people realize, and I feel lucky every month to keep discovering it and sharing it with you. So thank you for listening, for sharing these episodes, for supporting the artists, and for believing that conversations about art really matter. I think they do. Maybe now more than ever. Before we go, I'll mention one more thing. The Center for Latter-day Saint Arts is a nonprofit organization, and everything we do, from exhibitions and publications to podcasts like this one, depends on the generosity of people who believe the arts of the LDS people matter. If these conversations have meant something to you over the years, if they've introduced you to artists or ideas that you wouldn't otherwise have encountered, I invite you to support the center with a donation. My wife and I donate what we can every year, and I hope you'll join us. I'd like you to join us. Every contribution, large or small, helps us continue documenting, preserving, and sharing the remarkable creative work of Latter-day Saint Artists throughout the world. You can learn more and support the Center by visiting our website, www.center for Latterday Saint Arts.org. We'd be deeply grateful. This is Glenn Nelson in New York. Thanks for joining me for these first 100 episodes of the Center Studio Podcast. I can't wait to see what comes next. Goodbye.
