Mormon Artists Group

By Glen Nelson

In 1999, a few of the photographers in our LDS church community in New York City decided to organize an exhibition. Jon Moe volunteered to let the group show its works at his studio/loft. I remember seeing the show and marveling at the artworks. It was not merely because they were beautiful and highly accomplished; what surprised me most was the fact that I already knew most of these people from church, but I had not known that they were artists.

A group of us immediately decided to organize ourselves somehow in order to become better aware of each other and to provide some system of support for those who aspired to make art of the highest caliber. We determined to limit ourselves to creative artists. Some of those artists were working professionally in their fields, and others were highly trained but pursuing art only in their spare time. It seemed to us at the time that what was needed more than anything was for someone to say, “You matter.”

From the beginning, we set a few rules: the organization (which came to be called Mormon Artists Group) would never receive any money from any projects. All proceeds—if there ever were any—would be divided among the participants equally. Further, there would be no membership, no dues. We would infrequently devise projects, then invite artists who are LDS in our stake to participate if the projects appealed to them. Finally, we would not use church facilities; we would be affiliated with the church only to the extent that we are all members.

MAG-ZINE

We began by creating a CD-ROM publication called MAG-zine in 1999. It was a two-disc portfolio of our works. What appealed to everyone was the inter-disciplinary emphasis of the group. We liked that on the CD, someone could read a poem, look at a photograph, listen to some music, and then view a painting. Twenty-nine artists participated in MAG-zine, they were: Valerie Atkisson, Jonathan Barth, Annie Benac, Natasha Brien, Claudia Bushman, Kent Christensen, William Cottam, Julie Adelaide Day, Matt Day, Doug Ellis, Peter Everett, David Fletcher, Sally Fuji, Mark Graham, Anne-Marie Hildenbrandt-Claus, Tom Hughes, Steve Klamm, Jon Moe, Stephen Moore, Jenny Naylor, Glen Nelson, Michael J. Peery, Luisa Perkins, Nettie Rencher, Adam Russell, Bethany Scow, Lane Twitchell, Royce Twitchell, and Adriana Velez. We made only twenty-nine copies of the CD and gave one to each of the artists who participated.

Concurrently, a group of LDS painters had been mounting group shows of their works in apartment exhibitions. Adam Russell had spearheaded efforts on behalf of Mormon artists in New York. Later, he organized two highly complex and fascinating Art Festivals at our church. He was enthusiastic about the idea of involving a broader range of creative artists, and he agreed to let us use the title that he had coined, Mormon Artists Group.

We organized ourselves loosely, by discipline. A committee formed to steer the group, composed of Luisa Perkins, an author, Jon Moe, a photographer, Stephen Moore, a painter, and myself. Eventually, all of us would initiate projects.

EXQUISITE CORPSE

The following year, in 2000, Stephen Moore called to say that he had recently read a book about the French Surrealist game, Exquisite Corpse, and that he’d like to curate a show based on it. On May 20, 2000, we held our second exhibition, “Exquisite Corpse,” again at Jon Moe’s studio/loft. Twenty-six artists participated this time, in groupings of writers, composers, photographers, and visual artists.

Steve faced a problem: what to do with the finished works? It seemed only fitting that we sell the works in an auction when the exhibition was completed and donate all the proceeds to charities. Each of the artists provided the names of their preferred charities.

A complete description of the exhibition, including reproductions of the images is available on the Exquisite Corpse page.

The participating artists were: Literature 1: Anonymous, Glen Nelson, Luisa Perkins; Literature 2: Kent Larsen, Adam Russell, Adriana Velez; Music: David Fletcher, Christiaan Crans, Nathan Fifield; Photography: Thomas Epting, Matthew Day, Natasha Brien; Drawing 1: Doug Ellis (collage), Steve Klamm (drawing), Peter Everett (etching); Drawing 2: Kent Christensen (watercolor), Bethany Schumann/Brent Schumann (collage), Keith Larson (drawing); Drawing 3: Claudia Bushman (collage), Julie Adelaide Day (mixed media), Stephen Moore (drawing); Drawing 4: Cathy Graham/Mark Graham (mixed media), Lane Twitchell (drawing), Valerie Atkisson (drawing).

VIRTUAL DISCUSSION GROUP

We discovered a need to communicate between ourselves about artistic topics. The problem being that none of us seemed to have the time to gather for meetings to discuss anything. It occurred to us that if we identified a topic, and let people respond when they could, it might profit us all. So we began what we called the MAG Virtual Discussion Group.

In the first issue, we responded to an event that had generated a lot of interest in our circle: the recent production of Neil LaBute’s three short plays, bash in New York. We simply asked people what they thought of the play. Because it was a difficult ticket to get (the show played at a small off-Broadway house with a glamorous Hollywood cast), and because not everyone was able to see the show, we included into the discussion larger topics, particularly regarding what responsibilities a Mormon artist has, if any, and how we approach the themes of our art and their possible effect on others.

Again, we opened the discussion to whomever had the time to respond. Then we compiled the responses and distributed them to interested parties in our community.

The second virtual discussion group topic dealt with design of chapels and temples. We noted significant modern religious architecture around the world and asked whether in our experience, an artistic environment aids worship.

HANDCART ENSEMBLE BENEFIT

One of the pleasures of working with artists is the opportunity to witness their generosity. When Mormon Artists Group proposed a benefit evening for a local theater company whose directors and actors are largely from the church, the artists eagerly agreed. The Handcart Ensemble Benefit (see handcartensemble.org for more information about the Handcart Ensemble) was held at City Center in Manhattan. The evening included sales of paintings, drawings, photographs, sculpture and prints kindly donated by artists. The event was ticketed and included a program of premieres. Handcart Ensemble actors performed a scene from a new play be Eric Samuelsen; they also developed a new work based on a classic poem by Rossetti. David Fletcher composed a song cycle for Baritone and piano (performed by Darrell Babidge and accompanied by David Skouson) entitled “Joseph Smith’s Letters from Prison.” Filmmaker Mark Johnson screened a section of a new film based on a Dostoyevsky novel, and Sarah Asplund performed a musical work by David Fletcher. The remainder of the evening was for eating and writing checks.

LENDING LIBRARY

One would think it is an easy task to learn about artworks that friends are creating, but it can be rather complicated and difficult. In addition to the problem of finding time to do it, expense enters in: can we afford to purchase each other’s books and recordings? Can we get tickets to our plays? And our schedules are notoriously full: Can we attend each other’s art exhibitions?

To respond to the need, we created a lending library of books, articles, music, videos, exhibition catalogs, and reviews about our works. When possible, Mormon Artists Group participants donate copies to the library, and from time to time, an updated list of available objects is distributed. Any participating artist can check out any works in the library.

WRITER’S GROUP

Although we were hesitant to organize gatherings because of various time commitments, a group of about a dozen writers determined it would be helpful to have infrequent meetings with the sole purpose of reading our works aloud to each other. We don’t offer criticisms like a college writing class. It’s all very nurturing and supportive. We approach the evenings, which are held quarterly, with anticipation and curiosity: what have we been working on?

The writers are novelists, historians, playwrights, poets, non-fiction authors, essayists, and librettists. What we have found over a period of a couple of years, is that some of us are constantly writing and publishing, and others save up their energy and create something specifically for the readings/meetings.

After having met for over a year, I suggested to the Writer’s Group that it might be fun to publish a small volume. The initial idea was no more specific than that. It slowly grew into a project of personal essays. On September 11th, with the attack and destruction of the World Trade Center in New York, we suddenly felt like we had something important to say. Although only a few of the essays dealt with the attack specifically, the event obviously hung over our heads like a cloud. Claudia Bushman came up with the title for the collection, Silent Notes Taken, an allusion to the familiar Mormon hymn line, “Angels above us are silent notes taking/Of every action, then do what is right.”

SILENT NOTES TAKEN

The volume of essays includes fifteen essays by twelve authors; additional information and excerpts are available at SilentNotesTaken.com. The essays range in subject widely and include pieces about chocolate, the cosmos, grief, Mormon culture, parenthood, peoples around the world, and much more.

In March 2000, at a Mormon Arts Festival, Richard Lyman Bushman offered an opening keynote address. Its title was “Would Joseph Smith Attend the New York Stake Arts Festival?” and it packed a wallop. Richard is one of the leading authorities on Joseph Smith, and he wrote an astonishing piece on art and Joseph and putting them both in the context of Joseph’s time. What better, we thought, than to ask him if we could use the speech as an introduction to our book? He kindly agreed.

I had begun to learn the craft of bookbinding, and so our book of essays metamorphosed into a beautiful limited edition volume. I have always admired livres d’artistes, so I approached Stephen Moore about the possibility of creating original artworks for the book. He, in turn, had been wanted to learn about printmaking, so he enrolled at the New York Art Students League in a class and had access to their presses. He created four large etchings which we bound into the book. It was issued in an edition of fifty copies for sale, ten copies of which included an additional unbound set of the prints in a special portfolio box, plus twelve copies (one for each contributor).

We were not certain that anyone would actually want to purchase such a book, and a few in the Group said so directly. But when it came time for the books to be sold, all of the volumes were gone within a week. It was also gratifying to have the volume acquired by the Special Collections of the Brigham Young University and University of Utah Libraries as well as the Museum of Church History in Salt Lake City, Utah. As in each of our projects, we divided proceeds evenly between the participants.

A publisher in New York contacted us and acquired permission to print the volume as a paperback book. That also appealed to us because some of our friends and relatives who had not had the opportunity to see the book were able to purchase it. For information on the book, see SilentNotesTaken.com.

MUSICAL COMPOSITIONS BY LDS COMPOSERS

I was sitting one day in a rehearsal for a Mormon choir that was to perform in Carnegie Hall. It was a large group, perhaps a hundred singers. During a break, one of the singers raised his hand and asked why we were not singing more music by LDS composers for the concert? Our program consisted of classical works, many of them in Latin. I think the question caught the conductor off his guard, and he replied, “Because there aren’t any good LDS composers.” This got a big laugh. Of course, he didn’t mean it; he is a composer himself, and a very good one at that. But it started me thinking. Was it accurate to say there are no good LDS composers? I didn’t think so, but the laugh response was so automatic that the majority must have recognized some truth in the statement. I wanted to rebut the comment, but a list of Mormon works as good as the Fauré Requiem (which we were rehearsing that day) didn’t spring readily to mind. The question festered over a period of months.

At an evening concert, a very fine concert pianist approached me. She was preparing her graduation recital at Juilliard, and she wished to program some work by an LDS composer. Did I know any, she asked.

The illustrious American pianist, Grant Johannesen, resided in my ward, and I happened to know that he had championed the works of a few Mormon composers including Arthur Shepherd and Leroy Robertson. I mentioned this to her and gave her his telephone number.

I went home and sat down to the computer. Surely there must be more composers who are LDS than I knew. I logged onto the New York Public Library website and typed the names of a few Mormon composers: Crawford Gates. Several matches came up; Robert Cundick. A few more. Murray Boren. Several more works. And I continued with as many names as I could recall.

That there were works by them in a New York City library surprised (and pleased) me, but what truly caught my attention was the description of the works themselves. Here were symphonies, operas, string quartets, concertos. Of course, I had heard none of these works. And so I proceeded. I requested a list of all Mormon composers from the Barlow Foundation, which is the most significant grant-giving organization to LDS composers. I received a listing of nearly 200 names. I typed their names in library search engines. Suddenly, many, many listings appeared—far more than I imagined I could find. Next, I went to Columbia University, to New York University, to Juilliard. Their catalogs listed many additional works and composers.

In talking with Grant Johannesen and other local composers about my findings, Mormon Artists Group determined to research music and publish a volume containing the results. Grant wrote a beautiful letter as an introduction, and Joanne Rowland assisted in research and the binding of the project. I had seen a painting by Lane Twitchell that I really admired, and I asked him if we could use it for our cover. He generously agreed. Brent Schumann was graduating from Cooper Union School of Art about then, and he kindly agreed to do the graphic design of the book and to oversee the cover printing.

All told, we ultimately found 200 works by Mormon composers, and in late 2002, we bound the book simply and distributed it free of charge to educators, performers, recording engineers, arts management personnel, and composers who are LDS around the country. For a free download of the 56-page book in PDF format, see the Musical Compositions by LDS Composers page.

MONA LISAS AND MAD HATTERS

Some time later, I was speaking to Lane Twitchell. I casually mentioned to him that I thought it would be fun to work with him sometime. Months later, I had a call from him. He had been wanting to explore limited edition prints. He had already made a very well regarded print with a leading New York art publisher, Solo Impressions. That print had a color image in the center which was framed with a laser-cut paper border. Now, Lane wished to explore laser cutting in more detail. For a new print, he wanted to have the image itself be laser cut, over the top of a second, colored and printed image. At the time, his paintings were elaborately cut papers that unfolded like a child’s snowflake and where mounted atop a painted surface. It seemed to us, that this print would give the same feeling as his paintings.

We located printers, paper distributors, laser cutters, and ultimately published together under the Mormon Artists Group Press imprint a suite of three prints entitled Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters. We also received invaluable assistance from Kent Larsen, Joanne Rowland, and especially, Jon Moe. (For full details of the prints including images and a prospectus, see mlandmh.com.) The prints were published in an edition of fifty, plus five artist’s proofs and five printer’s proofs. Again, we were pleased and gratified to see the prints enter into important public and private collections across the country, including the Corcoran Galley of Art in Washington, D.C. The prints have also be exhibited at prominent galleries in New York and Washington, D.C.

MORMONIANA

After the response to our publication, “Musical Compositions by LDS Composers in New York City Library Collections”, we decided to do a project that would give our local composers access to great performers and also to other composers in the country who are LDS.

I had an idea that each of a group of composers would select an artwork created by a Mormon painter, and then they would write a piano piece based on it. I thought we might call the work, “Mormon Pictures on Exhibition,” after the Mussorgsky masterpiece. Over lunch with Grant Johannesen, I mentioned the project and he immediately agreed to participate and to record the finished work.

At the time, I imagined that we’d have a dozen composers, each with a piece about two minutes long at the maximum. In consultation with others, we made a list of composers whom Mormon Artists Group could contact. They included composers in many different states, of different generations, and most importantly we believed, who are writing in very different styles. To our surprise, they said yes—sixteen composers. (They are Christian Asplund, Murray Boren, Todd Coleman, Robert Cundick, Lisa DeSpain, Nathan Fifield, David Fletcher, Crawford Gates, Gaylen Hatton, Jeff Manookian, Lansing D. McLoskey, Reid Nibley, Deon Nielsen Price, David H. Sargent, Rowan Taylor, and Royce Campbell Twitchell. The artists they selected are: Monte Anderson, Ray Andrus, Natasha Brien, Matthew Day, Thomas Epting, Alfred Lambourne, David Linn, Jon Moe, Stephen Moore, Peter Livingston Myer, Sallie Clinton Poet, Walter Rane, Bruce Hixson Smith, V. Douglas Snow, Lane Twitchell, William Weeks, and Leslie Williams.)

We scheduled deadlines several months in the future for the compositions to be completed. The composers selected paintings about which they had strong feelings. We secured permission from the artists to reproduce their works in a book, and we prepared to create a limited edition volume that would hold the score, a recording, and reproductions of the artworks.

One of the aspects of our previous projects that we all liked was the notion of collaboration across artistic genres. We liked having books with original artworks in them and having writers discuss music and such. So I approached Michael Hicks, whose book Mormonism and Music: A History I had greatly admired, to author an essay on the topic of Mormon music. I also told Valerie Atkisson about the project and asked whether she would be interested in creating a new work that could be printed and bound into the book as a frontispiece. Both agreed.

To some extent, all of that was the easy part. When the scores started to arrive, we realized how difficult the next steps would be. They were big, difficult, and sometimes long piano works. Still, Grant took to them immediately, and with the help of other Mormon Artists Group participants, we began to ready the project for publication. No one was more helpful than David Fletcher, who also wrote one of the compositions. He took the various works and edited them for printing. It was a laborious task that continued for several months.

The publication was printed by University Lithoprinters in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Coleman Studios in Orem, Utah, and Xtreme Edge embroiderers in St. George, Utah (the front cover features an image and title embroidered onto the silk bookcloth). We were also greatly assisted by the Museum of Church History and Art in Salt Lake City, Utah, by Robert Cundick, and by Ron Simpson of Tantara Records, who co-produced the recording with Mormon Artists Group. Mormoniana, as it came to be called, was to be published in the Spring of 2004.

MANHATTAN NEW YORK TEMPLE PORTFOLIO

All of our initial projects were based in New York, and the participating artists were New Yorkers. But as we went along, it only seemed natural to invite other artists to join in. Still, when the Manhattan New York Temple was announced, I immediately thought it would be great to ask New York artists to memorialize it somehow. The logical choice was a project of photographs. Since there are so many fine, commercial photographers here, I reached out to a number of them, and we soon had a group of six that were eager to tackle the idea.

When I say tackle, I mean to imply that the job was tough. The building is very tricky from an artists viewpoint. The building, as wonderful and spiritual and meaningful as it is, is simply a tough shoot. There are so many other buildings in the background. There’s traffic and advertising signage to deal with. My personal favorite disaster is the “Do Not Enter” sign planted directly in front of the temple doors at street level. What is a photographer to do?

I didn’t know what they would come up with; I simply knew that they would do something cool. Over a period of a year, we labored on the project. The building was dedicated without being completely finished, as I recall. Contractors were working on the facade for months afterward. By the time the photographers could get a crack at it, the leaves were gone from the trees. It was wintertime.

We decided to publish the project for the first anniversary of the dedication, in early summer. The images were by Natasha Layne Brien, who presented a dramatic, nightscape of the city with the temple in the foreground and the lights of Broadway in the distance; Matthew Day, whose daughter in the image holds a picture with a window cut in the center that reveals the statue of Moroni atop the temple; … MORE TO COME

Timeline of events
1999 - LDS Photographers in New York City Exhibition
2000 - Exquisite Corpse Exhibition and Charity Auction
2000 - Virtual Discussion Group
2001 - Handcart Ensemble Benefit
2001 - Lending Library established
2002 - Silent Notes Taken (limited edition)
2002 - Musical Compositions by LDS Composers
2003 - Silent Notes Taken (commercial edition)
2003 - Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters
2004 - Mormoniana (limited and commercial editions)
2005 - Manhattan New York Temple Portfolio
2005 - The Book of Visions
2005 - The Articles of Faith
2006 - Curses for Your Sake
2006 - Salt Water Jetty
2006 - Artists’ Christmas Cards (2006)
2006 - On the Road with Joseph Smith
Artists’ Christmas Cards 2007 - CC07