Journal
10 Works You Should Know: Maddie Blonquist
As the the Spiritual and Religious Curator at the BYU Museum of Art, Maddie Blonquist approaches her work with both familiarity and discovery.
She recently oversaw the creation of BYU MOA’s Earthbound and Heavenward, an exhibition organized around what Christian tradition often calls a “sacred distance”: the felt space between who we are and who we hope to become. Across more than five hundred years of art, Earthbound and Heavenward traces how artists have wrestled with that distance—and, just as often, how they have discovered heaven pressing close through ordinary gestures, domestic scenes, and quiet acts of attention.
10 Works You Should Know: Emily Larsen
As a devotee of all the different worlds of LDS art, past and present, it was hard to choose just 10 works. I limited myself to works in the Permanent Collection of the Springville Museum of Art, and it was still very difficult to narrow it down.
10 Works You Should Know: Jackie Leishman
Jackie Leishman is a modern marvel. Her large-scale, mixed media works can be found in exhibitions, publications, and major commissions.
About her list, Jackie says she came at it from a perspective of what images are shaping Latter-day Saint culture. “Things we have seen so many times that the image is almost truth, ideas we hold in which we set ourselves apart, and a history that we continually hold as present.”
The artist acknowledged that while some are beloved, others are even considered problematic by some. Nevertheless, it’s full of icons that are important to LDS canon.
Podcast transcription: Laura Allred Hurtado: Her Years at the Church History Museum
The former global acquisitions curator for the Church History Museum reflects on her tenure and influence on art in the Church with the aid of tributes written by artists and colleagues: Neylan McBaine, Walter Rane, Rose Datoc Dall, Alan Johnson, Valerie Atkisson de Moura, Annie Poon, Diane P. Stewart, Caitlin Connolly, and Jason Metcalf. Hurtado is the newly-named executive director of the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art.
Podcast transcription: Brontë Hebdon and the Church's Visual Culture
Glen Nelson: Hello and welcome to another episode in our podcast series. In the studio today we have Brontë Hebdon, a PhD student at the prestigious Institute of Fine Arts in New York City. The institute has produced many of the world's leading art historians, museum directors, curators, and conservators. It's a graduate program of New York University, and it is housed in the former Duke mansion on Fifth Avenue near the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Brontë is Marica and Jan Vilcek fellow, and her focus is art from the 19th century, from France, Georgian Britain, and fashion. She earned a BA degree in art history and curatorial studies at BYU in 2016 and a master's from the Institute of Fine Arts in 2018. So welcome Brontë. It's great to have you here. What an exciting adventure education you're having.