Journal
And Sometimes It Just Doesn't Work Out
Richard Bushman had a brilliant idea: "Let’s use the gorgeous St. Paul’s Chapel in New York," he said to me one day, "for a concert during the Mormon Arts Center Festival in June." He told me about their famous Aeolian Skinner organ, but he warned, “They don’t let just anybody play that instrument.” ...
A Teaching Blizzard
The emails began flying about 1:30 a.m. I was still awake. I had spent the previous couple of months fine-tuning a speech I was asked to give at the Mormon Arts Center Teaching Conference at the University of Utah in January ...
Gearing Up for the 2018 Festival
Behind the scenes, many people have been working on the plans for the 2018 Mormon Arts Center Festival. It is shaping up to be an amazing three days. The Festival will be held at the historic Italian Academy on the campus of Columbia University in New York City ...
After/Words
Immediately after the Festival, the participants, presenters, art, and artists went home. We organizers took a week or so to catch up on sleep. And then we went right back to work. We felt energized, and if anything, the positive feedback fueled our ambitions to develop additional ideas for the future ...
Unpacking the Festival
The Mormon Arts Center Festival ended Saturday afternoon, July 1, 2017. I don’t really know how best to describe the events of those four days (five, if you could the exhibition set up). Anybody who was there has their own impressions, so I can only speak ...
What Happened?
A year or two ago, a graduate student asked my wife Claudia how Exponent II, the Mormon women’s newspaper/magazine got started a little over forty years ago. Claudia was the first editor and there from the beginning, the right source of information ...
The Jewish Museum
When the Mormon Arts Center founders looked for precedents for their budding endeavor,
they often seized upon the Jewish Museum as one parallel. Though light years ahead of us in
size and scope, the Jewish Museum organizers were motivated by the desire to explore the
culture and art of a people rooted in a religion-- just as we were ...
The Festival Magazine
Every attendee at the Festival (June 29-July 1, 2017) will receive a free magazine. I’ve been putting the finishing touches on the maps, directions, restaurant listings, schedules of events, and information about what is happening ...
A Day in the Life
On Tuesday mornings, I set the alarm for 6:45 a.m. to remind me that at 7:00 a.m. our Finance Committee call begins. We use Dave Checketts’ conference call network because he is a member of the committee and has a number already set up for his business calls. Jeff Holt, chair of the finance committee, sets the agenda, but everyone pitches in.
Sing!
Of all the events of the Festival, the most fun might end up being the giant Sing-in led by the marvelous choral conductor Craig Jessop and accompanied by Bonnie Goodliffe. Have you ever sung in a 300-voice choir? It’s the sonic equivalent of driving a racecar with a 300-horsepower engine ...
The Here and Now
This morning, I woke up to a post by Wonderland magazine which, in connection with Tiffany & Co., published five short videos about the upcoming Whitney Biennial, an exhibition that has existed since 1932. The Biennial was according, to artist Miranda July “just American art and just about right now, a snap shot of this moment and time ..."