Mormon Arts Center's Studio Podcast

2020 marks three historic milestones surrounding women and voting rights. In her new book, Pioneering the Vote: The Untold Story of Suffragists in Utah and the West, author Neylan McBaine narrates this extraordinary history through the eyes of the women of the West, who were the first to vote in the nation. In this podcast interview, McBaine describes the complex relationships of polygamy, politics, and suffragists, and how local Relief Societies in remote Utah towns united to secure the right to vote against tremendous opposition. Most surprisingly, these are stories are almost entirely unknown until now. Music in the episode is an anthem of women's suffrage, written in 1910 by Ethel Smyth and Cicely Hamilton, "The March of the Women."Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

Although he was born with a physical condition requiring prosthetic legs and braces to walk, John Williamson was a high-functioning professional with a long career in the technology industry until five years ago, when his body began to break down, making employment impossible. In this interview, Williamson describes how he discovered artmaking late in life, how it became therapy for him after his new circumstances in a motorized wheelchair shook him to his core and robbed him of his identity and connection to society. He is a winner of the Center’s Art for Uncertain Times competition, and his image, Walking with Faith and Hope is part of a body of work that is a meditation on mobility, meaning, and visibility. Music in the episode is another Art for Uncertain Times winner, Wait on the Lord, or The Plaguel Cadence, by Harriet Petherick Bushman.Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

Two-time Emmy nominated writer James Best talks in this episode about his new one-act play, The Last Lake, which was a winner of the Art for Uncertain Times grant program of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts. In addition to a discussion about the two-character play, presented in Zoom performances last week, and his upcoming projects, the writer describes his varied career in television, stage, and print, as well as advocacy work and civil disobedience for causes including #NoKidsInCages.Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

Poet Susan Howe in Ephraim, Utah talks about the disruption of her writing practice that typically involves peers gathering together. She notes the lag time and emotional distance required for a personal experience to enter into her work without sentimentality, and she quotes a meaningful refrain by T. S. Eliot that has brought her comfort during the pandemic. Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

Painter Samuel Evensen in New York, New York is recovering from COVID-19 symptoms that have forced him into quarantine and attacked his body. A painter whose subject is the body, Evensen discusses the Spanish Flu epidemic, HIV/AIDS, and other global health crises and how artists such as Hyman Bloom and Egon Schiele chose to engage in the figure. His poignant advice for artists ends the episode. The music for all four segments is by Deon Nielsen Price. Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

In this special episode recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, four artists discuss their current life and work. Each answers the same four questions: What is it like to make your art right now?; How does this pandemic affect content?; Are there works from the past, written in similar times or about similar challenges that are meaningful to you?; and What advice might you have for an artist in quarantine?Playwright Javen Tanner in Sandy, Utah discusses his difficulties of focusing on creative work during the pandemic. He muses on Shakespeare and Chekhov, and he has a hearty laugh about a preacher named T. White circa 1577 who blamed the theater for the Bubonic plague, “…the cause of plagues is sin and the cause of sin are plays, it follows that the cause of plagues are plays.” Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

Composer Deon Nielsen Price in San Francisco, California talks about her distinguished career writing music that is socially relevant including works about the Watts Riots and Vietnam. She finds comfort in poetry written by Japanese Americans imprisoned in internment camps during WWII, and she describes how her composer heroes Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Messiaen, and Cowell all used their periods of isolation or imprisonment to formulate the musical philosophies that they would employ the rest of their lives. Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

American composer of jazz, musical theater, concert, and choral music, Lisa DeSpain has not one, not two, but three operas in late-stage development—all winners of important commissions and grants. In this interview peppered with excerpts from the operas and with DeSpain breaking into song as she describes the compositions, the topic at hand is how an artist juggles different projects, collaborators, producers, and publishers at the same time. The three operas discussed in the podcast are: That Hell-bound Train, Staggerwing, and No Ladies in the Lady’s Book.  Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

In this episode, scientist and novelist Steven L. Peck discusses his newest novel, The Tragedy of King Leere, Goatherd of the La Sals. The book updates the Shakespearean tragedy to the near future, specifically, after a global climate change disaster. At turns funny, tragic, and frightening, the novel--and the interview--wrestle with the truths to be found in art as well as science.Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

Painter Kent Christensen's Secrets of the Great Salt Lake is a virtuosic piece of visual satire representing early Utah history. Brigham Young rides a dinosaur in the lake while two trains bringing Jell-O, Snelgrove's ice cream, donuts, and toxic waste meet at Promontory Point for the driving of the Golden Spike. The state's animals frolic among recognizable tourist landmarks even while their existence is imperiled by climate change. Derived, in part, by Bosch's masterpiece, The Garden of Earthly Delights, Christensen's most complex painting yet is the topic of this episode along with a discussion of the purpose of satire, the relationships of illustration and fine art, and how a project that has taken 500 hours to create started.Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

"Beleaguered but buoyant parents of five children between the ages of 6 and 16," as The New York Times described Erik and Emily Orton, "hadn’t even plotted an itinerary when they bought a 38-foot catamaran (sight unseen), flew to a Caribbean harbor and set sail on a Swiss-Family-Robinson-style adventure." The resulting adventure was only the beginning. In this episode, the authors of Seven at Sea: Why a New York City Family Cast Off Convention for a Life-Changing Year on a Sailboat, describe the writing of the book and the lessons their experience continues to teach them as parents and dreamers.Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

Music from Bali is the subject of this podcast interview, with Jeremy Grimshaw, who brought the traditional percussion ensemble of gamelan to Brigham Young University. The nature of gamelan is communal music-making, and Grimshaw discusses the history and culture of Bali, his experiences there, and how a new community of gamelan has grown in Utah.Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

The Center for Latter-day Saint Arts provides a weekly Art Companion for the gospel study curriculum, Come, Follow Me. This was the idea of Jennifer Wilcox who explores, in this podcast episode, how the project came to be, how she uses art in her church teaching, how she commissions new art for her students, and ultimately how the home is the perfect classroom and art space.Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

Artist Brian Kershisnik discusses a new monograph of his art work, Looking for Something: Selected Paintings, published Unicorn Publishing Group (London) and discusses how growing up in Angola, Thailand, and Pakistan has informed his worldview and affected his body of questioning, joyful, vibrant art.Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

Assemblage artist Page Turner talks about how the sisterhood of church women in her hollow near Roanoke, Virginia, inspire her work, which has recently been included in 50 Women Contemporary Women Artists, alongside some of the most important artists working today.Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

Emmy-award winning producer Angie Denison takes listeners behind the scenes of two recent KSL documentaries: Amish Latter-day Saints and the story of a kidnapped boy from India who finds his family again in adulthood.Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

On the day of the premiere of his Easter oratorio, To a Village Called Emmaus, composer Ethan Wickman previews the work with excerpts and behind-the-scenes insights into its creation. The oratorio was commissioned by the American Festival Chorus and Orchestra and conducted by Craig Jessop. Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

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.Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

Starring on Broadway at the age of 11, Tade Biesinger played the title role in Billy Elliot the Musical and reprised the part in London and St. Louis. The experience left a strong impression on him but not in a way you'd expect; he learned at this tender age why he needed God in his life. This podcast episode was recorded three months before his departure as a full-time missionary.Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)

In an unlikely space in an unlikely place, Brad Kramer has achieved in four years something that many thought impossible: open a fine art gallery tailored to the contemporary art of Latter-day Saints. In the process, he has invited a highly diverse group of people into an exciting new community of thinkers and makers. With musical excerpts from Todd Coleman's Sonatina for piano.Support the show (https://www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org/donate)