Payson Utah Temple art on display at Peteetneet Museum
Payson photographer Tausha Coates poses in front of her piece "Ready for the Harvest" during an artist opening reception at Peteetneet Museum and Cultural Arts Center on Friday.
"Like a Fire is Burning," Tausha Coates, photography screened on canvas
"The Protector," Dave Merrill, oil on canvas (2005)
Tausha Coates (far right) visits with art patrons during the "Payson Temple and Area Art" show opening reception at Peteetneet Museum and Cultural Arts Center on Friday.
Art by Kirk Richards, mixed media on canvas.
Tausha Coates (far right) visits with art patrons during the "Payson Temple and Area Art" show opening reception at Peteetneet Museum and Cultural Arts Center on Friday.
Payson Utah Temple photographs and local area art lines the walls at Peteetneet Museum and Cultural Arts Center in Payson, sharing views capturing the seasons and sunsets of southern Utah County.
Featured Payson artist Tausha Coates presents a photograph series depicting landscapes surrounding the 146th operating temple for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Kirk Richards and Elk Ridge City-based painter Dave Merrill round out the exhibit with religious, realism and abstract art pieces.
“I’ve just enjoyed seeing the temple in all its seasons. Not only the seasons of the year, but I’ve captured the seasons of the temple,” Coates said
In a project she began in 2014, Coates shot more than 100 photos for each finished image. The centerpiece to her finished collection, “Ready for the Harvest” merges two photos shot in summer and autumn last year.
The main image was taken from a fall shot, which originally had an empty blue sky. Coates added in the colored clouds and vibrant summer sunset from a June photograph when the temple was covered with construction scaffolding.
Living two blocks from the Payson temple, the mother of four children identifies unique lighting opportunities with the support of her husband, Brigham.
“When I see a really cool sky or the lighting is just right I can just say, ‘Bye, Brigham, watch the kids. I’m just going to hop out and grab some shots,’ ” Coates said.
The Payson resident has toured the temple four times during its open house schedule and points out her favorite decorative feature of the structure — the stained-glass windows.
“Looking at them from the outside for so long, and they’re absolutely stunning,” she said, “but to see them from the inside with the sun shining through was just a whole new world — like in the Celestial Room.”
Two other featured local artists present works with familiar settings paying tribute to the Western heritage in Utah County and also depict spiritual messages.
Brigham Young University graduate Dave Merrill has been painting for more than 20 years now. His large masterwork, “The Protector,” shows a father bull and a baby calf lying together amid an abstract colored background.
He said he attempts limiting an imposed dialogue in his works, and welcomes the viewer to derive meaning from his paintings.
“The more dialogue that the artist has to create for the painting to have meaning, to me that becomes meaningless,” Merrill said. “If the dialogue is created by the viewers and the artist is transparent and lets that dialogue take place with the viewers, then there can be an interaction.”
Much of Merrill’s art pieces include animal figures, which he said serve as metaphors for feelings, experiences and larger ideas. “The Protector” presents several contrasts relating to security or power and innocence or purity.
“I love pushing the color together, and I love doing it around a theme that means something to me. Like these animals that have that family feeling or that feeling of power,” Merrill said.
The art show was especially curated to coincide with the dedication of the Payson temple, which is scheduled for June 7 and will be dedicated in three sessions at 10 a.m., 1 and 4 p.m., according to the LDS Church website. The dedication will be broadcast to stakes within the Payson Utah Temple District and the regularly scheduled three-hour block meetings will be canceled so church members can participate in the historic event.
“This is the perfect art show for this time. It’s never going to happen again. It’s a memoir of the Payson temple,” Merrill said.
PAYSON TEMPLE AND AREA ART EXHIBITION
Where: Peteetneet Museum and Cultural Arts Center, 10 N. 600 East, Payson
When: Through June 30, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday
Tickets: Free admission
Info: (801) 465-5265, peteetneetmuseum.org
More: ldstemple.pics/photographer/tausha-coates, davemerrillart.com