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How a small BYU group redefined Mormon art in the ’60s

By Sarah Harris daily Herald - | Jun 28, 2018
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Trevor Jack Thomas Southey's "Brother's Keeper" is part of the Springville Museum of Art's "Beginnings: The Mormon Art and Belief Movement" exhibition.

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Dale Thompson Fletcher's "Another Tree House" is part of the Springville Museum of Art's "Beginnings: The Mormon Art and Belief Movement" exhibition. Fletcher often used tree houses in his work as a metaphor for God and his all-seeing perspective, according to curator Emily Larsen Boothe.

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Gary Ernest Smith's "Innocent Blood which Crieth from the Ground Against Them" is part of the Springville Museum of Art's "Beginnings: The Mormon Art and Belief Movement" exhibition.

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Dennis Smith's "Boy Diving Through Moss" is part of the Springville Museum of Art's "Beginnings: The Mormon Art and Belief Movement" exhibition. The piece is a metaphorical symbol of the feeling of transition into and out of Earth life, according to Smith.

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Artist Dennis Smith of the Mormon Art and Belief Movement.

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Artist Trevor Southey of the Mormon Art and Belief Movement.

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Artist Dale Fletcher of the Mormon Art and Belief Movement.

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Artist Gary Smith of the Mormon Art and Belief Movement.

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Artists of the Mormon Art and Belief Movement with their wives.

About 50 years ago, three young students and one art professor at Brigham Young University met to discuss a new vision for Mormon art.

Little did they know this discussion would ignite a spark that would spread like wildfire across the BYU campus to become what is now known as the Mormon Art and Belief Movement.

This movement is the subject of a new exhibition at the Springville Museum of Art titled “Beginnings,” which explores these artists’ ideas and work in the 1960s-’70s and how they affected future art in the Utah and LDS arts communities.

“This will just be a picture of a historical moment that had great influence, and we want to recognize that, honor that importance in especially our religious art traditions here and just reintroduce it, so that we get visitors and artists rethinking their own sense of belief, whatever it is, and how they explore that in their creation,” museum director Rita Wright said.

Curator Emily Larsen Boothe said the discussion in this group — which included students Dennis Smith, Gary Ernest Smith and Trevor Southey as well as professor Dale Fletcher — centered on questions like, “What is Mormon art?” and how they could use their artistic talents to build the kingdom of God.

“It was very philosophical and it was very serious,” Boothe said. “They were really seriously questioning how to visualize Mormon doctrine and how to personally express their beliefs and to really make great art, great Mormon art, and for it not to just be illustration but to be really deep and complex.”

Artist Dennis Smith remembers becoming closely knitted with this group as they talked about how they could relate their work to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Mormon doctrine.

“It’s just natural when you’re starting to figure out what you want your art to do that you start thinking about the roots of your own philosophies, and of course part of that philosophy for all of us was, ‘What do I believe? What do I believe about where we come from, where we’re going?’ — the typical Mormon questions that missionaries use and that we used ourselves as missionaries,” Dennis Smith told the Daily Herald.

As the artists began coming up with their own answers to these questions and expressing them in their work, the movement took root at BYU and spread to other departments, including the school’s theater and music programs, as well as other artists, such as poet Carol Lynn Pearson, according to Boothe.

“A lot of people just got really excited about these questions, and I think these artists that started this movement have become huge, important leaders of art in the state,” Boothe said. “Trevor Southey has been influential to hundreds of artists, as well as Dennis Smith and Gary Ernest Smith. … You can really see them as respected mentors of so many artists in the state in Mormonism and also not in Mormonism.”

Dennis Smith said the movement, which derives its name from a show they titled “Art and Belief,” affected him “enormously” in setting the course for his future work. Several of his sculptures now reside in the Monument to Women Memorial Garden in Nauvoo, Illinois, one of which — a figure of a child walking from its mother to its father — was recast and redesigned for the Provo City Center Temple grounds.

“It became … the taproot of my own visions, my own feelings of what I believe,” Dennis Smith said of the movement. “I’ve fused my whole life around it.”

Boothe said a common theme in the artworks from the Mormon Art and Belief Movement is a value of personal expression, which she said “was of the utmost importance.”

“They each have distinct styles, but they all were really interested in being very true to themselves and their own personal belief and expressing that and figuring out how to express that and really encouraging each other to do that,” Boothe said. “This privileging of personal expression I think is the main characteristic and the driving force behind a lot of what they were doing.”

Wright and Boothe said they originally wanted to do a comprehensive exhibition on this movement, but they settled for a highlights show focused on the beginnings of the movement — the inspiration for the exhibition’s title — after realizing they wouldn’t be able to do all the necessary research and writing for a full scholarly treatment of the movement with their small staff and time frame.

“Our goal right now was to talk to a lot of these artists and gather more of the research material,” Boothe said. “We’ve done some interviews with several of the artists that we’ve transcribed and are going to be in our research library, and then we wanted to just put up some of this art that’s in our collection by these artists and include a lot of their perspective of how they saw the beginnings of the movement, what they saw as the real driving force behind the movement and share their recollections.”

Wright said she hopes the exhibition will kindle a renewal of interest in the movement and the contributions of the artists involved to encourage more research on the subject in the future.

“Several of those earliest members have passed away, Dale Fletcher and Trever Southey, and so we just want to be able to capture some of those ideas, some of people’s remembrances, (so) that from here on, we can have that available … that that material will be there for further study and discussion,” Wright said.

Boothe said she sees this exhibition on the Mormon Art and Belief Movement as particularly influential and relevant for today’s Mormon artists, especially those with Utah or BYU ties, as many still grapple with the issues the artists behind the movement did.

“They’re trying to figure out where they fit in the Mormon church as an artist and how they can best make Mormon art and what Mormon art should be,” Boothe said. “I think it’s interesting to see the parallels, that even 50 years ago, the questions are still the same, the conversations are very much the same, and I don’t know if anyone’s ever really come to a good conclusion, but it still seems really, really important to artists who Mormonism is important to them.”

Dennis Smith said he hopes those who visit the new exhibition will be inspired by the art there and that the works will add to their experience.

“I hope … the things that I feel will be in addition to the things other people have and broaden other people’s perspective, both aesthetically and doctrinally, toward a broader understanding of what this crazy life is all about,” Dennis Smith said.

BEGINNINGS: THE MORMON ART AND BELIEF MOVEMENT

What: An art exhibition exploring the beginning of the Mormon Art and Belief Movement at Brigham Young University in the 1960s and ’70s.

Where: Springville Museum of Art, 126 E. 400 South, Springville

When: Now through Feb. 16, 2019. Museum hours are Tuesday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended hours Wednesdays through 9 p.m.

Info: (801) 489-2727, smofa.org

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