Amelia Murdock is an exquisite painter and horse lover. She studied illustration at BYU and continued her studies at The Water Street Atelier at The Grand Central Academy of Art for two years. Her work, “shows the delicate bewitching quality of the horse and it’s landscape through her artwork.” Murdock lives with her family in Chicago, Illinois.

Tell us about your evolution as an artist. Copying Rockwell and J.C. Leyendecker paintings from books as a child in my mom’s art studio had a huge impact on the beginnings of my artistic evolution. Growing up in the country, riding horses daily, being homeschooled are also major influences in where I am now as an artist. Sketching my horse and friend’s horses was a favorite past time as a teenager. I knew I wanted to paint and draw in a representation style after years of absorbing masters from Michelangelo, to Rembrandt, and the Golden Age illustrators. Looking at the art programs at universities I quickly realized that illustration was the only place remotely similar to what I wanted. It was where I saw people actually drawing things that looked like real things. I loved my time in the illustration program at BYU, but soon found out the Atelier programs popping up throughout the world. My experience at the Grand Central Atelier in New York City was life changing. I realized I could be a “real artist” and I didn’t have to be an illustrator to create images that resonated with people the way I wanted. I learned how to draw. I learned how to paint. I learned how to work. I learned crucial technique. But the school did not teach us WHAT to paint only, HOW to paint it. I didn’t learn how to create “art”.

I floundered around for a few years after art school trying to figure out what I really wanted to paint. I tried painting what everyone else was painting after art school. I felt I was just a worse version of my teacher. I tried going back to illustration. This didn’t allow for the time I needed to create my work or the subtle, fine art feeling I loved. I tried doing more religious art. I found (as many told me) that multi-figural historical paintings are incredibly difficult, costly and time consuming. Throughout this period I was always drawing horses in my spare time but didn’t consider it fine art. Finally, after going back and forth and feeling rather frustrated, someone asked me— If you could paint for only one more year and then your talent was taken away, what would you paint? Of course I thought of the elegant equine, my love and passion I have for them while I’m painting and drawing. I’ve since focused my art on horses and their landscape.

You once wrote, “I love depicting the noble equine.” I was born in the horse country of Kentucky and love your subject matter. Tell us about this focus in your career. I grew up a horse crazy girl. While friends had dates on the weekends, I had horse shows and trail rides. I actually paid for my entire art education by buying young, untrained ponies and horses, then training them to ride and selling them. And of course I was drawing them the entire time. I bought a big black Thoroughbred racehorse named Lexus when I was 14 and trained him to be my competition horse. He was a bit wild, sensitive and quite a complicated horse to ride. I spent many patient and sometimes frustrating hours of training on him. He turned out to be a fabulous jumper and we became a really great team. But, in the end he taught me so much more then I taught him. The relationship I had with him during my turbulent teenage years did so much for my soul and personal growth, and later my art career. Years later, while painting a figure with one of my favorite art teachers, he happened to see a finished equine drawing I had. It was the first work I had done that really made him take a second look. He said “Your equine work is unique because you capture the true essence of the horse. You just know horses. If I had painted this horse, it would be lacking because I couldn’t capture the essence.” This had a big impact on me. Why am I trying to paint far off lands, from a different time that I don’t know, when I could paint what I do know right in my backyard. And let me tell you people responded. The response I have had to my equine work is amazing. People can truly feel that I know horses and their spirit. I also think people respond to my classical technique and background being applied to the horse, which I haven’t seen very often.

As I have focused on the horse in my work, I have come to realize that horses hold a unique place in our world. People have a huge pull towards horses. Yet, horses do not worship you like a dog does. Neither are they aloof like the cat. They are much more to us as humans then other livestock like pigs or cows. They are the only animals that truly mirror our own emotions. A relationship with a horse is like none other. Trust must be there. A horse will always remember (and won’t so easily forgive) a misdeed as a dog will. This is one reason equine therapy is so successful when trying to teach youth and adults about relationships and emotions. They will tell you when you are wrong, and you will know when you have done it right. They feel your anxiety, your happiness, your fear. This interests me so much. I hope to be able to depict the equine with this sort of relationship to the viewer. Seeking to capture this essence of the equine is something I can keep doing in my art for a very long time.

What do you think about the Church and its relationship to art? What would you like to see in the coming years? I envision the Church being a place where people can find a solace from the world’s view of art. I think the Church is the one place where art can unabashedly be about bringing the spirit of God into people’s lives. There’s no other purpose for it in this setting. Anything that doesn’t do that shouldn’t be held up. I don’t think it should be riding the coat tails of the world’s view of art. The church has the opportunity to reject the modern art world’s view of shocking, degrading, and intellectually meaningless art. My hope is that the Church leadership would provide a springboard for the small yet significant classical realism renaissance that is happening throughout the art world. Hopefully, with the leadership of the Church’s support we can see religious art on a level above what we have been seeing. Both technically and intellectually. Michelangelo never would have been Michelangelo without the Catholic Church’s patronage and recognition.

What is your career like these days? Ah, well I am working on my Magnum Opus for the majority of my time. My 3-year-old daughter and my 7-month-old baby girl. But, with my spare time, I am currently working on a few major commissions, both landscape and equine that should take up the rest of next year. I’ve pulled my work out of the small galleries I was represented in as I just don’t have the time to produce for them what I need along with commissions and anything else I feel prompted to paint. I mainly garner commissions through word of mouth and sell work regularly online. I will be taking a few trips next year to Ocala, Florida (horse capital of the world in the winter) for commissions and my own new project and a few other major horse locations. I’m really excited and happy with where my career is and where it is going. My time is limited, so it is moving a bit slower because of my two precious babies, but that’s ok. I have the rest of my life and all of eternity to master painting the noble equine.

Visit Amelia Murdock’s website.

Follow Amelia Murdock on Instagram.

Harry Anderson‘s artwork is canonized within the LDS Church. His paintings can be found in manuals, books, websites, and in the homes of members. His prints are found hanging in church buildings, literally, around the world. What most members do not know is that Harry Anderson was never a member of the Church and was a proud Seventh-day Adventist.

Anderson was first hired to create paintings for the Church’s pavilion at the World’s Fair. He accepted many more commissions to create paintings for the Church and the Church uses this same art, well, religiously. You can see from the image search on LDS.org just how many of the standard prints used in the Church were commissions of Harry Anderson including the famous The Second Coming.

Robert T. Barrett and Susan Easton Black wrote an excellent history of Anderson including this interesting exchange involving wings. “When Anderson was counseled to paint angels with no wings, he complied but never missed an occasion to attempt to convert Church leaders to the correctness of his personal biblical interpretation. Artist Bill Whittaker remembers being amused at the doctrinal bantering Anderson enjoyed with Gordon B. Hinckley.”

Jim Pinkoski has been documenting the art of Harry Anderson for decades and met the artist shortly before Anderson’s death in 1996. His labor of love can be found at www.harryandersonart.com. Anderson was as prolific an illustrator as Norman Rockwell and I find his non-LDS religious art fascinating. The first time I saw the images I said to myself, ‘Wait, that’s our Jesus.” Pinkoski was kind enough to answer a few questions about Anderson.

What attracted you so much to Anderson’s artwork? When I was 34 in 1984 I attended a 5-week Revelation Seminar being done by the Seventh-day Adventists, and two things amazed me: first, their ability to be able to explain the Bible from cover-to-cover in a way that far surpassed any other church’s explanations, and the nightly slide show included lots of Harry Anderson’s amazing art that I had never seen before!

Explain why Anderson only painted Christ or Bible stories for the Mormon church. Harry has done about 300 paintings for the Adventist church, which he had joined in 1944 — in the late 1960’s and 1970’s when he agreed to paint 20 or so pictures for the Mormon church, he stipulated that they would only be scenes from the Bible. When Harry became an SDA, he did so by understanding why he was not joining other churches… he was not going to be a Baptist, or a Catholic, or an Episcopal, or a Jehovah’s Witness, or a New Ager, or a Pentecostal or a Methodist — he could only belong to a church that held to what he understood to be the correct doctrines of Scripture, as he came to understand them. If even one doctrine was off, then belonging to and/or supporting that denomination was not possible. And he could not in good faith use his talents that God had given him to promote anything that he disagreed with — in his commercial work he refused doing ads for alcohol or cigarettes, and when it came to doing his religious art he could not illustrate the extra-biblical scenes from the Book of Mormon.

Is Harry Anderson held in the same regard with the Seventh-day Adventist church? Oh yes, Harry was held in very high regard within the SDA church during the 1940-1970 time period. With the passage of time and Harry’s death in 1996, fewer and fewer people know about him and unfortunately today his impact upon today’s Adventists has lessened — lots of newer SDA artists like Nathan Greene and Lars Justinen have taken over illustrating our books and publications.

What is your favorite religious painting by Harry Anderson? It would have to be What happened to Your Hand? (shown at the top of this post) which was Harry’s very first painting of Jesus.

What’s your favorite story about Harry Anderson? I have three: First, I really admire how he responded to hearing about the Lord from a humble Adventist man who came to their house in 1944 to do chores for them, and Harry and his wife became SDAs; second, how Harry was willing to do 300+ paintings for the Lord while taking far less than his normal salary, even though it put his family in a tight financial spot for many years; third, in his later years when Harry had his stroke and was laying in a hospital bed paralyzed and they prayed that the Lord either heal him or take him, he was healed (which made it possible for me to actually meet him in 1986)! When Harry’s family was faced with a huge hospital bill that was impossible to pay, the Lord arranged that Harry sold two of his paintings that covered the needed amount. Praise the Lord!

Visit the Harry Anderson website.

*We are re-posting some of our more popular posts from 2015. 

Ali Cavanaugh has a new series of watercolors on clay panels called Immerse (first three images). Although we typically profile Mormon artists we are going to make an exception for the fantastic Cavanaugh who I would call an honorary Mormon artist. She received a BFA from Kendall College of Art and Design and during her years in Santa Fe developed her modern fresco process on kaolin clay. Cavanaugh’s  paintings have been featured in the Huffington Post, Fine Art Connoisseur, Hi-Fructose, The New York Times Magazine, and American Artist Watercolor. Cavanaugh is Catholic and lives in St. Louis, Missouri with her husband and four children.

Tell us about your background and your art. It was midway through art school (the early 1990s) when I started longing for a baby, for a family of my own. My mom and I were abandoned by my drug addicted father and I knew without a doubt that having a baby was going to be the experience that brought healing and closure to the black hole that was deep in my core. I met my husband, we fell in love, got married, and 3 days after college graduation I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Neve. There are no words to describe that profound experience of holding your first born. I soon discovered that this whole new world of ‘my little family’ was everything I dreamed it would be. The unconditional love that I experienced from my baby and husband set my heart on fire. The artist in me wanted to make my baby’s entire existence a work of art. I cherished every minute of her life as something so special unique, mindful that every moment was unrepeatable. I relished in the idyllic world that I had created and that I could re-experience my childhood vicariously through her. My first painting of Neve was when she was still in utero in 1994. Although I did paint a few pieces of her during those early years, it wasn’t until she was about five that she became an integral part of my art. As she grew I began to be inspired by more than just our mother daughter bond. I discovered that she was an incredible model. The unexpected compositions that she would come up with while modeling inspired me like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Almost every time I looked at her I would visualize a perfect painting. I found that she was an inexhaustible subject and I became obsessed with painting her. As she approached 17 yrs old I knew that our relationship was going to change. I knew that my art was going to change, that a season of my life was coming to an end. I knew that she’d be moving out, going to college, and starting a life of her own. I have to be honest, when Neve did move out and started college I felt like one of my limbs had been torn from my body. Over time I healed and adjusted to the change.

Explain your series Immerse. I took time off in 2014 to step back and evaluate my work and the era that I felt was coming to an end. My new baby, Saoirse, just turned two years old. This is one of my favorite ages of children because it is when the baby starts to become a person. They grow more animated as their language develops and their physical mannerisms become more adult-like. In February of 2015 I painted my first painting of Saoirse and instantly fell in love with her as my muse. Her expression is open and honest. The innocence, the energy, the whole dynamic was a huge shift from my previous eight years of work of mostly young teen women with inward, private emotion. This spring my watercolor technique rapidly changed as I responded to the presence of a younger person in my paintings. I limited my palette to blues and greens to reflect a dream state. I began pouring and dripping watercolors instead of controlling each paint stroke with tiny brushes. My approach previously was that I took my idea and then painted every square inch with perfection and control. With these new works, I let the waterfall and move and dry and then it speaks to me. I then respond by laying down more color. The painting and I go back and forth as if we are in conversation. My new approach is to allow space for surprises. I have become forgiving in my process so that I can leave unexpected mishaps in the final painting. I have the freedom and skill to develop areas where I intend for the emotion to be more direct, while I embrace the imperfections left by the spontaneous creative process.

What are you working on next? I have my first museum show at the Ellen Noel Art Museum in Odessa, Texas scheduled for spring of 2017. I will be spending the majority of 2016 working on that exhibition. I have several portrait commissions in my studio that will get wrapped up over the next few months. I also have a series of paintings of a beautiful little 3 year old that have been praying for that has Pulmonary Vein Stenosis among other things. He fights everyday for his life. He is a living saint and his story moves me deeply, so I have to paint him. I will have that show locally in our small town probably sometime in 2016.

Visit Ali Cavanaugh’s website.

Follow Ali Cavanaugh on Instagram.

Louise Parker is a talented South African painter incorporating African designs, colors, and themes with gospel stories and characters. She recently moved from Port Elizabeth, a small coastal town, to Johannesburg. She and her husband have three daughters. Her painting  African Proverb VI (Iron Rod), shown above, and others below display that marriage between the gospel and her native land.

 

This week we are re-posting some of the more popular posts from 2015.

One Sunday I was walking the halls of the building during sacrament meeting with an unruly two year-old. My daughter and I would study the paintings and I would have her point out people or animals. As we looked at the Sermon on the Mount I was reminded of the child and butterfly (left side) I have noticed before and always felt was so out of place. When I later searched online I came across an excellent article by Patrick Werick.

Patrick Werick does digital-image restoration and retouching for the website Restored Traditions. He posted in the past about Carl Bloch, that butterfly, and the curious children hiding in many of the paintings. I wanted to republish his post here as Carl Bloch has become such an iconic artist in Mormondom (though Bloch was not Mormon).

Guest Post: Patrick Werick

It’s fun to get to know the personality of the artist through the greatest legacy he left behind. No, Carl Bloch didn’t write a nifty blog—he spoke through his paintings. It’s fascinating to get to know a person solely through their art.

So what have we learned about our new friend Carl? He loved sneaking random children into his paintings that express some of the greatest stories of Catholicism. It’s not something you notice right away, and it’s not something he did in every painting, but there are certainly enough of his artworks where children show up—usually appearing around 10-years old. What’s even more cool is that they’re usually the only ones looking right at the viewer’s eyes, shoes or shoulders.

Carl Bloch had eight children whom he dearly loved. His friend, Hans Christian Andersen also saw the simplicity of a child in Bloch’s very personality and wrote about the same. So let’s do a survey of some of these children that show up in his paintings. Perhaps the children were even modeled off his own children.

In Christ the Consolator, Christ outsretches his arms to embrace mankind. Jesus is surrounded by suffering souls who are looking all over the place, and we see the only person looking at the camera (ahem, viewer) is a child with a doubtful look on his face. It almost looks like a hand-caught-in-the-cookie jar look. But that’s just our take.

The painting of Christ Cleansing the Temple shows a crop of terrified merchants running for their lives as Jesus gives them the boot from the temple. The frightened looking child is lost in the chaos of the moment while all are fleeing. He appears to have a rag over his arm, so maybe he’s the sandal shiner boy, or perhaps a child of one of the merchants.

In Come Unto Me, it appears to be a little girl looking at the viewer this time around. So far, it appears to be a boy in all the other images. Once again, as in the case of Christ the Consolator, everyone is looking in different places and worrying about their troubles. Only the child stares at you with a slightly somber look as if to say: “it’s ok, be simple like me and you’ll get to heaven.”

While Christ Heals the Blind Man on the road to Jericho, we get to see a variety of characters; once again with all different expressions and moods (read our blog post about these personalities). Though it’s easy to infer a lot of different moods in this painting, one of the most obscure characters is the grinning child we see being held back by his dad. He’s probably giggling, because it looks like his distracted brother is playing with his hair (parents, you know the drill). One can imagine the father whispering to his child: “Sshhh, son. Our Lord is tied up doing a miracle right now. We probably won’t get a chance to see this again; you know how the people always crowd Him, and it’s hard to get a good spot.”

Once again, while Christ Heals the Paralytic at the Bethesda Pool, a sole and obscure child is one of two looking at the viewer. This time, the child is with his mother (lady holding the water pot) and possibly his grandma (directly above child) who, interestingly enough, is also staring at the viewer as well. The old woman behind the child is smiling this time, while the child has a dazed look on his face that’s either oblivious to the miracle going on or still trying to figure out what’s happening on their daily water run.

This time around, it’s a little more difficult to spot our staring child in the painting Christ and the Children. The most obvious child in the detail above is intently looking at Jesus, while a tiny half face and eye (rest hidden in a shadow) appears to be looking at your shoes. Perhaps, in this case, he’s simply waiting his turn to receive a blessing from Christ. Isn’t that life? We spend half of it waiting in lines.

It’s pretty hard to miss the child in Christ and the Small Child. Our Lord embraces and emphasizes the olive-branch holding boy who appears to be looking at your right shoulder this time around (coffee stain on your shirt maybe?). Certainly the emphasis on the child is that you need to be simple like him to gain the kingdom of heaven. The olive branch, on the other hand, traditionally symbolizes Christ’s victory over death.

We almost missed this child while wading through Carl Bloch’s art, but there the hidden boy is (almost as hidden as the one in Christ and the Children). While Jesus Christ is Raising Lazarus from the Dead (see a shadowed Lazarus ambulating out of the tomb?),  we catch a glimpse once again of a shadowy face and single eye staring at your eye. It’s hard to tell, but the boy looks a little frightened this time. It’s not that surprising, considering the crowd has gathered at the local graveyard, which is probably not the place the boy usually goes to play. However, what’s possibly more terrifying (and incredible) is to hear and see Lazarus walking out of the tomb after you probably saw him cold and dead at the wake a few days previous.

Once again, it’s very difficult to miss the child in the painting where Jesus is Found in the Temple. This time, though, he’s not looking at your shoes or eyes but at the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph. In this painting, Bloch wants us to focus and imagine the expressions of the two as they see their twelve-year-old son Jesus after searching Jerusalem for three days. Judging by the look on the boy’s face, he appears to be sad, surprised and empathetic after seeing their joy and tears—something we can use for our meditations on this mystery of the life of Christ.

And, finally, one of our very favorites at Restored Traditions: The Sermon on the Mount. Christ preaches the summation of Christian doctrine in this painting, while we also get a handful of characters to look at. Each person in the painting has different emotions and dispositions for how they are receiving the word of God (probably would make another interesting blog post by itself). However, once again focusing on the child, we see him as the only young person in a world of adults. While not looking at the coffee stain on your right shoulder this time, our little guy is in the middle of a daunting task: trying to catch a butterfly! The boy is obviously missing the point of the sermon, but his dad (above) is devoutly soaking it all in with a gesture of fidelity (folded hands). This, in turn, teaches us the awesome responsibility father’s have to learn the word of God and transmit it to their children.

Visit the Restored Traditions website.