Howard Lyon is an artist who explains, “I draw. I paint. I bake bread.” Howard studied illustration at BYU and worked for years as an art director, concept artist, and freelance illustrator in the video game industry. His work can be found in Dungeons and Dragon’s books, World of Warcraft cards, and Star Wars collateral. He has studied art in Italy, France and most recently at the Grand Central Academy in New York City. Lyon, his wife, and his children live in Utah.

Tell us about your experience with I am a Child of God (top). Growing up, a painting that always held my fascination was Norman Rockwell’s painting The Golden Rule. I loved seeing all of the people from different lands and cultures in costume. I thought if I ever had the chance to do something similar I would. That is really where the seeds of my painting came from. My wife put out a call on Facebook and through friends that we were looking for kids from all different backgrounds to come model for a painting. The only requirement was that they have a costume that was authentic and represented their culture. I did get some kids that I included that were in contemporary dress, but most of those in the painting were in costume. When the kids would come into the studio, they were typically shy or full of energy. I would talk to them and tell them that they would be in a painting with Christ, standing next to Him and bearing their testimony, along with Christ, that they are children of God. Each time, their demeanor would change. The wilder kids would calm down, the shy kids stood taller and each of the expressions you see are reflecting that. Some kids would smile, others looked proud, some were somber. That might be my favorite memory from this painting. I also included my own there kids. They are the two boys just behind Christ and the girl to the right of Christ on the very back row with the scarf.

You once said, “I hope that when viewers see my work, they take a moment to pause and pay attention to how they feel.” That is the key to viewing most artwork meaningfully, I believe. Sometimes I am in a museum and I will see people move through at a quick pace barely pausing in front of each painting. Most art is not fast food. Most art takes a little time to ingest and process. My art, particularly my religious art, is meant to read not just superficially but on a personal level. When I look at a Carl Bloch painting, I see the mastery of the artist, but then when I put myself into the work, imagine myself there witnessing the angel comforting Christ in Gethsemane, or watching Peter divert his gaze from Christ after denying him, I feel much more from the work than just admiration for the skill. I don’t paint nearly as well as Bloch, so I hope that the intent of the painting, the emotion and sentiment of the piece will be realized by the viewer. I think the best way for this to happen is for the viewer to focus on their feelings as they view the work.

One complaint I hear from artists is bridging the gap from school to a full-time career as an artist. Tell us more about the Lyon Art School. The response from the school has been excellent. We take a pretty small group of students (10 max) and work with them on their picture making skills, but also work through the business side. Teaching them how to better use social media, how to photograph models and artwork, get prints made, and how to reach their intended audience. I don’t really want the school to get very large, at least not in the near future. I am enjoying being able to spend time one on one with each student. We go at a slow, but steady pace, learning the value of each step in the composition and painting process. I think coming out of school, I made the whole process of making a living as an artist a lot of more complicated than it is. A major goal of the class is to help each of the students see their path to success with a little more clarity.

What’s next? I am currently wrapping up a painting that will, if approved, go behind the reception desk at the Provo City Center Temple. My next longer-term project is creating 50 paintings that illustrate the Gospels in the New Testament. I want to have enough pieces to cover the anticipated scenes from the Gospels, but also have enough that I can depict some scenes that aren’t typical, and even search for some implied scenes or those that we might expect to find Christ in but aren’t recorded. Each of the paintings will be smaller than what I typically work in, the largest being 16”x20” and most in the 11”x14” range. I am going to get the first 10 done and then run a Kickstarter campaign to try and fund the rest through pre-sale of the paintings, prints and the eventual art book.

Visit Howard Lyon’s website.

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Heather Theurer is an incredible artist with paintings of ‘religious symbolism, fantasy realism, equine, and wildlife’. Her unique style includes up to 20 multitude layers of paint and glazes. Theurer is, remarkably,  a self-taught artist. She lives with her family–including five kids–in Las Vegas. She has a contract with Disney Fine Art to create images of popular Disney characters.

She explained how it all got started in a recent interview, “A few years ago, I was at San Diego Comic-Con when I was approached by a marketing rep from Disney who pitched the idea that I create Disney characters in “my style”. Yeah, that was a cool idea, I thought. Why not? So I submitted a handful of sketches—and then heard the chirping of crickets for almost eighteen months. Nothing happened until I decided, what the heck, I’ll just paint them anyway—approval or not—and take them to my next show to see what happens. At SDCC two years after the original contact, I put them up and the images went viral. So I decided on a whim to show up to Disney Expo a month later. I couldn’t sell anything there since I didn’t have a license, but enough people went over to the Disney Fine Art booth to insist that they pick me up as one of their artists so they could buy something from me that, sure enough, the entire lot of Disney folks came by my booth to ask if I’d sign a contract with them. The rest is history.”

You were working as an artist for a textbook company until it folded and motivated you to go out on your own. What do you wish you would have known then about establishing yourself as an artist? I wish I would have known that art collectors buy the artist, not just the art. I suppose that when I first started out on my own, that might not have been too necessary. I was working particularly as a graphic designer and the projects were rather self-defined. But once I began creating my own independent artwork, I kept the same mentality–that the art should sell itself and it shouldn’t matter if I had any presentation skills (which were really terrible then). But I had gotten it all wrong and so it was a slow first few years striking out into the art world in my effort to find success. Since then, I’ve learned how to talk to people–yes, I know that sounds silly, but I truly was petrified of people–how to share the stories behind my art and how to approach my clients in a way that encourages them to fall in love with the art–and potentially buy it.

You once said, “The best advice I received on my artwork was that it sucked.” For much of my childhood and early adulthood I was more often than not complemented on my art. One might think this is a good thing. Had you asked me at that time, I would have thought so too. But at one point, a very straightforward family member of mine decided to tell me like it was. According to them, my lighting was horrible. It was painful to hear, but I knew they were right. At the same time, I came to the self-realization that there were lots of other things that were horrible in addition to the lighting. So I decided to change. If I was going to be as good as the Masters I admired, I was going to have to work on getting it right. Without a formal art educational setting to provide direction it was tricky, but with a little determination and a lot of experimentation, I slowly caught on. Along the way there were others who also offered their critical opinions, but after that first incident, it was far less painful to accept and in fact turned into adventurous challenges that I became excited to confront.

Which Disney characters are on your short list for future paintings? Oh, I have loads of ideas. My “short list” is, in fact, not very short. I’d love to do a Pocahontas, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, Aladdin, The Princess and the Frog, etc., etc. (all of which I’ve already got firm ideas in my head for). It just kind of depends on which design makes it into the paint first.

Visit Heather Theurer’s website.

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Valerie Atkisson is an adroit painter, sculptor, and multimedia artist. She often returns to family history themes in her work and she explains, “I wanted to bring life into the raw, vital information that you get from genealogical research.” Atkinsson’s work can be found everywhere from Ancestry magazine to Judaica.com and has been shown at numerous museums and galleries all over the country. She obtained a BFA from BYU and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She lives in Utah.

Describe your art. I’m a conceptual artist. The idea is paramount and determines the media of the piece as well as size and scope. I have used vellum, rice papers, paperclips, all types of paint and drawing media in my work. The prominent theme of my work over the past 20 years has been family history. I’ve found that some ways are better than others to tell a particular story.

You have traveled extensively in life. What unites the Church across cultures and countries? The belief that this is the restored Church of Jesus Christ.

What have you learned about your own family history as your delve into these projects? The purpose of delving into these projects exactly that: to learn about and to understand my ancestors better. I’ve learned that no one had it better than another. Everybody no matter what time or generation had severe backbreaking and or mentally breaking challenges. They did their best. We may not be able to understand the decisions they made, but looking deeper into the context of the time and their personal history we can understand more clearly. We will never be in their shoes though, so judging them is fruitless. They are interested in us – their posterity. They are pulling (and praying – I believe) for us. They want to be remembered. It does them good and it does us good I don’t know exactly how, but it does.

Visit Valerie Atkisson’s website.

Jorge Cocco Santangelo is an Argentinian painter who also works in sculpture, lithograph, etching, ceramics, and washi zokey (art with handmade paper). His work has been acquired and exhibited at museums in Argentina, Japan, Mexico, Spain, Uruguay, and the United States. He has lived and worked in both Spain and Mexico. He maintains studios in both the United States and Argentina.

Tell us about becoming an artist. My evolutionary cycle has practically been the same as the art history itself, exploring at least briefly all the main schools and styles until I found the elements to create my own language. That is to say that I started from the more figurative to the more abstract; I started drawing and painting landscapes and the human body, and evolved to a more intellectual work, with no models to copy from.

You once wrote of the Book of Mormon, “I had a strong urge to begin painting the more recognized scenes in the book. This urge led me to observe and internalize pre-Hispanic art on the American continent. This provided an extra benefit in looking for my own artistic expression.” Art is as effective as the spoken language when it comes to convey a message, and I use it as another way of reaching out to more people to declare the truths in the Book of Mormon. I had the opportunity to live in Mexico and there I was in deep contact with the local archeology. I draw benefits for my own art because in the first place, the pre-Hispanic culture has a very unique and rich language and second, I went through a discovery of hidden symbolisms directly related to the Book of Mormon. I adopted certain aspects of the languages of the Olmecs, Mayans, Aztecs, etc., and also I incorporated symbolic elements to my own artistic expression.

Visit Jorge Orlando Cocco Santangelo’s website.

Images courtesy Jorge Cocco Santangelo and LDS.org. Special thanks to Jorge’s art manager,  Amiel Cocco-Verbauwen, for the translation.

Joshua Baird is an oil painter whose primary subjects are the animals and landscape of the Southwestern United States. Baird is a former high school teacher and he  holds two degrees from Southern Oregon University. He was profiled previously on The Krakens for his inventive series Animal Facetime. He lives with his family in Southern Utah.

You like to paint landscapes. How does your art connect you to Mother Nature? Making art is my way of studying and processing my interaction with the natural world.  When I was growing up I went through phases where I would become obsessed by natural phenomena. I would draw dinosaurs repetitively, and then I’d move to whales, then birds of prey, then volcanoes, and so on.

I’ve been living in the Colorado Plateau and studying it through my art for many years. This place is so beautiful it’s overwhelming! It’s beyond description with awe-inspiring colors, curious geologic formations and spacious vistas. Sublime is the best word for such a place!  The process of geologic creation is evident everywhere you go. The landscape changes with each season and time of day and best of all there is a constantly changing skyscape.  This place is endlessly inspiring and I’ve only begun to scratch the surface with my artistic exploration.

You taught art to high school students. How has the role as teacher changed you as an artist?  Currently I’m a full-time artist, but previously I taught art for nine years at Kanab High school. I probably learned more from my students than they learned from me. I learned a lot about communication, patience, managing expectations, organization and most important that we have a lot more in common as humans than we think. It was also very interesting to see how my students reacted to pre-modern, modern and post modern artwork. The most significant thing I learned in my time teaching was the importance of clarity. There is a learning theory that states, that anything can be understood as long as it is presented in a clear and logical sequence. Art relies on clarity as much as a room full of teenagers! Clarity of intent and clarity of vision are as important to an artists career as visual clarity is to the image.

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