Mormon Artist interviews

Matt Meese

Thu, 07 Aug 2014 00:00:00 -0600

August 7, 2014

By Meagan Brady

Matt is best known for his work on the hit sketch comedy show, Studio C, on BYUtv. He also enjoys pie, and the idea of gardening. Check him out.

Photo courtesy Matt Meese

Tell us about yourself. Was there anything specific about your upbringing that got you interested in comedy?

I grew up in Phoenix, with three siblings, of which I am the second (which in my humble opinion is exactly where you want to be when it comes to birth order). And I always enjoyed making people laugh, but I’m not sure how good at it I was, or am currently. But I’ve kind of always liked the idea of laughing at the unfortunate things that happen to us all from time to time. Not the big things, but the smaller things that we sometimes let get the best of us. Being able to laugh about those things has always helped me keep from getting too stressed about things that ultimately just don’t matter much.

Studio C was born out of Divine Comedy, a BYU comedy troupe. Can you describe the transition?

It was a crazy time. I think it was a year from the day we first pitched the idea to the day we shot some test footage. There are plenty of probably boring details about all the meetings we had beforehand trying to figure out how to make the sets look different without having to build seven different sets for each episode, or even what to name the show. But once we figured out those things, the rest of it was already waiting to go (scripts, actors, etc.). We were very blessed to be as prepared as we were without meaning to be.

Divine Comedy takes most of its humor from distinctly BYU/Mormon culture; with Studio C, how do you adjust your act for a larger audience?

It’s really just about finding things that most people can relate to. Or at least a lot of people. There were a few times in the first season when we were like, “Oh, this joke would be so fun to do, even though only LDS audiences would get it.” We really don’t have things like that anymore. And it’s really the way we want it, because at the end of the day we want as many people as possible to be able to connect with the show.

You’re one of the creators of Studio C and you also produce. How do those roles expand your involvement with the show?

I get to go to more meetings, haha. I’ll weigh in on things involving the set or costumes and hair/makeup, but we have a great crew that is so creative and fun that it’s nice to give them a script and see what they come up with. They’re extremely talented. Most of my “expanded involvement” comes with the writing, though. Each of the writers weigh in on each sketch. We throw around additional ideas, joke changes, things like that. So by the end of it, we all have a little ownership in just about every sketch.

Photo courtesy Matt Meese

Where do you get your ideas? Do you have a disciplined routine to invite creativity or do they come to you spontaneously?

Definitely both. I do most of my writing when I first wake up, or after some exercising. But whenever I get ideas throughout the day, I’ll write them in my phone for later. I won’t end up using the vast majority of them, but that’s okay. Not every idea is going to be gold. And sometimes I won’t use an idea for a long time and then I suddenly get an inspiration for how I could use it. So really, you just never know, but I’ve found good results from writing mostly in the first part of my day.

Tell us about two sketches you wrote—how they grew from an initial idea to a polished sketch.

I wrote “The Great Oak Tree” one day when I just couldn’t think of anything fun to write. The sketch is basically me as a talking tree that’s supposed to be wise and all-knowing, but people keep treating him like a normal tree and abuse him quite a bit. I got the idea after I decided to just leave the house and get outside to see if anything out there would give me an idea. I walked out, saw a tree in the front yard, and thought, “Yeah.” So that’s a good example of something that doesn’t happen all the time, which is having a sketch idea come out of the blue.

Another sketch, “Weighty Matters,” which involves putting Whitney on a scale and threatening to disclose her weight to the world, took a little more work. I knew I wanted to involve something with the taboo of talking about how much you weigh, but I was having a hard time figuring out how to make the stakes high enough to make the sketch interesting to watch. I paced around for a good while, which I do a lot when I think, and eventually landed on the scenario that we used in the sketch, which is a torture/interrogation scene. So some sketches are easier than others.

How do you decide if a character becomes serial? Is it based on audience reaction or do you plan jokes that will build on each other?

When someone first presents a potentially reoccurring character, we use the response in the writer’s room as our first test. If we all liked it, then we usually tell them to write more. Then after we start filming, if things go well, we keep moving forward. If not, then we usually hold off until the sketch gets online and we can gauge the wider audience response. If it’s positive enough, we’re happy to bring them back, provided there is something new enough for the character to do so that it doesn’t feel like a rehash.

And any jokes that build upon the jokes of previous sketches, are, to my knowledge, never planned in advance. They just happen when we’re writing and someone will say, “Oh, we should do a call back to that other joke.” It just happens organically, which is always fun, and gives the impression that we had it all planned from the beginning, instead of the truth, which is that we’re making it up as we go.

It seems that sometimes the easiest path to a laugh is the crude or politically incorrect route. How do you keep it clean?

The kind of humor we do is the kind we feel most comfortable with. Our test has always been “if we feel good about it, other people probably will too.” Not everyone who watches us agrees 100% of the time, of course, but when does that ever really happen? In the end, you don’t try to cater to every person, because that’s an impossible and self-defeating goal. We try to do excellent work while using our best judgment, which is all you can ask of anyone, I think.

Studio C has a viewership in the millions. How do you handle the new level of fame you’ve achieved?

Well, the nice thing is that my best friends are having the exact same experience I am, so we can all talk about it, and it makes it feel not so weird. I really love the people I work with.

How does the gospel inform your work?

When we first started out, I knew I wanted this show to be something the family could watch together, bond over, quote to each other later, that kind of thing. I felt like helping families be closer knit was one of the best things we could be doing, and that idea is obviously born out of gospel principles.

How do you see comedy helping build the kingdom?

Laughing can help us all when we’re feeling down. It can also bring us closer together. I think anything that can do that is worth a lot. In the larger sense, isn’t that what it’s all about? Lifting others and fostering love and unity? Comedy does that almost without effort. It’s wonderful. ❧

Victoria Wilcox

Fri, 11 Jul 2014 00:00:00 -0600

July 11, 2014

By David Layton

Victoria Wilcox is founding director of Georgia’s Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House Museum, the antebellum home of the family of Doc Holliday. Her work with the house led to eighteen years of original research and inspired her novel trilogy, Southern Son: The Saga of Doc Holliday. She has been advisor and contributor to other authors, has lectured extensively, and has appeared on various television programs relating to her work. A member of the Western Writers of America, Wilcox’s writing on the Old South and Wild West has been featured in such publications as True West Magazine and North Georgia Journal. Drawing on her lifelong love of music and theatre, she has written songs for Nashville recording artists and authored the musical Goin’ to Zion! along with numerous smaller theatrical works.

Photo courtesy Victoria Wilcox

Tell us a little bit about your background—where you’re from and how that has made you what you are today.

I am the descendent of pioneers—pilgrims who came to the Americas on the Mayflower, saints who followed Joseph Smith to Nauvoo and Brigham Young to Utah, Hollywood pioneers who helped to establish the movie industry. I have always felt those connections and a responsibility to honor that heritage and make my life a success. I was born in California, spent my college years in Utah, then moved to Georgia where my husband attended dental school. I started out a Southern girl from Southern California and ended up a Southern lady in Georgia. With my American heritage, I love American history and American stories.

Did you have any formal training?

Somehow, I always knew I was a writer. Even as a young child, I made up plays and poems and loved words and stories. In middle and high school I took creative writing classes and submitted songs to Hollywood record companies—and even scored an in-person audition at A&M Records in L. A. I was sixteen at the time with dreams of becoming a professional songwriter. The producer who met with me reviewed my work and said I had promise, but told me that I needed to add some grit to my songs. “Bring out your skeletons,” he told me. I told him I didn’t have any. I will never forget his next words: “There’s a fine line between love and obscenity, and what’s selling now is obscenity.” That pretty much turned me off to the L. A. recording scene.

Later I wrote songs for the cleaner country market and even had a cut on a hit album by an Australian recording artist. I had another song slated for a Reba McEntire album that was scrapped when her band’s plane crashed. I might have continued my songwriting career if I hadn’t met the Holliday House and my biggest writing project.

As for formal training, I majored in English at BYU and then did some work there as a graduate playwriting major. After moving to Georgia I worked as a technical writer at Emory University, producing computer user guides, and as a teacher of English and composition at Southern Crescent Technical College. But most of my creative writing training came from my own reading of everything I could find about writing. My college classes taught me about the history of the language, about criticism and genre, but not much about the actual art of writing or the business of publishing.

Image courtesy Victoria Wilcox

Describe the moment when you realized you could and should write the Doc Holliday story?

I didn’t set out to write about Doc Holliday, only to save his family’s home. I thought at the time that my life would be complete if my tombstone read “She founded a museum.” Mostly I told the story of the Holliday House and its connections to Doc Holliday and Gone With the Wind just to promote saving the house. But it seemed that every time I told the story to reporters, they got the facts wrong, and I got angry phone calls from Holliday relatives who thought I wasn’t getting my facts straight. So I made a fact sheet to hand to reporters, and they still got the story wrong. The fact sheet became an eight-page handout with names and dates and a family tree, and they still got it wrong. I realized that if the story were going to be told the way I wanted it told, I would have to tell it myself. I was a writer, after all, and had always hoped to write a book.

But what kind of book would it be? So one evening my husband and I sat at our kitchen table and discussed the project, debating whether it should be a straight biography or a historical novel, bringing the past to life. I had grown up on historical novels and loved how that genre allowed the reader to learn and be entertained at the same time. And of course, it had to include a love story. I decided on historical fiction because I wanted to write a book that everyone would read, not just historians. That was the start, and I thought it would be easy: I’d just use the several biographies about Holliday that were then available, and mix in the Georgia information and the Gone With the Wind connection that I’d learned at the Holliday House. But soon after I started writing, I discovered that those biographies didn’t agree and the facts they contained often couldn’t be proven, and likely weren’t facts at all. As his cousin Mattie has said, “He was a much different man than the one of Western legend,” and I would have to search to find the real man behind the legend.

If I’d known it would take me eighteen years of research and writing to finish the project, I probably wouldn’t have started at all. My thought through those many years was “line upon line, precept upon precept…” If the Lord had shown Joseph all that his simple prayer in the grove would lead to, he may never have taken the next step either.

What is your process for turning research notes into a story?

I start with the story I have, whether legend or fact, then go to the primary sources to prove or disprove the story. I have followed Doc Holliday’s trail across the country, delving into deed books and court records, scouring old newspapers, reading memoirs and journals. I take pictures of the places, breathe the air, get a feel for the location, write long notes to myself about my impressions. Then I compile all of that into a sort of chronological journal that falls into loose chapter divisions. When the actions in a particular section of the story get complicated, I make a huge timeline on poster boards and write in the facts using different colors for plot points and character actions. As I write, I review my notes as I come to them, sometimes doing additional research if needed. When I’m done with a scene, I cut and paste the notes into an “addendum” file—again, in chronological order, so I can find them later if needed. So what I end up with is a novel and another book of all the notes that helped me create it.

I’m a very slow writer, as I really like to get a scene just right before moving on, even though I know that I may do a lot of editing later. I wish I could get myself to do a rough draft and then polish from there, but my books of notes and scenes is the closest I get to a draft—although you could read through those notes and have a very good idea of the plot and the character development.

Toward the end of the book I do a personality analysis for each major character—what did they want, what did they get, what were their motivations? I also do a synopsis of the book when I’m done writing, taking it back to just the bare bones of plot to make sure there aren’t any loopholes that needed closing.

When all that is done, I proofread and then share the book with friends and ask pointed questions: Did you get lost? Did it drag anywhere? Which characters felt real and which did not? If you just ask, “What did you think?” you’ll usually get praise, even if undeserved. Asking direct questions that acknowledge the possibility of problems will usually elicit a truer—and more helpful—answer.

Then I revise, edit, send for reviews again. By the time I’m done, the book really is the best I could do. But I hope my writing is always improving and my best work is still to come!

What is a memorable experience where you discovered information on the Doc Holliday family you weren’t expecting?

One of my early contacts was a Holliday descendant living on an island in the St. Johns River in Florida. Turned out that he had joined the Church years before—the only LDS member of the family—and had compiled a careful family history, which he kindly sent to me.

But as I was reviewing his records, I noticed that someone important was missing. He listed as his relatives Henry Holliday and Alice Jane McKey Holliday and their baby daughter Martha Eleanora Holliday (the parents and sister of John Henry “Doc” Holliday) but he had left Doc off the chart. When I called him to tell him about the surely accidentally omitted name, he told me, “My grandmother told me we were no relation to Doc Holliday.” He was actually a first cousin, once removed! That’s when I learned that the Holliday family of Atlanta had disowned their infamous cousin as being not a proper relation for their very proper Southern family. So although there had been temple work done by his cousin for his parents and sister, Doc had been left out of his own family. He wasn’t disowned just in life, but in the eternities as well.

With his cousin’s permission, I submitted Doc’s name, along with the names of forty other family members whose work had not been done, and was rather surprised when it all came back approved. Doc had a history of violence and a couple of killings to his credit, and I had always understood that murderers could not be forgiven and therefore had no need of temple ordinances. That was an incorrect understanding. “It is not easy,” the scriptures say, for a murderer to be forgiven. But who more desperately needs salvation?

My ward did that work and had wonderful experiences of knowing it had been accepted. Then I was contacted by a descendant of the Dorsey family (the second family to own the Holliday House), who was not a member of the Church but was an avid family historian. She said that she had heard of the work we did for the Holliday family (meaning the temple work), and that her ancestors wanted the same thing done for them. She struggled for the right wording, saying that they wanted to be “connected, or tied up, or glued or something…” I said, “Do you mean sealed?” and she said, “Yes! That’s it! Can you do that for my ancestors, too?” I told her that with her permission I would be happy to submit the names of her ancestors for temple work. All I needed was a computer file of her family records. When I got the disc in the mail and popped it into the computer, it took several minutes to process—and then opened to a list of over 5,000 family records that she had collected. I submitted those names for her and for several years those were the names given to patrons at the Atlanta Temple. It seemed so appropriate that the work was done in Atlanta, as many of those people had been Georgians. I used to say that our stake had more dead members than live members.

How have you balanced research, running the museum, and raising your family?

I don’t know that it balanced, really. My family always came first—not because I felt compelled to put them first, but because I just love having a family and doing things with them. My family is the reason it took me eighteen years to finish three books! If I hadn’t had other things to take care of I might have finished the books much sooner, but they wouldn’t have been as rich and full of life experiences.

And happily, most of the things that I have done have kept me close to home, so I was never far from my family and often could have them come along with me. In the early years at the Holliday House, for instance, there was a lot of labor involved—tearing up carpet, cleaning old wood floors, pulling weeds in the yard, hauling trash. That was mostly done on Saturdays, and my kids got to help and learn about community service. When we held our Old South Balls as fundraisers, my daughters attended in antique-style gowns they’d helped to sew. How many little girls get to wear ballgowns? When I attended city council meetings, my little boy came along and had to quietly amuse himself to not disturb the grownups. It was a great education for all of them.

Those were very busy years, of course: directing the museum, beginning the books, spending a year teaching English at a local college. Some weeks the clean laundry piled up on the floor and never got folded or put away. My husband watched the kids while I taught my night classes, and was helped by a babysitter when I made research trips. I thought it was a fair trade for my putting him through dental school and being mother to his four children! A lot of my writing was done late into the night and (I shudder to admit) even while I was driving to class, with a spiral notebook balanced on the steering wheel. The story was just desperate to get out and couldn’t be stopped. After the city took over the Holliday House project and my kids grew older things got easier, as my writing was mostly done while they were in school. But on a good writing day, I’d sometimes forget to start dinner, so we had a lot of hot dogs and pizza over the years. I also took lots of writing breaks to drive to dancing lessons and karate practice, to attend school concerts and make costumes for plays.

During that time, I was asked to write a production for our stake’s celebration of the sesquicentennial of the Mormon pioneer trek. My husband was concerned that another project would be too much, but I really wanted to do that show and promised him it would take two months, max, out of my writing schedule. It actually took about two years, after my original commission to rewrite an old play turned into permission to write the book for an entirely new musical. The show was Goin’ To Zion!, which was produced as a full stage show at a local arts center in Georgia over two summers, and then had three runs as an in-concert performance. I was choral director and then producer, and my whole family took part, so I never felt that it was taking away from my time with my kids. Some of their best childhood memories are all-day rehearsals and picnics on the floor of the stake center. Although my Holliday book was on hold for most of that time, I wouldn’t have missed the experience of doing the show.

The music in the show was arranged and composed by my good friend Melinda Talley, but I got to add one song of my own, a hymn titled “O Lord, Make Us a Holy People,” which went on to have a life of its own. When a family member of the original cast sang it in a Relief Society meeting in Utah, Sisters Sheri Dew and Wendy Nelson heard it and loved it, then used it during their many firesides and other programs. Sister Nelson went on to write a book called, “What Would a Holy Woman Do?” based on her fireside talks, and included the lyrics and a link to my hymn in her book. “O Lord, Make Us a Holy People” is now available as a free download from Deseret Book. Maybe someday it will show up in the hymnbook!

Of course, there was always Church work. I’ve been a gospel doctrine teacher, a Primary chorister, a stake choir director, a seminary teacher. It all takes time away from writing, but at the same time enriches the writing. All of the things I’ve learned come back when I write and give me so much more to write about.

My kids have taken my creative life in stride—it was just part of me. When a young neighbor boy heard a tape of me singing one of my songs on the car stereo, he told my son with wonder, “Your mom’s on the radio!” My son was a preschooler at the time and said with some surprise, “Isn’t your mom?” It was just what I did, like other moms taught aerobics or canned peaches. I wrote things, and my kids often got to have a part in what I was doing. And now that they’re grown, they are all creative people in their own ways. For our family, my community work and writing were the center of our “wholesome recreation” and something that brought us together and gave us great memories. It wasn’t balanced—but it was fun!

Tell us about your writing process.

I’m sort of always writing, meaning that whatever story I am working on is always running around somewhere in my head. I never dream about my characters, but I think about them all the time, as if they were people I know and can gossip about. I don’t have any set schedule for writing, because family things just keep me busy. When I have a free day, I write. When I’m in the mood and the family has gone to bed, I write. When I have a deadline looming (like this interview!), I make myself write. I love words and I have fun putting them together, so it’s never tedious. I even love the feel of the keyboard keys, almost the way a pianist likes the feel of the piano keys. I love typing and watching words and sentences appear on a blank page.

But I’m not someone who could lock herself in a garret and do nothing but write. I like too many other things to do that. The only time I don’t like writing is when I can’t figure out what happens next in a story—that can stop me for days and weeks! Because I’m sort of always writing, I can write anywhere and at any time. I dictate paragraphs into my iPhone while I drive. I carry along a yellow pad whenever I travel and write while other people are reading or napping. I’ve spent many family vacation hours by the pool or on the beach or sitting by a campfire scribbling on my yellow pad. I used to take my laptop along when I drove my kids to choral events, finding an empty room to set up my writing desk. I went on a cruise with some girlfriends, and while they sunbathed on the pool deck, I scribbled.

The only time I ever gave undivided attention to writing was the week each fall when I’d travel to Mackinac Island, Michigan, where my good friends owned a vacation home which they let me borrow. I’d get up every morning and get to work, writing until lunch time, then writing again until dinner, then writing again until bedtime. When I’d first sit down at that laptop my world would seem so small and confined, just the size of the computer screen—until the story took over and my world grew as large as life. One of the things I dislike about being a published author is being so busy with book promotion that I don’t have time for my fall weeks at Mackinac anymore!

How do you assess conflicting historical accounts to decide what is the most probable history?

Because I write a story in chronological order, I have to see a logical flow of events. If something doesn’t fit the chronology, I question it. In Holliday’s life, so many of the things he was supposedly famous for just couldn’t have happened in the time frame of the facts of his life.

For instance, one of those legendary events that didn’t really happen was his killing of Johnny Ringo, shown very dramatically in the movie Tombstone. Problem is, Holliday was actually in court in Pueblo, Colorado, shortly before Ringo’s death and in Leadville, Colorado, shortly after. Without modern transportation, he couldn’t have made the trip from Colorado to the wilds of the Arizona mountains and back again in that short time span. It just didn’t happen.

I generally give most credence to the earliest reports of an event and the people who actually saw it or knew the people involved. Take the reason Doc Holliday left Georgia—the common story is that he discovered he had the lung disease called consumption with only a few months to live, so moved to the high dry plains of the Western plateau where he might be healed. But that story started nearly fifty years after his death and doesn’t make sense, considering the fact that no one could tell how long a consumptive had left to live, and his Western destination was Dallas, Texas, and not the high dry plains of the West. The story I believe is one told decades earlier by Bat Masterson, who knew Holliday in Dodge City and elsewhere—and gave a completely different reason for his exodus west.

Where do you draw the personality of your characters from?

I study the facts about my characters’ lives, read what was said about them by people who knew them, then imagine how they would react in the different settings of the story. Sometimes, I give them personality traits of people I know who seem similar to them in some ways. I try to picture how they’d stand, how they’d dress, what they would think about things. But some characters just sort of appear on their own without any seeming work on my part.

That happened with the book I’m writing now about the Caribbean pirate Stede Bonnet. He was born the heir to a Barbados sugar plantation in 1688, but was orphaned as a young boy and raised by his grandmother. I knew about his family but suddenly imagined up the African slave who became his nursemaid. Her name was Jerusha, the favorite of the governor of Barbados, and she just appeared in the story one day, full-blown and very determined to have her say. I’m kind of amazed that I’ve been able to imagine up so many different characters, and all so individual and unique. It’s a bit of literary hocus pocus that I can’t take credit for.

How has the gospel influenced your work as an author and historian?

When my kids were little, a friend commented on my conversations with them, saying, “Do you have to make everything a sermon?” I said yes, because I only had just so much time to raise these kids, and I had to give them all I knew as fast as I could. But the bigger truth is that, having been raised in and on the restored gospel, I see everything through a gospel filter. It’s just the way I think. My mind makes correlations between the mortal world and the spiritual one, between what is now and what was and what is to come.

So there is much of my own religious philosophy in my books, like a quote from a millionaire former slave in Denver who has just arranged for Holliday to be released from jail. “Then I am free?” says Holliday, and the black man replies, “My dear Dr. Holliday, you have always been free. You have only suffered from the consequences of your own agency. The only real prison is having no agency at all.” That concept of agency and consequence is essential to Mormon doctrine, and something that just came naturally to my writing. The first book in the trilogy even has an Enos-like scene of a night of repentence. And the last book has a quote from a Catholic priest counseling Holliday by saying, “Everyone can change. Even Saul, and even you.” Which was a riff on what I had taught my seminary students that year: “Everyone can change. Even Alma, and even you.”

I was blessed in the Holliday books that he was raised by a very religious Methodist mother and his closest correspondent was his cousin, a Catholic nun. That gave me a freedom to teach gospel principles through fiction, as I believe his life was filled with the religious teachings of his family. And of course, I always check to see if my historical characters have had their temple work done. So often I find people whose names and facts are only found in old deeds or wills, and were never listed on census or other such records, and so have never had their work done. My pirate and his extensive family are eager for their turn.

In my early days of working on the Holliday House project, after I had started exploring the family history but before I started thinking of writing a book, I had a strange dream. There was a young boy in an old-fashioned general store, surrounded by shelves filled with home goods and hardware. In one aisle was a row of those types of metal bins where you used to find nails or screws or other metal fixings. As I watched him, he seemed to be desperately searching in the bins for something—a key, I sensed, because he was lost and needed a key to get back home, to get to his father. Then my dream was disturbed by my baby son’s cry in the nursery, and as I woke up to take care of him, I instantly knew the meaning of the dream: the boy was John Henry Holliday and the key he needed was baptism so he could get back home, both to his earthly father and to his Heavenly Father. That was the impetus for my having his temple work done—that dream that made his plight very real to me. As it turned out, his baptism had actually already been done, his name picked up off a census record. But that was all that was done. He had never been confirmed, nor endowed, nor sealed to his parents. He was as lost and stuck as that little boy in the general store, looking for the key.

Many years later, as I was finishing the book with a scene about his cousin praying for his lost soul, I turned to the Catholics for help. Doc’s cousin was a nun and I wondered what prayer she might have offered for a family member who had passed away without the ordinances of that church. In her religion, he would have gone to purgatory to hope for a chance of salvation. She could say a novena on his behalf, offering nine candles and nine days of prayers for his soul, and ask the saints and angels to petition God for his release, but if God chose not to release him, in purgatory he would stay. I wanted a happier ending to the book and to her prayers, so I put the question to a Catholic priest on a nationally syndicated radio call-in show. Was there any way a man could be saved after death? I asked the host. His answer, given on air to a national audience of Catholics and others: “You’ll have to ask the Mormons about that. They’re the ones who teach about redemption for the dead.”

I was stunned, but not surprised. I had been to Rome, to the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica with its many images of the keys of the priesthood—statues and paintings of Peter holding the keys, mosaic floors with designs of keys in the tiles. The Catholics believe in those keys, but don’t believe they have the keys to the redemption for the dead. We do. Our doctrine is ancient and astonishing, and my work, both in the temple for the Holliday family and in literature telling Doc Holliday’s story, could not have happened without it. My work is both informed by my faith and a testimony of my faith. My characters are real people who have lived and died, and are alive again to me.

How do you see your work building the kingdom?

I think it already has built the kingdom, if you consider those 5,000+ ancestors of the Hollidays and the Dorseys who have had the opportunity to accept the gospel. But I find that now, as I speak about my work at book events, my personal beliefs become part of the talk. Toward the end of my current presentation I say, “There is a spirit to this work. The people whose lives we are researching are dead, but not far gone, and they want us to get their story straight. Those of you who have done family history research know what I am talking about.” And the room gets hushed and there are tears in the eyes of my listeners, even in audiences full of those not of our faith. This feeling of family connectedness, of the continued life of those passed on—what we call the spirit of Elijah—is really a universal feeling. I just put it into words for my listeners and readers.

I had one reader write me a thank-you note saying, “I feel like there is something I need to learn from you or from your books, something essential.” I think that by creating excellent art that touches hearts and informs souls, people will be drawn to it and want to learn its source.

What are your plans in the future as an author?

I have several historical novels in the works. The first is Sailing: Being the True Story of the Pirate, Stede Bonnet. He was a real-life Caribbean pirate who started out a Barbados sugar planter, then fell in with the pirate Blackbeard. But like Doc Holliday, the truth of Bonnet’s life is much different than the pirate legends—he and his pirate companions were actually freedom fighters trying to overthrow the king of England—the first American revolutionaries.

After that, it’s The McIntosh Legacy, another true family saga that travels from the highlands of Scotland to the Indian Wars and the Trail of Tears. And I’d love to have time to write a historical novel about the life of my own great-great grandfather, who was in Carthage Jail with the prophet Joseph Smith. It would be the Mormon story for all my non-LDS readers, my testimony to the world. I hope I have the honor of writing it. ❧

Misty Frisbey

Fri, 18 Apr 2014 00:00:00 -0600

April 18, 2014

By Ananda Isaksen

Misty Frisbey has loved dance from the moment she could move. She began training in a variety of dance styles at the age of three. Through elementary to high school she had opportunities to dance and perform with many local dance companies, performance groups, and musical theatre companies in southern Utah. In college she broadened her training in dance at various studios and conventions across the United States in Utah, New York, California, and Nevada. Misty was a member of the first Dixie State University Dance Company in 2001 and participated on that company for three years as a scholarship student. She began teaching and working with local dance groups, productions, and studios as a choreographer and teacher in 1999. Misty is now the artistic director and owner of Premier Dance Center, Super Steppers Junior Dance Team, The Prime Time Performers, and the inspirational dance company God’s Messengers.

Photo courtesy Misty Frisbey

Tell us a bit about your dance background. What genres and styles did you study and who were your most influential teachers or examples?

I started dancing when I was the age of three; since then, I have been trained in different genres of dance such as ballet, modern, jazz, and hip hop. I have had many influential teachers, but one who has really brought me from an amateur level is Dr. Li Lei at Dixie State University. I work with her still at the university and am able to continue to learn from her as an adjunct faculty member.

How has dance enlarged your testimony and your ability to share it?

Dance has been a huge part of my testimony as it has helped me through many trials in life, and I have been able to use it to help others through their trials and hard times. With dance and the ability to share my talent and release many emotions, I am able to stay strong through life.

Photo courtesy Misty Frisbey

How do you find music for your choreography? What are some selections of music that inspire you?

The music is a huge part of the feelings that our audience members feel during our show. I find a lot of my songs through movies, believe it or not—some of my most inspiring music has been from inspiring movies. I used the August Rush rhapsody for our closer for several years. Our Gethsemane piece came from Avatar and some Harry Potter songs. We like to use music without vocals so our audience is able to interpret the feelings they have and expand on that spirit instead of telling them what to feel by the words. It also helps keep the stories large and open for creativity and exploration of movement instead of trying to interpret the specific words.

What led you to found God’s Messengers?

In 1996 I attended a production called A Nashville Tribute to the Prophet at Tuacahn Amphitheatre, and I loved it. As I was sitting there, it came to me that I needed to be using dance to help share the gospel. I left there with extreme motivation. I told my in-laws that someday I would have a production that would share the gospel through dance, and I hoped that one day we could perform with Michael McLean, as I had also been inspired by The Forgotten Carols. We began as a tribute to the prophets, which is where the name came from, and as we couldn’t really find a season that fit, we decided we needed a change. A former member of God’s Messengers, Jackie Huish, gave us the idea that we should center our show on our Savior, Jesus Christ. We started running that idea and everything fell into place, even doing the show over Easter weekend. We wanted to share our show with all Christians in hopes they would feel the spirit and love we have for our Savior and His life.

Photo courtesy Misty Frisbey

Of all the pieces you have choreographed, which one has touched you the most?

Every piece has touched me in some way or another, and they all have a great story behind them. One that specifically stands out is the Garden of Gethsemane. I was up all night one night after reading a story on this piece about a man who had a dream of watching the Savior in the garden. I immediately thought that it would be an intense piece if the dancers could portray feelings we would have if we were behind a tree watching the Savior suffer for our sins. The dancers actually helped choreograph this piece. And our rehearsal was so intense and filled with the spirit that every company member was in tears when they saw it.

What are some unique aspects to directing a company whose purpose is to uplift and inspire?

It takes a total different directing technique than what I am used to, and a lot of pondering and praying. The most unique one is trying to keep the spirit there while also critiquing and disciplining dancers. Satan tries every company member during their time on the company, and so I am constantly trying to help people understand the temptations they will feel, for example desires of quitting or talking negatively about the company or its members.

Photo courtesy Misty Frisbey

How do you prepare to choreograph?

First I start with prayer, then I do a lot of research on the story of the part of the Savior’s life which will become the piece I choreograph. Then I start exploring different music that will inspire the audience to feel similar emotions to what the story is. After that, I begin exploring dance movement and style that will express the story from start to finish. The starts of many pieces have been inspired through thoughts coming into my head during church meetings or discussions on the gospel.

What are some challenges you’ve faced in founding and running a dance company?

One of the biggest challenges I face is explaining the show so that others can understand it. It is something you have to see to believe. Everyone who sees it always lets me know they now understand why I am so passionate about it. Along with that challenge, it is hard to get support from many people, because they just don’t understand how dance could go along with the gospel. This stems from the past view of dance and also the new worldly view of dance. Dance has a interesting reputation, and it makes it a little harder to understand how it could help express the gospel.

Another challenge is financial—each production costs anywhere from $8,000–12,000 (rent, programs, posters, props, and costumes). The company works super hard to cover the costs with sponsors and tickets sales, but we have not had a year yet where we have covered the entire show. My husband helps me make up the difference.

The final challenge is keeping the peace in our company and helping our dancers understand the challenge Satan brings to them because he does not want them to share their beauty and talent. Every year we have different trials that our company faces, but every year we get through them.

Photo courtesy Misty Frisbey

How is it different choreographing for and directing God’s Messengers versus other secular dance companies you’ve worked with?

The choreography part is usually pretty easy and inspired if I have the spirit with me. Directing is a lot more challenging and different than directing my other companies—it requires a different kind of patience and teaching. I have to keep my calm and constantly keep myself in company of the spirit. As a director and coach, I find that my natural reaction is a lot more intimidating than what I feel I need to be as director for God’s Messengers. I have had many times where dancers will interpret this as meaning I don’t care, because I don’t come off stressed and chaotic. It makes them nervous in a sense, but it keeps a special feeling for the company.

How has your faith helped you in your pursuit of dance as a career?

Many times in my life I have been faced with the opportunity to quit dance, especially my business. My husband and I went through a seven-year fertility struggle only to realize the reason we were not able to have a full-term pregnancy was because the Lord knew if I would have had a child one moment earlier than we did, I would not have been able to keep my studio and be the mother I needed to be. Through all the times of struggle it would have been easier to quit. Dancing can be a struggle at times, spending many hours with the same set of girls. More times than not dancers can end up hurt or bullied or mistreated. I spend a lot of time refereeing and trying to help dancers understand each other’s intentions and trying to help people understand that perspectives are different and that it does not make one more right than the other. I have been able to keep a reputation of having higher standards when it comes to costuming, music selection, and sportsmanship. My faith has kept me strong through my career. My career would not exist without the faith and beliefs I have. My beliefs have given me an unbreakable foundation to teach young dancers and share my talents with them.

What advice would you give to those wanting to pursue a career in dance?

I would let them know to never change who they are, to be the unique dancer that they are, to find their niche and stick to it.

Has dance as a medium helped you to reach people you might not have been able to in another way?

Dance has for sure helped me reach others that I normally would not. Dance has brought me many opportunities to be an example to others who are not members. I have been able to travel many places with dance, which has brought me into contact with many people that I normally would not have met.

How does your work help you spread the gospel?

Every time I get asked what I do and I mention I direct a professional dance company called God’s Messengers, it gets a different reaction. These reactions always lead to a discussion about our Savior and the gospel. I love these opportunities and how they have helped me to achieve missionary work.

What would you say to someone who insists that “they can’t dance” or “that dance isn’t for them?”

To those who say they can’t dance: Everyone can dance. I once attended a dance convention with a young girl who had her legs amputated at the upper thigh, and she could dance better than most of the dancers out there. I am a firm believer that if one can do it, all can do it—everyone can dance.

To those who say that dance isn’t for them: Then you have not truly danced for the right reasons. ❧

Jack Harrell

Fri, 11 Apr 2014 00:00:00 -0600

April 11, 2014

By Laura Austin

Jack Harrell grew up in Parkersburg, Illinois. When he was nineteen years old, he packed his guitars and record albums in his 1964 Chevy Impala and moved to Vernal, Utah, where he joined the Church. He is now a fiction writer and essayist who teaches at Brigham Young University–Idaho. His novel Vernal Promises won the Marilyn Brown Novel Award in 2000. His collection of short stories, A Sense of Order and Other Stories, won the Association for Mormon Letters prize for short fiction in 2011.

Photo courtesy Jack Harrell

You wrote a short story for the first time in a creative writing class at BYU. How did you go from there to writing professionally?

Professionally, I’m a teacher first. But teaching English and creative writing often complements my work as a writer—and vice versa. I regularly bring into the classroom what I’m learning as a writer, and what I teach my students helps me with my own work. I believe that writing in any area helps one’s writing in other areas. Writing a PhD dissertation helped me to become a better fiction writer. Even the business writing class I taught for a few years, back in the early 2000s, helped me to better understand writing principles like audience, conciseness, and precision.

After those first creative writing courses at BYU, I kept writing as I attended graduate school and started my teaching career. It’s difficult to make a living solely as a writer. Most novels published today are written by people who “have a day job.” The hardest thing, for anyone, is finding the time. I try to write an hour each morning, and I take full advantage of holidays and breaks. One of the best things about writing is its portability. I carry a journal with me most of the time. I jot down ideas or refine my thinking in the in-between moments—waiting to pick up our son from soccer practice, for example, or taking my laptop on vacation to write in the morning while the kids sleep in.

Stephen King once said that he was first a husband and father, second a member of his community, and third a writer. He said that if he ever got those mixed up, it would be detrimental to his writing. I feel the same way.

How does the gospel influence your work?

To be a good writer, you need to cultivate qualities like discipline, patience, knowledge, empathy, humility, creativity, and honesty. Living the gospel helps me with all these. But good writing often involves conflict too. Conflict in life is inevitable. In art it’s essential. Conflict, tension, difference, contrast, ambivalence—pick whatever term you like—it’s all necessary for art. The Latin root of the word conflict means “to strike together.” The goal is not to avoid conflict, but to ensure that the conflict yields something valuable. I could apply a musical metaphor here. Even if two notes are in harmony, they’re still different notes. That difference creates a whole which is greater than its parts. In music, even dissonance can be moving and enlightening. Two notes that push against one another can yield an unforeseen perspective.

Recently I’ve been reading and re-reading a book on aesthetics by Roger Scruton, a book simply titled Beauty. Scruton says that sacrifice is at the heart of virtue and at the heart of all good art. Sacrifice is at the heart of the gospel too. In order to write a good book, a writer must sacrifice. You have to sacrifice all that time, for one thing. But you must also sacrifice what you want the work to be for the higher goal of what the work itself needs to become.

Often the reader, too, must sacrifice for a good work of literature. Readers must give themselves over to a work to make it come to life. As for the stories themselves, the best ones involve some kind of sacrifice, a climactic moment in which a principal character gives everything for something or someone else.

The main character in your novel Vernal Promises shares a lot of similar background to what you describe in your own conversion story (working at a grocery store, selling drill bits, a party lifestyle, etc.). How much is Jacob based on you?

Some of Jacob’s experiences are my own. As a teenager, before I joined the Church, I experimented with drugs and alcohol. I worked in the oilfield equipment business. I held several grocery jobs while working myself through college. Though most of the novel is fiction, the struggle in Jacob’s heart reflects my own struggles as a young convert to the Church. I had to learn hard lessons in order to bend my will to the will of the Spirit. I also had to learn that I had worth in the eyes of God, that I was worth the sacrifices which had been made for me by God and by others who loved me.

In one way or another, the principal characters in Vernal Promises are denying Christ and his atonement. Jacob does this because he believes he isn’t worth the price Christ paid. That kind of withdrawal is a perversion of humility. His wife, Pam, tries to deny the atonement by wishing for a time before she had ever sinned. Jacob’s mother, Regina, believes in easy grace that makes the atonement shallow and meaningless. And his father, Harvey, doesn’t believe there’s any such thing as sin in the first place. Jacob only finds peace when he accepts what has been done for him—when he sees how high the price is and allows it to change his life.

Some of your writing deals with pretty difficult subjects, such as adultery, suicide, and drug abuse. How do you balance honestly addressing challenging topics with keeping your literature appropriate and conducive to the Spirit?

The Spirit testifies of truth, even when the truth is dark or unpleasant. I suspect that the Spirit would communicate much more broadly to each of us if we would allow it to. I don’t worry a lot about offending the Spirit in my writing. I feel I have a pretty good sense of what is sacred ground. My greater concern is the risk of offending my fellow Mormons, and some have been offended by my work. But this isn’t my goal.

There’s a movement in visual art called “Abjection,” in which artists seek out that which is transgressive or taboo. I’m not interested in that sort of cheap shock value. It’s easy to cross a line just to get a rise out of people. I’m interested in honesty, in bringing things to light. They say the best healing comes with good doses of light and air. I believe that the best art and writing is redemptive. If something is in need of redemption, it must be in jeopardy first. That state where trouble is, where redemption is a possibility, that’s the place where I find writing meaningful.

How has writing brought you personally closer to the Savior?

Writing fiction especially requires a empathy for characters. Eugene England, who was one of my professors at BYU, said that writers must love their characters even when they make mistakes—just as we might love a friend who we feel is in the wrong.

The Gospel of John says that Christ was logos, “the word.” In Greek, logos means word and speech, but it also means reasoning itself. As a writer, if I’m trying to tell the truth, if I’m striving for the right word, if I’m trying to make any sense at all, then the work I’m doing will help me to move closer to the Savior. This is true for writing just as it’s true for every other worthy endeavor in life.

You teach creative writing at BYU–Idaho, so you get to see a lot of young and aspiring writers. What kinds of traits or skills get you excited about a young writer’s potential?

The best quality of all in a young writer is being teachable. Writers need maturity, life experiences, even some disappointments before they have something to say to the world. That all comes with time. Young writers may not have a lot of experience, but they can be teachable. They can love language. They can be curious. Young people who are easily bored won’t see that stories are all around us, waiting to be told.

Non-writers think that finding the story is the hard part. But as one of my writer friends says, “Good ideas are a dime a dozen.” What’s needed after the good idea is a lot of hard work. That’s something else I love to see in students—the willingness to revise again and again. I once told a friend that writing a story is like digging ditches. It’s mostly just a lot of work.

You write both fiction and essays. If there is a theme you want to explore, or truth you want to highlight, how do you decide whether to address it in fiction or nonfiction?

The medium of fiction or nonfiction usually presents itself with the germ of the idea. Typically, I write nonfiction when I have an academic concern, something that needs to be spelled out with lots of definitions and reasoning and specific examples from my life. With fiction, I usually begin with a question that troubles me on a much deeper, more mysterious level. It requires a question so big that I wouldn’t know where to start from a nonfiction point of view.

For example, a few years ago I learned that a man I knew very well—or thought I knew—had been arrested for being a pedophile. This man had been my escort when I got my temple endowment. He was the father of the family that had been a surrogate Mormon family to me. I just couldn’t understand it. How could that man, who seemed so religious and faithful to the gospel, how could that man be a pedophile?

In order to make sense of it—for my own sake—I had to write about it. I had to make him a character in fiction. Not to justify him, but to understand him. To understand the turmoil that must have existed within him for years and years before he finally got caught.

How do you see your work helping build the kingdom?

Zion is said to be a place where none are poor. I assume this also means no one who is poor in their literature or art. I like Brigham Young’s attitude, that in the Church we claim all truth, whether it comes from heaven or earth or hell.

I’m very interested in Mormon literature, but there isn’t a lot of good Mormon literature out there. We live far below our potential. Most of what sells in the commercial Mormon bookstore is pablum. Yet we have such an amazing theology, so comprehensive and gracious. It’s also a religion that is not without contradictions and mysteries. Our writers do so little to capitalize on this. Mostly, I think, we’re afraid of offending one another. We need to be bolder, on one hand; and we need to be slower to take offense on the other hand. Any act of creativity can run the risk of going wrong. That shouldn’t be a problem for people who know how to forgive. There’s nothing wrong with honest mistakes or false directions, if we’re quick to right ourselves once we discover our errors.

The idea of a “second anointing” is a major element in your story “Calling and Election.” That’s not a topic one often hears about in General Conference. Do you worry about going too deep or having readers misunderstand your stories?

Before writing that story I did a good deal of research on the topic of “calling and election.” I found a lot of people who claimed to understand it, and they all disagreed with each other. I concluded that no one who truly understands it is doing much talking—which is probably as it should be. So I felt there was plenty of room for poetic license. I don’t claim anything in the story to be doctrinal. It is fiction, after all. But there is a larger truth in the story: that God will try his children, one way or another, before he selects his jewels.

I have another story that was published a couple of years ago called “Hank Toy’s Devil.” That story is about a devil who’s seeking a mortal he once knew before the War in Heaven. I don’t know if such a thing is possible, but it’s not impossible either. Since no one had ever written about this, as far as I know, I felt free to do so. Ultimately, the only thing that matters is whether or not the story works.

Your fiction is very character-driven. How do you come up with the characters you write about?

Interesting people are all around us every day. I think the job of the writer is to listen, to get to know people and how they tick. In one family any writer can find enough material to fill volumes. Coming up with characters isn’t hard. The hard part is making them as real on paper as they are in life.

Your fiction has won several awards in the Mormon writing community. (Vernal Promises received the Marilyn Brown Novel Award from the Association for Mormon Letters, “Calling and Election” won the 2007 Fiction Contest from Irreantum, and “A Prophet’s Story” won the 2009 Brookie and D. K. Brown Fiction Contest from Sunstone.) What does that mean to you?

It’s nice to be recognized. The kind of writing I do doesn’t sell very well. Neither of my books has sold more than a thousand copies. Contrast that with the constant stream of Mormon romance novels that each sell in the tens of thousands. In the absence of sales, I suppose I can find comfort in a small prize or two along the way.

What are you writing now? Do you plan to publish more books in the near future?

I’ve finished a new novel, Caldera Ridge, that has been accepted for publication by Signature Books. I’m currently shopping around a manuscript of essays on Mormonism and creativity.

I work on more than one thing at a time. When the trail on one piece runs cold for a while, I switch to something else. I have four or five stories I’m working on, a couple of academic essay ideas, and the beginnings of two novels that, so far, consist of a hundred or so pages of nonsense.

Writing takes a lot of time—time to work and time for the work to stew. I once told a friend, “I can’t wait for five years from now, when you get to see the piece I worked on this morning.” It was a joke, but one with a lot of truth to it.

What do you hope your readers take away from your stories?

I hope my writing helps readers feel more connected to others and to the world. So many good and deep things rest just below the surfaces of our lives. We rush past so much, overlook so much—I’m preaching to myself here. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I write. Good writing, good art, arrests us, causes us to be immersed in an instant of humanity. That’s what I want to do for my readers. I want to make them stop and look and really see, even if just for a moment. ❧

Howard Lyon

Wed, 09 Apr 2014 00:00:00 -0600

April 9, 2014

By Candela Rice

Howard Lyon was born and raised in Mesa, Arizona. He is the youngest of five children. Howard had very supportive parents who, even when he was very young, made sure he had the materials and education to hone his talents. While attending high school, Howard met his wife, Shari Lunt. After they graduated, Howard served a mission and then they married and went to BYU and started their family. He began his career studying illustration at Brigham Young University working with artists such as Robert Barrett, Don Seegmiller, James Christensen, and Greg Olsen. Over the past twenty years he has worked in the video game industry as an art director, concept artist, and freelance illustrator. For much of his career he has painted dragons and trolls or scenes from science fiction. His work can be found in products from Dungeons and Dragons books, World of Warcraft cards, Magic: the Gathering and Star Wars. He has studied art in Italy, France, and most recently at the Grand Central Academy in New York. He has recently combined these experiences to switch gears and expand his subject matter to create inspirational pieces in the style of some of his favorite old masters: William Bouguereau, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, and John William Waterhouse.

Photo courtesy Howard Lyon

You have stated that your parents always provided you with the education and materials to become an artist. When did you start showing interest in this field?

When I was twelve. I told my parents that I wanted to be an artist and they always kept me supplied with paper and pencil and enrolled me in some classes.

What made you consider painting and illustrating as a possible career?

I was drawn in by the great illustrations in the books I read and the games I played. Reading old copies of stories with illustrations by Arthur Rackham and N. C. Wyeth really fed me. They still do!

Which artists have influenced your work throughout the years?

William Bouguereau
John William Waterhouse
Carl Bloch
Caravaggio
Raphael
Arnold Friberg
N. C. Wyeth
Arthur Rackham

Light of the World. Image courtesy Howard Lyon

Angel of Flight Alabaster. Image courtesy Howard Lyon

You have worked for several years as an artist producing fantasy worlds and characters. What did you enjoy most about this experience?

The opportunity to really dive into my imagination. Some of the commissions had total creative freedom, designing characters or creatures that have never been visualized before. Very rewarding and challenging.

More recently, though, you have been painting gospel-related scenes. What caused this shift in focus?

It was something that I always wanted to do. Many of the artists that I have admired from my youth did great religious work. My faith is a large part of my life, so it makes sense to express some of that through my artwork.

From Fear to Faith. Image courtesy Howard Lyon

Photo courtesy Howard Lyon

Will you share your thoughts about your painting From Fear to Faith?

It was an important piece, very personal in some ways.

The disciple on the left-hand side of the boat is bailing out water. He is focused on the storm in the distance. He sits in darkness and can’t see Christ. He is so busy working to save himself that he doesn’t notice the Savior or turn to him. His actions are dictated by fear.

The next two disciples are gathering in the rigging and trying to right the mast. One pulls ropes in from the water and the other leans back, both still trusting in their own strength, not wanting to let go and approach Christ.

The disciple behind the mast has just let go of the cross bar. He has done everything he can, and is now turning towards Christ. Faith is guiding his actions now.

The next three disciples sit in the boat, turned towards Christ. They have the faith to do this but haven’t approached him yet. A little hesitant, but for the most part, their faith has pushed their fears away. The two that sit together, one with his arm around the other, represent the idea that sometimes we need put our arm around our brother, or know that it is okay to lean on another for a time.

The last disciple, Peter, is at the front of the boat. He had the faith, in the middle of the trial, to kneel at Christ’s feet and ask to be saved. At that point, he heard and felt the great words, “Peace, be still.” In the middle of the trial, his faith was whole and knew that he could turn to Christ for salvation.

How does the gospel influence your work?

The most direct way is in that I portray scenes from the scriptures. I hope that who I am, which is very much shaped by the gospel, comes out in my work, whatever it might be. I try to create art that uplifts, either through beauty or the message being shared.

A Thread of Faith. Image courtesy Howard Lyon

The Herald Angels. Image courtesy Howard Lyon

How do you prepare spiritually to work on these pieces?

I spend a lot of time before I start a painting pondering over the message of the piece. Sometimes that involves research and study. Hopefully it invites inspiration into my process.

When or how do you usually receive inspiration for your next painting?

We (my wife and I) keep a running list of all the ideas we have. We add to it as they come up. When it is time to start a new piece, I go to my list and ponder over the subjects. Some ideas that I thought were great when I put them on the list, get culled out. Over time, I feel that I end up with a strong, though short, list of ideas. Sometimes the ideas come during study, but often they come while doing everyday things or observing people, or hearing about their experiences.

What are you currently working on?

I am wrapping up another painting of Christ as the Good Shepherd, as well as a painting of the Magi visiting Christ when he was about eighteen months old. The latter is a private commission. I am also working on ideas to submit for various temples.

Time Reversal. Image courtesy Howard Lyon

A Son Is Given. Image courtesy Howard Lyon

What challenges did you face while painting murals at the new Gilbert Arizona Temple and how did you overcome them?

The biggest challenge was the stress of doing something large, new, and for a temple! The cure for it was to get working. Each hour that passed where I just thought about what I was going to do was torture, but once I started actually working, putting brush to canvas, that stress went away and I focused on painting and improving.

How do you see your work helping build the kingdom?

I hope that when viewers see my work, they take a moment to pause and pay attention to how they feel. Hopefully the imagery is of enough quality that they feel something—peace or a sense of well-being. Something that tells them there is something greater out there. Something to hope for and strive for in this life.

Any advice for future artists out there?

Work hard. It is worth it. Art, like any discipline, takes a lot of work to do well at. Even if you aren’t working professionally, paint or draw like you are working for your most important client. Be humble and always take criticism. Anyone who is willing to give you a thoughtful critique is trying to help you improve. Try not to feel defensive, and see the input, even negative input, as crucial for your development. Draw every day, especially from life. Again, work hard—you will make it! ❧

Josh Wagner

Mon, 31 Mar 2014 00:00:00 -0600

March 31, 2014

By Meagan Brady

Josh Wagner is a husband and dad of two children (and one on the way). He also works as a filmmaker and teaches filmmaking at East Hollywood High School, a film-themed charter school in West Valley City. He’s worked on various documentary and reality TV projects such as To Lose, to Love, and to Be Free; Road to Zion; and The Generations Project. He’s most excited about the new web series he has been working on with his high school students, Paradise High.

Photo courtesy Josh Wagner

How did you get into filmmaking?

My freshman year of high school, I had to make a final project for a Romeo and Juliet unit. Episode I of Star Wars had just come out, so I decided to adapt one of the scenes of the play into the Star Wars universe. We of course picked the scene with the most swordfighting and replaced all the swords with lightsabers. It was a terrible movie, but it started something that hasn’t stopped!

Did the gospel have any impact on your decision to go into the film industry?

Very much so. The first time I considered filmmaking was when a woman in my ward who I saw as a mentor watched some of the films I was making in high school and said I should go into filmmaking because the Church needed more talented filmmakers (she was a bit frustrated with the quality of some of the Church films she saw being produced at the time). Her recommendation stayed with me in the back of my head, and so, during my freshman year at BYU, I decided to take Intro to Film with Dean Duncan, which had a huge effect on me. I wanted to pursue filmmaking as a career but was worried I couldn’t support a family as a filmmaker. I made it a matter of prayer. I actually ended up praying to the Lord and telling him that I had chosen not to go into filmmaking. The Lord gave me a very clear answer that He did indeed want me to pursue filmmaking as my college major. It scared me. I wanted to be sure I was getting a true answer, so I asked my dad to pray about it as well. He didn’t think I should pursue filmmaking either but he got the same answer I did.

Since my decision to become a professional filmmaker started with a revelatory experience, I have always felt like I need to somehow do something for the Lord with this career. I don’t really know what that means yet. I know that being a filmmaker has helped me be a more open-minded person and that has helped me serve people better. I also have worked on projects which deal with gospel subjects, but I’m not really 100% sure yet why the Lord cares that I pursue filmmaking. We’ll see how it plays out.

But I do know this: being told by the Lord that I should pursue this career has helped me a lot at times when I was worried about having work. When I was nearing the end of one project and not sure what project I would work on next, I felt like since I was doing what the Lord wanted, He would provide work for me. And He has.

How does it influence your work today?

The gospel has helped me to think about filmmaking with an other-minded approach. Rather than just thinking about creating things that fulfill my personal artistic and emotional needs (which, in some ways, can be a little selfish), I try to think about how what I create blesses the people who watch it and the other people who work on it.

And now you’re teaching it. How did you make that jump?

About three years ago, I was writing and producing reality TV shows that aired on BYUtv. It was a job that demanded a lot of my emotional energy and time but I wasn’t really happy with the product we were producing. It felt like an awful lot of stress and work for little reward. The stress got so intense one day that I chose to let it out on my three-year-old son. He was acting up. I was holding him. I dropped him in anger. I was shocked that I had chosen to engage in a behavior that can be described as physical child abuse. I decided that I needed to do something different for work. At the time, I had a neighbor who taught film at East Hollywood High School, the charter high school I teach at now. I asked him if the school would be hiring any time soon. He said that they were planning to hire a new film teacher but hadn’t posted the position yet. I applied and got the job. I was excited to do work that felt more service-oriented. Rather than stay up late at night worried about whether my producer would yell at me because some person had decided not to appear on camera, I would be staying up worried about how to help students with names succeed at life. That’s the kind of stress I want to have in life.

East Hollywood High seems like a unique environment—can you tell us a little more about the program?

Students who attend East Hollywood High School receive a full high school degree while also getting the kind of film education you would receive at a college or university. Film classes range from cinematography to screenwriting to film scoring to editing to film criticism. All of these classes culminate in advanced film production classes that are based around specific genres (for example, this year we did film noir, steampunk, and horror). In these classes, students take on different roles on the film crew and produce the films. Some of our students go on to pursue a career in filmmaking, others learn skills such as creative problem solving and teamwork that apply to other careers that they pursue. Also, many of our students are teens who simply didn’t fit in or weren’t succeeding at a traditional high school and are looking for a different kind of environment in which they can get their degree.

Also, last year at the prom, the music selection included the Pokemon theme and the song “Freeze Ray” from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. And our mascot is the Manbear, a man in a suit with a bear head. So, yeah, we’re pretty awesome.

Photo courtesy Josh Wagner

In its nine-year history, East Hollywood High has produced a variety of projects, perhaps most notably three feature-length films based on Shakespeare. Can you walk us through the process from conception to post-production?

Five years ago, one of the film teachers decided that since we don’t have sports at our school, we should produce a feature-length film that the whole school could rally behind, sort of like our version of going to State. They decided to produce a Shakespeare play into the movie so that the script would already be mostly prepared. They picked Macbeth and set it in a post-apocalyptic setting. One of the English teachers helped with adapting the script and also produced. One of the film teachers directed. All the rest of the crew and the cast were students. Production took place over the course of the second trimester of that school year. Students enrolled in a class where they spent a little less than half of the school day doing production. During the third trimester, the advanced editing class divided up the scenes among the students and edited the film.

Over the next two years, the same process was followed to produce two more Shakespeare adaptations: Much Ado About Nothing set in a high school, and Hamlet set in a fundamentalist Mormon polygamist colony.

In addition to working with a new format, Paradise High is also your first original story. How has that differed from previous projects?

When I first started working at East Hollywood High, I had my advanced screenwriting class write a web series. I was thinking that it would be good to produce a long-format project based on an original script and figured that a web series would have more distribution options than a high-school-produced feature. The class produced a really strong outline and a rough draft of a script. A student and I kept working on the script and after a year, we had a really solid story that we were super excited to produce. So, it was a lot more work to produce the script for this project than it was for the adaptations. But it feels good to have made something original.

You’ve also launched an impressive marketing campaign around the project. Can you explain why you feel that has been an important facet of this film project?

We want people to see the work we’re producing. Doing so is important for our students’ future careers and their current sense of confidence and pride in their work. It’s also good for my own career, which is a blessing to my family. It has motivated all of us to up the level of production value because we realize that we’re competing with other web series on the internet rather than just making something to watch at our school. I think it’s also an opportunity for students to learn the principles of successful social media marketing which will become relevant in every field in ways we’re only beginning to realize.

How do you think social media is changing the film industry?

I think social media is good for the film industry. Sure, it has resulted in a plethora of pretty bad stuff out there (I mean in terms of quality, but I suppose issues of morality are also relevant here), but that doesn’t really matter to me because I can simply choose not to watch that stuff. I focus on how social media allows filmmakers to take their work directly to an audience and let the audience decide if they like it. It has the potential to cut out the middleman of the big studios and networks. I think that’s great! And it’s a great opportunity for our school and our students.

It also has provided a way for short films to get seen by people, and I really like short films!

Photo courtesy Josh Wagner

As was mentioned, these projects are largely completed by high school students—amateurs in the field. What have been some of the most surprising aspects of working with these students? Most rewarding? Most frustrating?

The most rewarding part, by far, is the relationships I have formed with the students. It is one thing to engage with a student in a classroom but it is quite another to go through the grueling process of shooting a 100-page script with the students. I really value the relationships we formed. I get a bit emotional when I think about it.

It is hard working with high school students, however, because there are some things I have to do that a director wouldn’t normally do. There are matters related to money that would normally be handled by a production manager, but in this setting, I, as the adult, have to do it while also directing the film. That is hard to do. Also, a small percentage of the students can drive so I sometimes have to go and do tasks that require a car which a director wouldn’t normally be worried about.

How do you see your work building the kingdom?

I’m not sure, but I hope it does. I made a documentary I’m really proud of a few years back called To Lose, to Love, and to Be Free that told the story of a Cuban refugee’s flight from her country and eventual conversion to the gospel. That film had a lot of heart and testimony. I feel like it contributed to the building of the kingdom. And I feel that, as I work with young folk, I am setting the kind of example a saint should set and influencing them for good.

Overall, though, I hope that I am doing more with my work to build the kingdom than I am aware of. I feel strongly about the ideal of the law of consecration and want everything I do to be a holy act. I am not 100% sure if my filmmaking and teaching work is “holy,” but I hope it is.

With your busy schedule, do you find any time to work on personal projects on the side?

I would say that Paradise High, which I am super proud of, is a personal project for me. I am so happy with the quality of show we are producing. People are shocked that it was produced by high school students. It resonates strongly with audiences as something that’s entertaining, funny, and dramatic.

Paradise High plus the more traditional teaching I do plus church callings and family time fill up my schedule right now. When the second season of Paradise High (for which we’re in preproduction right now) is done, I plan to devote more time to screenwriting during my vacation and commuting time and sell some scripts in Hollywood. I look forward to that. As a filmmaker, I’d say that I am first and foremost a writer.

What advice would you give to someone interested in working in the film industry?

Get a confirmation from the Spirit that it’s what you should do. Then work hard to produce the best product out there and make sure that the right people see your work. Then you’ll be fine.

What’s next for you?

Like I said, I plan to finish Paradise High and then focus more on screenwriting. I also want to spend more time with my family. I don’t think I’ll ever stop teaching. I really love it. And I especially love working with teenagers. It’s a great age to teach filmmaking to! ❧

Julie Berry

Fri, 21 Mar 2014 00:00:00 -0600

March 21, 2014

By Sarah Steele

Julie Berry grew up in western New York. She holds a BS from Rensselaer in communication and an MFA from Vermont College in writing for children and young adults. She now lives in eastern Massachusetts with her husband and four sons. All the Truth That’s in Me (September 2013, Viking) is Julie’s first YA novel. It has earned starred reviews from Kirkus, School Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly, BCCB, and the Horn Book. It’s been named a Junior Library Guild selection and Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults title by YALSA, and a Top Ten TAYSHAS title by the Texas Library Association. It’s been nominated for the Whitney Award for Young Adult Fiction, the Edgar Award for Young Adult Mystery, and Australia’s Inky Award for teen literature, and shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal for fiction in the UK. It is also a Horn Book Fanfare title, a Kirkus Best Teen Book of 2013, a Boston Globe top YA for 2013, and a School Library Journal best of 2013 selection. It will be published in twelve international countries and territories. Julie is also the author of The Amaranth Enchantment and Secondhand Charm (Bloomsbury) and the Splurch Academy for Disruptive Boys series (Penguin Books for Young Readers). A forthcoming middle grade release is The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place (Fall 2014, Roaring Brook). Julie’s works appear in audio and international versions worldwide.

Photo courtesy Bruce Lucier

Have you always envisioned yourself as a writer? Or was there a particular instance that put you on the path to a writing career?

I think on some level I always dreamed of being an author, and hoped it would be possible. On other levels I doubted my ability and my discipline. Even if I could muster both, I doubted whether authorship was a valid career goal. Would it pay the rent? It took me until I was thirty to realize how much I wanted to write, and to find the courage to pursue it professionally. I’ve always felt that the birth of my fourth and youngest son was the catalyzing event in my writing career. It doesn’t make any logical sense, but soon after he was born, I felt led to start writing. Doors of opportunity began to open, and ideas and motivation came. I like to say that my youngest brought it as a gift to me.

You write both young adult and middle grade novels. Do you prefer to write one over the other?

I enjoy both. Young adult and middle grade fiction present different opportunities, and I enjoy seizing both because variety keeps writing interesting. I enjoy the whimsy that sometimes seems more possible in middle grade, and I enjoy the romance and danger that can be, perhaps, more fully expressed in young adult literature. Of course, young adult lit also has room for whimsy, and middle grade can be romantic and adventurous as well.

Image courtesy Julie Berry

What motivates you to write?

I love to do it. I’m always happiest when I’m making progress on a draft of a new book. Not just happy; joyful. But life has a pernicious tendency to get in the way of writing, even though it’s what I love to do. So that’s the struggle. Having contracts and deadlines to write helps cut through the obstacles, at least in theory.

Tell us about your writing process—do you have a specific routine or time you like to write?

Oh, how I wish. I used to write at night when my children were younger and went to bed earlier–and, in truth, when I also was younger and more energetic. Now that I have three teenagers with later schedules and earlier alarm clocks, I write during the day when they’re in school. But much of my work time is occupied by the business side of authorship, so that’s a challenge. I don’t have any special routine. Flip open your laptop, find your document, frown at the last few pages you wrote, then dive in.

Where do you typically draw your storyline inspiration from?

Storyline inspiration comes very differently for each project. Some, including the idea for my latest novel, All the Truth That’s in Me, come from a stray idea I snagged out of the ether and did something with; some come about with some deliberate intention and planning, such as my Splurch Academy for Disruptive Boys series. I have learned to be much more attuned to unpredictable bolts when they come from the ether. You just never know when one may pay rich dividends.

Image courtesy Julie Berry

Can you tell us more about writing All the Truth That’s in Me?

I’ve never felt a clearer, surer sense of a character than I felt for Judith as I wrote All the Truth That’s in Me. There was never a real question in my mind about what she would do in a given situation. I knew. Sometimes you hear authors say that the characters are in charge or that the characters wrote the story, and it may, perhaps, sound contrived, but that’s how this project felt for me. After all she’d suffered, I agonized over how I might help her find a victory, but I need not have worried. Judith pulled it off all on her own, with surprising elegance, I thought. I felt and feel so lucky to have found her. She’s the kind of character writers pray to discover.

All the Truth That’s in Me is written in a second-person narrative. As such a foreign concept to even the most avid reader, why did you choose to write it this way?

It was foreign enough to me that I wanted to give it a try. I was writing an essay for graduate school at Vermont College of the Fine Arts, and I read some material in a craft book about point of view. After reading the discussion on second-person voice, and why it was so rarely used, I wondered if I ought to attempt it. That’s how this project began. I realized not far into it that I wasn’t really writing true second-person, where the “you” persona is the reader himself or herself, but rather a form of first-person address to another character. Even so, I liked the groove I’d gotten into, so I stayed there.

What do you hope your readers take away from your books?

Marvelous entertainment; a thoroughly engrossing escape. That’s enough for me.

Have you ever toyed with the idea of writing for the LDS market? Or do you enjoy publishing in the broader, mainstream market?

I have toyed with the idea, but only briefly. My hope and goal was always to write books that would be found in libraries and bookstores around the world.

Photo courtesy Julie Berry

What advice would you give to Young Julie as she embarks on the path to becoming a published author?

What I’d give for that time machine! I would tell Young Julie not to worry if her early stories and poems fell flat or weren’t impressive. I would tell her that writing, like any other skill, develops with time and patience, and not to let her frustration with the poor quality of her best efforts deter her from believing in her potential. I would also tell her to write freely, boldly, without fear of whatever her creativity might produce. This is the message I try to share with students today.

How do you see fiction fitting in with the gospel?

A fascinating question. If Christianity is a religion of the book, just as Judaism and Islam are, then Mormonism is a religion of the book, squared. We’ve got extra books. Deep and thoughtful reading is part of our recommended daily devotional practice and part of our Sunday worship. How can it help but follow logically from such a tradition that many of us would become thoughtful readers in general, and from there, writers? We’re encouraged to keep journals, and that, for me, was excellent training. I formed a habit in childhood of capturing my daily experiences and feelings in writing. My early journals are mundane and infantile, but I maintain that they groomed me for my present career. We’re taught to prize education, to set goals, and to use our talents. It makes sense that some of this energy would percolate into fiction. On a deeper level, I believe God loves stories. He encodes truth in stories, and shaped us as storytelling creatures. Jesus, the teller of parables, made storytelling sacred, and that means a great deal to me.

What are you currently working on? Can we expect any future books to be released this year?

You can indeed expect a new release this year. Roaring Brook will publish The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place, a wry and irreverent Victorian murder mystery for middle graders, in September. I’m very excited about this one. Right now I’m writing a young adult historical novel for Viking, due out in Fall 2015 if all goes according to plan. It’s set in medieval France, and I hope to take a trip, if I can figure out how to arrive in medieval times. :) ❧

Anne Bradshaw

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 00:00:00 -0600

March 19, 2014

By Marisa Di Placido

Anne Bradshaw was born in Caernarvon, Wales, and grew up in England. She has lived in the United States for fifteen years with her husband, Bob, their four children, and fifteen grandchildren. Anne enjoys writing books and screenplays, reading, genealogy, aromatherapy, and walking. She is the author of seven books, including Volumes One and Two of True Miracles with Genealogy (Volume Two was a 2012 Global eBook winner), Famous Family Nights, Please, No Zits! & Other Short Stories, and a young adult mystery titled Dingo. She is also an author for Gospel Ideals.

Photo courtesy Anne Bradshaw

How did you get started writing?

My serious writing began when our four children were finally all in school and there was time to take a correspondence course in writing. After that, I began targeting magazines with articles relating to my interests. After a few acceptances, I decided to send an article about my Sutton Coldfield, England, seminary class to The New Era magazine in Salt Lake City. That article was titled “Royal Commoners” and appeared in the September 1987 issue. It was the first of many stories (both fiction and nonfiction) about youth from around the British Isles, which continued until I left England in 1997. I enjoyed interviewing many wonderful young people and eventually got the hang of taking printable pictures. The story titled “Preston Pioneers” in February 1995 was particularly fun to do.

Your fiction work includes YA such as Dingo. What do you like most about writing for the teen set?

I can still remember the odd mixture of conviction and doubt, confidence and fear that teenage years produced. I wanted to help young people grow through that and become strong in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Writing fiction that interests them yet at the same time shares decent ideas without preaching felt like a good way to go. Teens are a bright and inquisitive group and fun to be around. Their wisdom often astonishes me. I’ve learned many good things from this age group while interviewing and working with them. It’s always interesting to go outside my box and try to see things from their point of view.

How do you ensure that your writing for young adults is uplifting?

I do that by avoiding gratuitous violence and immorality. In my book of short stories for LDS youth (Please, No Zits!), all the stories are entertaining and true to life. The characters make mistakes and struggle with the consequences, but there is always a positive message aimed at helping with life challenges in a non-threatening way.

You have also written a sci-fi/fantasy screenplay with Jeanne McKinney. How is writing a screenplay different than a novel?

One huge difference is length. A book contains many pages of dialogue and description, whereas a screenplay is dialogue with sidenote hints at sound, scenery, music, and visual effects that come in later during production. A book can be between 80,000 to 150,000 words and more. A screenplay is usually between 15,000 and 20,000 words. A book is the whole deal, whereas a screenplay is only part of the finished product.

Another important difference is pacing. Although basic good structure is essential for both, a novel allows time for a spacious journey, whereas a screenplay is all about the bare essentials written with economy of words. Screenplays are usually plot, dialogue, and action focused. Novels are this and more. They also get inside characters’ heads, exploring feelings, thoughts, and memories. I’m sure my training in short story writing helped a lot with the tight writing needed for screenplays.

What are some of the challenges you have run into when writing a project with someone else?

Fortunately, my writing buddy and I have the same work ethics, and although we wrote everything by email (we were living in different U. S. states), our work times integrated really well. Jeanne is a night person, so she worked on the screenplay in the evening. I’m a morning person, so I picked up a few hours later, around 5:00 a.m., and continued from where she left off. We both work fast, so neither of us ever had to prompt the other to keep moving.

Since Jeanne is a professional screenwriter and had the right software, I trusted her judgment on most things. However, because our screenplays are set in England, and Jeanne is American, I made sure the language and other British details were accurate, and she trusted my judgment on that.

I can imagine some writers might have trouble accepting each other’s ideas and choosing which direction to take the story, but that didn’t happen for us. Our minds were in sync most of the time, and we were both willing to bend when needed. It was an exhilarating experience.

Recently, you have been focusing on nonfiction works, including True Miracles with Genealogy. What about nonfiction interests you as a writer?

For me, nonfiction is more demanding than fiction in that accuracy is vital and can get tedious. Finding crisp new ways to express old things can sometimes feel more like punishment than pleasure. But it does depend on the material. I loved getting involved in transcribing stories in the True Miracles with Genealogy books. The writing was still hard work, but the spiritual strength gained during the process was worth every bit of effort.

As a creative person, do you find you’re more constrained when you’re writing nonfiction?

Yes! Fiction is my favorite kind of writing. Imagination kept me absorbed for hours as a child—too much, really, causing nightmares at night and daydreams at school. Now, it is therapeutic to stop doing something dreary and spend an hour or so writing fiction for pure pleasure. It is energizing and satisfying to play around with words until a story springs to life and characters seem to morph right out of the screen.

Image courtesy Anne Bradshaw

You are originally from the United Kingdom but now live in the States. How do you think being British but an expatriate affects your writing?

I still have a deep attachment to my British roots, and usually include reference to the UK in my books. There are stories in Please, No Zits set in different UK towns, and the same with my genealogy books. My YA novel, Dingo, is set in Connecticut, U. S. A., and Cornwall, England. It comes in handy, knowing the places and language well. My problem is keeping English words for English characters, and not letting them pop up when they are American.

In both your fiction and nonfiction writing, how does the gospel influence your work?

All my writing (and life) is influenced by the gospel of Jesus Christ. My books are rooted in Christianity. They involve resolving everyday problems with Christian principles. I am inspired daily by the scriptures and by reading and viewing uplifting Church posts on the Internet. I try to pay it forward in some small way with my own work—not only through my books, but by regular posting of Church-related information and videos on Facebook and other social websites.

How do you feel your writing helps to build the kingdom?

I understand the need for building the kingdom through missionary work in the world, and I hope my writing contributes toward that. I realize the importance of sharing my testimony of the Savior because I originally discovered the gospel through another person opening her mouth about her beliefs.

The True Miracles with Genealogy books were written for both LDS and non-LDS genealogists, but Volume One has an introduction that explains in detail why the Church does family history work. That’s a put-off for some people, but I believe it is essential information that needs to be shared because it explains why we have temples and gives meaning to our very existence. The kingdom needs building from within and without. I hope my writing helps move the work along, and helps others find their way, no matter where or how they live. ❧

David Habben

Mon, 17 Mar 2014 00:00:00 -0600

March 17, 2014

By Candela Rice

David Habben is an illustrator and fine artist based in Salt Lake City, Utah. In 2006, he graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration. David continued his studies through the Children’s Book Design Fellowship program at Chronicle Books in San Francisco, California. He has provided illustrations, storyboards, and concept art for a wide variety of clients in publishing and advertising and has recently joined the talented team at Smart Bomb Interactive as a marketing illustrator. David lives with his beautiful wife and daughter in the shadow of the Wasatch Mountains, where they enjoy the company of wonderful friends and family.

Photo courtesy David Habben

When did you start illustrating?

I started illustrating as a job in my teens, but it wasn’t until 2008 that I made illustrating my full-time profession.

Did you mostly teach yourself how to draw, or did you receive formal training? Either way, whose art inspired you initially?

I’ve been blessed to have some excellent instruction in my efforts to be an artist, including my family, school teachers, and professional mentors. I did receive formal training in the form of university training at Boise State University and Brigham Young University.

Books were prized in my home growing up and so my first influences were great illustrators like Maurice Sendak, Crockett Johnson, and Chris Van Allsburg. Animation and comic books were highly influential as well. It wasn’t until I was older that I was introduced to the great traditional art masters.

Image courtesy David Habben

Photo courtesy David Habben

Your website shows great work done in ink. Is this your preferred medium? If so, what makes it your favorite?

Thank you! I’ve always had a weakness for line and so ink and I have become close friends. There’s something about the directness of it. The way it can create depth and movement without relying on anything other than contrast is wonderful to me. If I’m being honest, though, I’m incredibly jealous of a painter’s ability to master color and light, and I hope to study that more.

You also create digital art. Would you say digital art expands or reduces your possibilities as an artist? Why?

I think in technical terms it expands what the artist can do in a given amount of time. Color and composition can be edited so quickly with digital work that the artist can spend more time on other aspects of the work or in just producing a great volume of work. On the other hand, there’s a real sense of commitment in art creation when you can’t “undo” something. One of the reasons I work in pen in my sketchbook is that it forces me to commit to my line and my drawing. I think that process is really beneficial for any artist, so even if someone is focusing more on their digital work, I’d recommend taking the time to practice traditionally as well.

Image courtesy David Habben

How did you find your style? Your drawings, especially those about the gospel, have your distinct touch. How did you find a way to represent familiar images for those who are LDS, but in such a unique way?

Through lots and lots and lots of drawing. I was never smart enough to learn the way other people created art, which didn’t help in my school experience, but I have pushed to try new things, new tools and techniques. I like to think I’ve taken the same approach to my faith-based art. While I’m a member of a large, well-organized church, I still feel that my faith and testimony are unique to me and reflective of my relationship to my Heavenly Father, so the art hopefully reflects that. I think a lot of people can connect with that concept and as a result we’re seeing more interesting and personal work by LDS artists than we’ve seen in the past. The work is becoming more conceptual and less institutional and it’s a change I’m thrilled to see.

Your work is also full of symbolism. What inspires you to include so much of it?

It’s amazing to me that cultures all over the world can independently arrive at similar meanings for the signs and symbols in the world around them. Symbols speak to the universality of the human family, which is a core principle of the gospel. The gospel, ancient and restored, is full of symbols, and I believe that’s because the messages have to be spread throughout time and culture. We teach and preach using symbols every day. So, including them in my work is an effort to break down barriers of communication. It’s also a great way to encourage thought and discovery in my viewers and I love to discuss what they have felt or thought as they’ve seen my conceptual work.

Image courtesy David Habben

How do you prepare spiritually before working on a drawing?

If I’m working on something that’s meant to directly convey a gospel message, I always begin with prayer. During the work itself, I try to keep my environment conducive to the Spirit’s influence. My efforts there aren’t always perfect, but I do notice a difference in my focus and my work when I make the attempt. Creating the art is like anything else relating to the practice of the gospel. It doesn’t work to rush a quick repentant prayer before we take part in any ordinance. The real work of discipleship is done day to day and little by little. If we want to bring the Spirit into our work, I feel we need to develop daily habits—i.e., prayer, scripture study, etc.—and also work to create a work space where we can lessen the distractions and temptations of the world. Again, I’m still working on doing this consistently, but it’s a continual goal for my work and life.

How does the gospel influence your work?

In many ways, I think it both causes me to create certain themes just as much as it keeps me from approaching others. Although I’ve made some poor choices, in general I feel that my personal work and my commissions should be consistent with my personal morals and ethics. It doesn’t work for me to resist one temptation, but support someone else succumbing to it through my artwork. Also, the gospel gives me a deep thematic well to draw from and I’m able to combine my artistic efforts with my own growth within its teachings. It may not always seem that way, but hidden in the pages of my sketchbook is a continual representation of my evolving faith and understanding.

Image courtesy David Habben

Tell us about your piece Be of Good Cheer.

That piece was my attempt to approach both the idea of faith and a specific example from the scriptures without actually drawing the Savior. I haven’t quite gotten to a point where I feel comfortable drawing Him yet. That may seem odd to say because so many depict Him beautifully, but for myself, I don’t quite feel ready yet stylistically. His reflection in the water is meant to depict that feeling a bit. He’s there, ever present and inviting, but at times difficult to make out as the storm is billowing and the waves are crashing. The bare feet of the apostle are meant to represent all of us, but for this image I flipped the perspective, so instead of the viewer seeing the feet as their own, they see the reflection of the Savior as their own. My hope is that we see this as a reminder that a testimony is a responsibility to, in effect, invite others out onto and into the water with our Redeemer.

How do you see your work helping build the kingdom?

I hope it does. When I work with the Church magazines, I try to be very aware that it will be seen by people all over the world who are looking for spiritual strength just like me. It may seem like a simple cartoon, but combined with the right moment, it could help someone in a time of need. In that way, I hope my work bears testimony to them and to anyone else who sees it.

Image courtesy David Habben

What are you currently working on?

I just wrapped up a couple of illustrations for the Ensign and New Era. I’m working on a poster for an upcoming documentary, and we just recently announced the release of a new snowboard with Rossignol that will be out this fall. I’m also working on a couple of fundraisers, including the donation of a hand-painted skateboard deck to a program to support skateboarders in Montana. I’m also hoping to publish a book (or two) this fall.

Where do you see your work taking you in the future?

That’s always the big question. I’d love to devote more time to creating fine art for a gallery setting and also develop more books for children.

Any advice for future artists out there?

Be true to yourself. All the money and fame in the world is a sad substitute for your integrity. Keep working and refining and graciously listen to constructive feedback. Remember the Source of your gift and use it accordingly. ❧

Charan Prabhakar

Fri, 14 Mar 2014 00:00:00 -0600

March 14, 2014

By Jessie Evans

Charan was born on January 22, 1981 in Madras, India. In 1987, at the tender age of 6.34, his family moved to America and he grew up in Utah. As a kid (and even now) he used to daydream a lot and pretend he was off on his many conquests. Luckily he found ways to put these “hobbies” to good use when he discovered that people could actually get paid for creating a different life through acting. In high school, he took his first drama class and was hooked. Since then, he’s acted in various plays and movies, including High School Musical, High School Musical 2, and Good Luck Charlie, It’s Christmas!. In 2009, after he acted in Abandoned Mine, he moved to L. A. to pursue his daydreaming, pretending career to greater heights. Since then he has acted in commercials and short films, and he has recently produced and acted in his first feature while out in L. A., The Last Man(s) on Earth. He most recently acted in the feature films Inspired Guns and Adopting Trouble, in which he actually adopted trouble. He just wrapped shooting on Mike Judge’s Silicon Valley. Whether in filmmaking or in life, Charan lives by a simple philosophy: To do is to be, to be is to do, do be do be do.

Photo courtesy Charan Prabhakar

When did you know acting was the path you wanted to take? How supportive is your family?

Great question. I think ever since I was a kid, I thought acting would be cool. I remember in ninth grade, when counselors came to our class to encourage us to pick potential careers, acting was the only thing I could think of. I took drama classes in high school and really loved them. But after high school, I kind of forgot about it, to tell you the truth. At the time I wasn’t a member of the Church, and I was really fascinated with learning about the gospel. That took over my life. I joined the Church, went to BYU, went on a mission, came back, and was going back to figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. And it was like this voice kept saying to me, “Give acting a shot.” Then in the summer of 2004, I had this life-altering week where I realized that if I never took that leap into the acting world, I’d regret it for the rest of my life. The moment I made that decision to go for it, so many blessings and opportunities came into my life. It’s been amazing! And my family has been so great through it all. My parents want me to be happy and succeed in life. Initially my dad was like, “Wait, are you serious?! Don’t you want to be a doctor instead?” After I told him I passed out after seeing any type of blood, he tried to encourage me to go another direction. But I was pretty insistent on the acting thing. Finally, after a couple of my roles in films and whatnot, he started seeing that not only was I happy, I was succeeding. And that was the key to helping him be a believer.

How do you see your work helping build the kingdom?

I think the biggest thing it has done is help me share more light into the world. I feel like I’ve always been a positive person. I want to share that positivity in the media. The Lord asks us to be a light unto the world and I definitely feel that acting helps me do that. I try to create that positivity not only in the projects I work on, but with people I’m constantly around.

What advice would you give to another member of the Church wanting to pursue an acting career?

Well, if you’re a member and you’re Indian, I’d say don’t pursue acting. Ever. You’d be my competition! Just kidding. No, I’d say if you really want to do it, go for it! But don’t, don’t do it to get famous. Do it if you’re truly passionate about acting. Because it’s tough sometimes. Sometimes you’re just waiting and waiting for the opportunities. And then you get the opportunity. And you’re on set. And it’s hot. Or it’s cold. Or the hours are long. Really long. Or you’re messing up your lines. And you have to do take after take after take. And the crew is getting upset. And you’re getting hungry. You’re wearing an uncomfortable costume. You have weird prosthetics all over your face. And you just want to scream. And you get it do it all over again the next day. For the next month. And the project comes out and you find out they cut your part. Or they dubbed over you. And you think, how is this glamorous? Is this what you signed up for? But then you realize how much you love it! How much fun it is to make believe and create stories, and truly be in the moment! And how much fun it is to work with other people and as a group create a piece of art that you can share with the world. So act, if you really, really want to act. If you get excited every time you think about it. Because it’s tough. :)

How does the gospel influence your work?

People have told me many, many times, when you get to Hollywood, don’t lose your way, don’t let go of the gospel. But the truth is, my passion for acting only exists when I put the Lord first. Because when I don’t, I’m the worst actor I know! I can’t do it. And I don’t even like doing it! So I have to put the Lord first in order for me to even work. That is the most major way the gospel influences my work.

What are some challenges you’ve faced in balancing your moral convictions and career aspirations, and how did you overcome those challenges?

Like the question above, I feel like putting the Lord first is the only way I can act. So if I’m reading a script or being offered a role, and I can’t seem to put the Lord first while accepting the role, that’s my first huge red flag that I don’t think I’ll be able to do it. But I’ve been blessed tremendously. I have a great manager who knows me well and is always fighting to get me the best work possible. She is very accepting of my beliefs and is willing to get me parts completely according my standards. How did I get so lucky in finding a manager like that, you ask? The answer is simple: she too is actively LDS. :)

Who is your greatest inspiration?

The Savior. Literally, I use his Atonement as I try to understand characters I’m portraying and what makes them tick. What’s more, I can feel the Savior guiding me as I try to create a character. He is actively helping me pursue my dreams. Therefore, he is and will always be my greatest inspiration.

Photo courtesy Charan Prabhakar

Where do you see yourself and your career in ten years?

Ten years from now, I see myself ten years older. Hopefully wiser. I’d love to have a family, so I think I’m going to start getting on that bandwagon. As far as career goes, I’ve focused a lot of time on producing and acting in independent movies. I think I might still do a few more of those, especially if I’m just acting in them. But I really want to get into TV. Stories on TV seem much more compelling to me. You can really find out about characters and have deep storylines. Not to mention, having a career in TV can also be more stable financially than acting in the occasional independent film. So I definitely want to explore the TV option. But after that, I want to start acting in studio big budget pictures, like the epic kind you see on the big screen. There’s something really sweet about that.

If you could describe your dream role, what would it be?

Gosh, there are so many different roles I could consider my dream role that I can’t give an exact definition. However, I do think that if the character I play gives hope to the world, that would be a dream role. Someone that brings light into an otherwise dark world. I’m just a hopeful kind of guy, you know?

Besides acting, I know you’ve produced a lot of your own films. Is producing something you’d like to do more of?

Yes, definitely. But I tend to only produce projects I get to act in, because I really, really love acting. However, producing gives me the control to tell the stories I want to tell. It lets me set the standards for the show.

I understand you’ve been working on an HBO pilot. What’s the story there? Will we be seeing your face on HBO soon? What other projects are you working on right now?

Yes, I was privileged to act in one episode of a new HBO show coming out called Silicon Valley. It’s written and directed by Mike Judge, who is known for creating the King of the Hill series as well as Office Space. The show is about the tech world and a group of geeks who start their company. I had a really fun, awkward character to play. I’m a CEO of a company that’s made a lot of money. I’m throwing a house party and the main characters come in and get super jealous of my success. Although I was only written for one episode, Mike liked me and told me if the show is successful, he’d like to have me back on season 2. So here’s hoping! The show airs on April 6th, right after Sunday conference. So get your spirituality on for that weekend, then a few hours later, catch me on HBO! I’m literally in the beginning scene for like a minute or so.

As far as other projects go, I have a movie coming out this year that we’ve been working on for the last three years! It’s time to get that out in the world. That film is called The Last Man(s) on Earth. You can find the trailer on YouTube. I also have two other films in the development phase that are my own projects. And finally, I’m also putting together a TV series that should hopefully be pretty fun. So I definitely have my hands in a lot of different places at the moment.

Of all the movies and projects you’ve been involved in, which has had the greatest impact on your life?

Man, that’s tough to say. Every project I’ve learned something meaningful. I can’t say one is better than the other. I had a great time on the HBO shoot. But I’ve had great times on almost all the films I’ve worked on. I think the biggest thing I can take away is, I love creating positive and fun memories with people.

When I was in high school, I had a friend named Mike. He and I would get together and make dumb video projects for school. They were so dumb but we laughed and laughed. We thought we were so hilarious. He always said, “Hey, guys, let’s make memories!” And we did. And they were awesome. After high school, Mike was involved in a longboarding accident and passed away. Instantly all those videos we made became priceless. Now they mean something far greater for me.

So the greatest impact I’ve had from my projects has been the memories I’ve created with people. Those will last forever. That’s why I try making them positive ones. :)

2013 was a big year for you, and it appears 2014 is going to be even bigger—congratulations. How do you stay grounded in the midst of success?

Yes, I’m definitely blessed, that’s for sure. I have a lot of fun projects coming my way. I guess I stay grounded because I remember why I do what I do. I love to create memories with people. I also have a personal belief I live by. I used to think, “Man, I can’t wait till that happens,” or, “Man, I can’t wait till I book that role.” It’s like I had this wishlist of things that I wanted to have happen before I allowed myself to be happy. It’s like I was always looking for the next big thing. I’ve learned to be happy now. To have complete joy in the journey. And it’s crazy, but the happier I am now, the more success comes my way. It’s like the fruit of the joy and happiness I have now is the success that follows. I think that’s an important lesson to learn, because the Lord wants us to have joy right now. 2 Nephi 2:25 emphasizes that men are that they might have joy. I’m going to go ahead and say that I’m pretty sure this applies to women as well! And having true joy now comes from being grateful for what you have right now, living presently, and developing your relationship with God. You do that, and you’re just happy. You spend time with God and you become more like him. And as you do, not only are you happy, but success follows you. I really applied that principle in 2013 and it was the most successful acting year I’ve had to date. I’m excited to try it again in 2014. And this type of joy keeps you grounded. ❧

Tristi Pinkston

Wed, 12 Mar 2014 00:00:00 -0600

March 12, 2014

By Marisa Di Placido

Tristi Pinkston is the author of over twenty-five books in various genres including LDS cozy mystery, young adult contemporary, and historical fiction. She also works as a freelance editor and recently started a publishing company, Trifecta Books. She homeschools her four fantastic children, is grateful for the infinite patience of her amazing husband, and is the taker of very, very long naps.

Photo courtesy Tristi Pinkston

Did you always feel like you were meant to be a writer?

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to write. When I was about five, something about a talk in church touched me and I came home and wrote a poem about it. I just naturally gravitated toward it. It wasn’t until I was in my early twenties, though, than I began to realize I might actually be capable of writing something good—up until that point, I’d written depressing poetry (because that’s what teenagers do) and tried my hand at epic fantasy (which was an epic failure).

Can you tell us a bit about your writing process? Do you prefer to outline or write as the story comes to you?

I write by the seat of my pants most of the time. I really work best when the characters are “talking” to me and telling me what they’d like to see happen next, so I listen to them and we see where it goes.

When I’m writing historical fiction, I do have a timeline of historical events so I can be sure to hit those important milestones. If I’m writing a complex plot, I’ll take notes as I go so I don’t get too lost. And if I get called away from the computer and I haven’t finished writing down all the awesome stuff I’d imagined for that scene, I will jot down ideas for what I want to write next time. That’s about the extent of the outlining I do.

With four kids, how do you carve out time to concentrate on writing?

When I first started writing, my oldest was three and my second child was about eight months old. I’d put the baby down for his nap, settle my daughter in front of Dragon Tales, and I’d be able to write for an hour every afternoon. My kids don’t remember a time when I didn’t write, so this has always been part of our family dynamic as far as they’re concerned.

I do my “office” work—checking e-mails, communicating with editing clients, and marketing—during the day in between taking kids to seminary, homeschooling them, running to the grocery store, etc. Then around nine o’clock at night, I settle in to editing for clients and writing for myself. I’m typically awake until around 2 a.m., which suits me fine because I am absolutely not a morning person.

My husband is also a very key part of this—he runs errands, takes the kids to their various church activities in the evenings, brings me food when I don’t want to leave the computer, and cheers me on in everything I do. I wouldn’t be able to do any of it without his support and belief in me.

Your earlier books were mainly historical fiction—do you carry out a lot of research to get the time periods just right?

When I’m writing historical fiction, I really like to immerse myself in the era. I read books and watch movies set in that timeframe, I google and read articles and look at pictures, and that sets the tone for everything I do. It helps me get the voice right. Then I do quite a bit of research after that. Even after all that, I have missed a detail here and there, but I have very forgiving readers—and thank goodness for things like reprints!

With your contemporary novels, a lot of your books are written with LDS characters. Do you find that more challenging than writing a book with non-LDS characters, or does it come more naturally?

LDS characters do come very naturally for me because that’s how I think and it’s the culture I live in. At one time, I didn’t think I’d ever write anything but LDS fiction. I’ve since branched out and have begun writing books that maintain LDS values while being geared toward a more general audience and I enjoy that, but I’ll never stop writing LDS characters entirely. It’s what I know best, and I love writing for the LDS people.

With your Secret Sisters series, do you feel like you are still getting to know those characters as you continue to write them?

Those little ladies constantly surprise me. They did pop into my head as well-rounded characters, but they reveal new things to me all the time. For instance, in the first book, Secret Sisters, we learn that Ida Mae’s daughter left the Church because she became pregnant out of wedlock and felt ostracized because of it. I had no idea that had even happened until Ida Mae told Tansy about it. And just the other day, Ida Mae informed me that she wants to get her concealed carry permit. Okay, then!

Image courtesy Tristi Pinkston

Your newest book coming out, Tulips and Treason, is the start of another series. Can you tell us a bit about the book and where you see the series going?

When I finished writing Till Death Do Us Part, which is the last book in the Secret Sisters series, I almost started to cry. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Ida Mae, Arlette, and Tansy. Then I realized I didn’t have to. My new series, the Omni Orchids Mysteries, features Jack and Molly, a team of FBI agents sent to Utah to infiltrate a Mafia headquarters based out of Omni, and Ida Mae and her friends step in to give them Mormon lessons so they won’t blow their covers. In this way, I can begin a new plotline and explore new avenues, but I don’t have to say goodbye to my little blue-haired gumshoes just yet.

In this first book, we get to know Jack and Molly and see the Mormon culture through their eyes. Molly has to give up her coffee addiction and learn how to arrange flowers—another part of their cover—and Jack learns that he’ll be posing as an assassin for the mob. What they absolutely don’t expect is to find a dead body in the cooler at the floral shop.

There are five books in the series, and each is centered around a flower. Next is Marigolds and Murder, for instance. We’ll go with Jack and Molly as they delve deeper into the mob organization and also as they deliver flowers and make corsages. And of course, the Secret Sisters are there to lend a hand with it all.

Do you have any other books in the works you’re excited to share?

I do, in fact! I’ve just started a publishing company and in addition to publishing books by fantastic authors Jenni James, BC Sterrett, Laura Bingham, and Karen E. Hoover, I’m going to be releasing a contemporary YA of my own this fall. It’s called Take My Advice, and it’s about a girl who writes the advice column for her high school newspaper. She thinks she has the answers to everyone’s problems, but when she faces a crisis of her own, she lets go of her façade and comes to understand that when the chips are down, you’ve got to lean on those around you for support.

In addition to that, I’ve started publishing under a pen name, Sandra Norton Flynn, for a series of suspense novels. They’re along the same vein as Mary Higgins Clark—clean and thrilling, with a little more peril than you’ll find in my other novels.

I’m also currently writing a series of reference books for beginning authors called the Write It Right series—those have been a lot of fun. I have five out in that series now, with many more on the way.

Photo courtesy Tristi Pinkston

You also work as a freelance editor. How different is it to be on the other end of the marking pen when you are also a writer?

It’s really different. You’ve got to put yourself in a different mindset entirely.

I think editing has made me a better writer because I’m correcting more of my own mistakes as soon as I write them, or sometimes even before I type them. I’ll think a sentence and then revise it in my head before it makes it to the keyboard. Being a writer has made me a better editor because I understand how hard it is to get those critiques and to see your beloved baby come back to you all covered in comments and suggestions. The two have built each other up and helped me improve in both fields. I still have so, so much to learn, though, and I’m excited every day to see what new discoveries I’ll make.

Some have asked me if I do all my own editing for my books and if I still need an outside editor. Let me tell ya, if it weren’t for my critique partners and other editors, I’d be sunk—all authors, whether they work as editors or not, need feedback. We become blind to our own work. So yeah, my manuscripts are pretty clean to start with, but I will always rely on others to point things out to me before I take them to press.

As both a writer and editor, how do you feel the gospel influences your work?

The gospel is a huge part of every aspect of my life because I’d be completely lost without it. It’s my roadmap—otherwise, I’d be stubbing my nose on brick walls all the time. Because of the gratitude I feel for having that guidance in my life, you’ll see threads of it interwoven in everything I write, whether it be outright or subtle.

In addition to that, I had an experience back when my first book was published that has acted as a measuring stick for me. I got to sign books at the BYU Women’s Conference seated right next to Brenton Yorgason. We chatted for a bit about the writing life, and then he said to me, “Don’t ever pollute your pen.” That resonated with me, and I’ve tried to live up to that advice throughout my career.

How do you think your work helps to build the kingdom?

I think every author hopes to create something truly meaningful. When I started writing, I knew it could become a missionary tool, but I didn’t dare hope for anything grand and glorious because it seemed a little too prideful to think about. But I’ve had some amazing experiences that have shown me that yes, I have made a difference.

The one foremost on my mind is a letter I received shortly after my third Secret Sisters novel, Hang ’Em High, came out. In that book, Ida Mae is trying to come to terms with the fact that two of her adult children have left the Church. She wants to be really forceful with them and demand that they come back, but recognizes that first, she needs to love them for who they are, and then remain open if they want to come back later on when they feel that desire for themselves. She’s not known for keeping her mouth shut, so this was really hard for her. In the end, she tells her son that she loves him, and she bears a simple testimony.

The letter I received was from a woman who had just finished reading the book when she got a phone call from her daughter, who was telling her of her own decision to leave the Church. This woman’s immediate reaction was much like Ida Mae’s—she wanted to tell her daughter what was what, but then she remembered what she had just read in the book and decided to reach out with love instead. Because of something I wrote, her relationship with her daughter was salvaged, and if that daughter ever chooses to come back, she’ll know her mother is there for her in that decision.

I have to say, when I read that letter, it was confirmation to me that we as authors can have a powerful influence for good in the lives of our readers. I had never dreamed that my little cozy mystery about poisoned horses would make such an impact, and yet it did. It was humbling and inspiring all at the same time. ❧

Larry Correia

Mon, 10 Mar 2014 00:00:00 -0600

March 10, 2014

By Meagan Brady

Larry Correia is the New York Times bestselling author of the Monster Hunter International series, the award-winning Grimnoir Chronicles trilogy, the Dead Six military thrillers, several tie-in fiction projects for the Warmachine universe, and a few dozen short stories in various anthologies. A former accountant, machine gun dealer, firearms instructor, and military contractor, Larry lives in the mountains of northern Utah with his very patient wife and children.

Photo courtesy Larry Correia

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I grew up in El Nido, California in a family of dairy farmers. I moved to Utah in 1993, joined the Church in 1994, served a mission to Alabama from ’95 through ’97, and have lived in Utah ever since. I graduated from Utah State, where I met my wife, Bridget. I’ve been an accountant, then I was a gun dealer and firearms instructor, then an accountant again before I broke into writing. I’ve been married for sixteen years and have four kids.

You’ve always been a voracious reader. How much does being well-read play into your writing? Are there any drawbacks, do you think?

I love to read. Quite frankly, I hated English in high school and college, taking just what was required for my accounting degree, so I’m a self-taught writer. I learned to write by reading a lot. The only real drawback now is that writing uses the same part of my brain as reading, so it is now really hard for me to read to relax, so over the last few years I’ve not read nearly as much as I would like.

Image courtesy Simon & Schuster

What are some of your favorite reads in the past, and what do you read now?

I grew up on Louis L’Amour. Terry Brooks was my gateway drug to fantasy. From there I read pretty much everything. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, and we were dirt poor, so I read everything in our tiny local library. When I was in college I discovered Tom Clancy and got on a techno-thriller kick.

Currently I don’t get to read nearly as much as I would like, and most of what I do read is from authors who I am friends with. When I become friends with an author, I really want to check out their stuff, but the To Be Read pile is a few feet tall and growing.

Has becoming an established author changed what and how you read?

Very much so, mostly in that time I would have spent in the past reading, I now spend writing. Plus, a book needs to be really super engaging, otherwise my brain goes on autopilot and starts editing, and that’s no fun.

I do get asked to blurb other authors’ books now though, and I do that whenever I can make the time to do so. Getting to read books before they come out is pretty nifty.

You self-published your first novel, Monster Hunter International, and it made it to the Entertainment Weekly bestseller list. Tell us about that journey.

I tried to go the traditional route but I got rejected by pretty much everybody in publishing. I knew it was pretty good though, and because of my business background I understood marketing and my target audience, so I decided to do it myself. I marketed it to internet gun forums where I was already well known, and it did extremely well. A major indy bookstore sold MHI like hotcakes, which is how it ended up on that bestseller list, and this same store recommended me to Baen Books. Which is how I ended up with my first publishing contract.

You’ve also received awards for the audio versions of your novels. What differences do you think a “reader” experiences by listening to your stories?

I’ve done really well in audiobooks for a couple of reasons—first off, I lucked out and ended up with some excellent narrators who were a really good fit for the work. Second, I tend to write in a very fast, cinematic style that translates well to narration. I can’t speak for the reader/listeners, but for me personally a book takes on a whole new dimension when you have a good voice actor’s take on the character drama.

The internet played a key role in building your fan base. How do you think social media in its various forms has affected both the art and business of writing as a whole?

I think it has made writers a whole lot more accessible to their fans, and it helps us understand our fan base. One reason that I’ve done well is that I actually enjoy talking to my fans, and not just to sell them stuff. They’re fun people, and because I interact with them, they have a good time, and they’ve told their friends. So it is great for everybody.

The downside of social media is that it can be a great big time suck for authors, and it is way easier to screw around on the internet than it is to get work done. That requires some self-discipline, because when you are interacting with a thousand people at a time, you can kill whole productive days and not even realize they’re gone.

What has been the most surprising aspect of becoming a successful author?

That’s a tough one. For me, I’d have to say it is weird when random strangers start recognizing you in places, or you find people you’d never think are fans talking about your work. It is weird, and awesome, and very humbling.

Image courtesy Simon & Schuster

Most of your novels are grouped into series. What do you find appealing about carrying plot lines and characters across multiple books versus writing standalone works?

A series gives me more room to work. I like to write the first book of a series in a manner that it can stand alone if necessary, just in case it turns out to be unpopular, because then why would I waste my time writing more books that people don’t buy? So far I’ve been lucky on that front, though. Then I can take all of the fun things I didn’t get to do before and write about them now. A series gives me more chances for the characters to grow and have adventures, and then when all of those stories have been told, it is time to wrap it up.

Describe your writing process. How do you conduct research and where do you look for inspiration for your novels?

I’m a research nerd. I love research. My fans have come to expect everything outside of the fantastic elements to be spot-on accurate, so I owe it to them to do my homework. A side benefit of this is that while I’m researching one thing, I find ten other things that are interesting which can then be used in future stories.

Inspiration is all around us. Every time I find something that sounds cool to stick into a story, I file it away. Then I’ll find other ideas that tack onto that one, and another and another, and next thing you know, I’ve got another novel.

You both handle and write about weapons extensively. What are your thoughts on depictions of violence in the media and the arts?

I hear a lot of people condemning violence in entertainment, but I think in a lot of ways they are missing the point. Violence isn’t inherently evil. It is only evil if it is used for evil. Violence can also be used for good. I was a self-defense instructor for many years, and I taught good people how to use as much violence as necessary to defend themselves and their loved ones from harm. Weapons are just another tool in the toolbox. Different problems require different tools.

Most of my books are about heroic people doing hard things for a good reason. Just like real life, that often results in violence. Readers enjoy that for the same reason they enjoy reading about challenges, sacrifice, friendship, or courage, because these are all elements of the human condition they can understand and appreciate.

In what ways does the gospel influence your writing and what you choose to write about?

I don’t write sex scenes. If I’m writing about characters where that is what is obviously going to happen next, I’ll cut away like a 1950s movie ending the scene on the closed door. Other than that, I write what I want to write. A lot of times it isn’t even a conscious decision, but my personal philosophy is going to sneak in. Most of my books tend to have a good versus evil theme, or at least medium bad versus evil, but evil is always a real thing.

How do you see your work as a writer helping to build the kingdom?

That’s a tough one. I don’t write churchy books, I write for the national market, but I’m still very outspoken when it comes to my personal beliefs. A lot of my fans would be considered rough around the edges by “polite society,” which isn’t a surprise, because I’m rather rough around the edges. Yet I’ve been surprised how many times it has turned out that I’m the one Mormon somebody out there is familiar with, and that has made some sort of difference. A lot of times Mormons get a bad rap out in the world, and we’re thought of as pushy or judgmental or naïve goody two shoes or some other bogus stereotype. Then I hear from people with some variation of hey, Larry Correia isn’t a wimp, so okay, I guess I’ll talk to these missionaries. That sort of thing blows me away when it happens.

Image courtesy Simon & Schuster

Any advice for aspiring writers?

I always tell aspiring writers that there are really only two things you need to do to make it as a professional writer.

A. Get good enough that people will give you money for your stuff.

B. Find the people who will give you money for your stuff.

It sounds trite, but it is true. You can’t skip one step or the other. However you accomplish those two things is irrelevant, but they must be accomplished. You need to practice, and work, and continually improve your craft until it is good enough that people will want to purchase it. Then you need to get it out there so that people can purchase it, whether that is the traditional method of finding an agent and then a publisher, or if it is self-publishing, because even then you have to find a way to separate yourself from the hundred thousand other writers just like you.

I find that it all comes down to treating it like a job. Be a professional. Act like a professional. Learn, grow, improve, network, practice, and keep on writing. The best piece of business advice I ever got was from Kevin J. Anderson and it was be prolific.

What’s next for you?

Lots more work. I’ve been doing this for six years now. I just turned in my eleventh novel, Monster Hunter Nemesis, and it will be coming out this summer. In 2013 I wrote two novels, eight short stories, and a novella, and I’m going to try and beat that in 2014. I currently have fifteen more novels under contract to be written. ❧

JD Payne

Fri, 07 Mar 2014 00:00:00 -0700

March 7, 2014

By Candy Eash

JD Payne and his writing partner, Patrick McKay, have been working together for over fifteen years. Originally from McLean, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D. C., the two met in 1997 in high school, where they began writing and directing original plays. JD went to Yale University, where he graduated with honors. He served a full‐time mission in Rome, Italy. To date, JD and Patrick have completed fifteen feature‐length scripts together. Of their feature scripts, Midas helped them get their foot in the Hollywood door by securing them agency representation at UTA and management with Kaplan / Perrone. Goliath officially broke them in, selling to Relativity Media in August 2010 with Temple Hill attached to produce. Since then, they have written three projects for Paramount, including The Deadliest Warrior (21 Laps producing), Boilerplate, and Micronauts (J. J. Abrams’ Bad Robot producing); a project for the Church entitled The Last Days of Mormon (Remnant Pictures producing); and a script for Warner Bros called Law Zero (Vertigo and LIN Pictures producing). Currently, in collaboration with writer Bob Orci, they are drafting Star Trek III for Paramount Pictures, with Bad Robot, K&O Paper Products, and Skydance producing. They are also working on a reboot of Flash Gordon. JD lives in Los Angeles with his wife, opera singer and actress Rachel Payne.

Photo courtesy Jackie Leishman

Can you share your journey from being a student at Yale in Applied Physics to being a screenwriter? I hear this change came during your mission in Rome, Italy.

In many ways, my love of the sciences had its roots in science fiction. I grew up watching Back to the Future and Star Trek, and my mind always enjoyed contemplating the possibilities of where scientific discovery might one day lead humanity. In school, I enjoyed the challenge of puzzling my way through calculus and chemistry equations. On the other hand, I also loved writing; by the time I had finished high school, I had written a novel, several plays, a bunch of poetry, and short stories. Writing was something I couldn’t not do, almost like breathing.

Still, one doesn’t make a living on breathing, so I figured that I would follow my more responsible love and pursue a career in the sciences. I spent my freshman year at Yale taking the necessary prerequisites for the Applied Physics engineering major. At the same time, I continued to write, taking English classes and writing my first screenplay.

I left for my mission in Rome fairly convinced that I would come back and continue my path to an engineering degree. However, while in Italy, in the hours and days and months of interacting incessantly with thousands of people, I became fixated upon the power of story. Everyone’s life is an ever-changing story, and stories are ever changing people’s lives. I came to feel that while technological advances have an undeniable value, stories speak to the soul. Humanity hungers for them. It needs them. There are scientific truths that many could uncover, but maybe there are stories that only I could tell. At the end of the day, perhaps I was simply more interested in conversing with Adam than atoms.

When I came home and went back to Yale, I went through a bit of an identity crisis. Still uncertain how one could ever make a living at writing, I agonized over how to direct my future. A girl I was dating at the time made a sign for me, one side reading, “I am an Engineer,” and the other, “I am a Writer.” I hung it on my doorknob and flipped it over, depending on the day’s mood. Finally, the definitive change came as I one day noticed that I was stealing time from my problem sets to work on my screenplays. I loved the theories behind the engineering courses, but whereas the work behind them often felt excruciating and exhausting, the writing was always exhilarating and energizing. I felt in my heart it was something I could do forever, even if nobody ever paid me a cent for it.

And so, my heart hijacked my common sense, and I became an English major. I still remember my father’s response: “JD, in this world, an English degree and a dollar can’t buy a cup of coffee.”

Guess it’s a good thing I’m a Mormon.

Did you leave for L. A. right after graduation? What was that decision like? How did your family respond to your moving across country to live your dream?

After graduation, I lived at home for seven months while I polished up a few scripts and prepared for my westward exodus. My loving family was apprehensively supportive of the move. Being east coasters, none of us knew much at all about the entertainment industry, so it was all a big question mark. I left with nothing but a few suitcases, my Toyota Prius, my laptop, and seven scripts—most of which I would soon learn were utterly unmarketable. My mother accompanied me much of the journey, driving with me from D. C. to Utah, and then flying home as I drove alone the final leg into the unknown. I had no job, and nowhere to live lined up. All I knew was … I was going to Los Angeles.

Patrick McKay is your longtime writing partner—how did that association begin? What is it like to have a writing partner?

Patrick and I met in high school and started collaborating creatively when we directed a short play together for the school’s One Act Festival. We quickly found that the things I was lousy at, Patrick was great at, and vice versa. We continued working together throughout high school and into college. We both went to schools in the northeast, a train ride away from each other. He’d often come down to New Haven for the weekend and we’d go see a bunch of plays and talk about ideas for new projects. Eventually, an L. A.-based producer came to campus, and after his presentation, solicited pitches. I pitched an idea Patrick and I had been tossing around. The producer asked, “How soon can you get that to me?” I said, “… Two weeks.” At that point, we had never written a screenplay, nor had any idea how to do so. Fortunately, spring break was the following week, so we spent the entire time banging out what became our first script.

Since then, Patrick and I have written something like seventeen scripts together. Each one is a journey, and there’s no one in the world I’d rather have at the helm with me than Patrick. The work itself is a joy, but engaging in it day in and day out with a partner who’s also my best friend takes that joy to an entirely different level. Our worldviews are sometimes contrasting, but always complementary. Having a writing partner is like the difference between driving a two-wheel and a four-wheel drive. Between the two of us, we almost never get stuck, be it in brainstorming, pitching, drafting, revising, or any other part of the process. Even though it sometimes takes more effort to hash through ideas, we both have faith in the process and know that when we get our heads together, something special happens on the page that is beyond either of us. We also are constantly hungry to be more effective at what we do, and know that we both have a ton left to learn, so the prospect of always refining our abilities and getting better is endlessly enjoyable.

Writing takes time and emotional endurance, and can be extremely exhausting, mentally. What is the creative process like for you? Do you have a routine? Have you discovered a balance in writing?

Patrick and I historically each have had different phases and elements of the process that have come most naturally to us, but those things are always evolving, and we’re ultimately both completely engaged in every aspect of story creation.

For me, the process of creating is a sheer joy. There’s a strange but powerful link between subjective identification with and objective alienation from what I write. When I write something, I read back over it again, and recognize a certain portion of myself in it, but I also see it as having this wholly other core identity, something totally autonomous from me. It’s a bit what I imagine parents feel about their children—seeing their DNA manifest in the child, but also recognizing that it has a soul that is completely free to exist and become its own self. This is present on the level of individual sentences, and is compounded when they’re organized into characters, actions, scenes, sequences, acts, and screenplays. Stories are full of agencies, working both from within and from without. My job as a writer is to harness the power of those agencies, negotiate between them, and try to steer the piece as a whole to its greatest potential. I marvel most at the result when the words are fresh and new (maybe it’s what feels the most miraculous to me), but the entire process is meaningful, and I love seeing and appreciating something at each phase of its development.

I do indeed have a routine which works well for me. Mornings are usually spent brainstorming, laying out the day’s business, reading, and handling life responsibilities. Once that’s finished, I then typically work until dinner and (when my wife’s out and about) sometimes work well into the night. There’s a certain quietness of mind that comes with evening writing. The day’s phone calls, emails, and distractions are all at rest, and my mind can more easily lose itself on the page.

The struggle to find balance is a part of every human’s life. I once had a mission friend who had a sign taped to his wall that read: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” I think the scriptures give really useful guidance in that regard, where Jesus teaches that the two most important commandments are to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. In my life, my writing is a part of that; my friendships are a part of that; my Church service is a part of that; my family is a part of that. They’re each at different times part of how I try to show my love, and how I try to serve. In some ways, I don’t differentiate much between them, and I give priority to them in shifting ways as each situation demands.

Written screenplays and produced movies are very different. With that thought—what is it like to write a movie?

We approach every project we work on as one that has the potential to be a movie. We put every ounce of creative energy we have into each one, and do everything in our power to make it awesome. So in that sense, the two are very similar. In terms of abstract scripts versus projects that one knows (as much as one ever can) will be made into a movie, it’s somewhat different to work on a project that’s a follow-up installment of a franchise, because you can see and hear the actors bringing to life what you’re creating on the page as you write it, which is incredibly fun.

All that said, since we haven’t yet written a feature script that has actually been filmed, I’m really not in a position to give any kind of answer to the question. Ask me again in a decade and I’ll hopefully have a lot more to say!

Patrick and JD. Photo courtesy Kjirstin Youngberg

Do you have a favorite scene from a movie? A favorite line?

The clock-tower scene from Back to the Future is one of the most fantastic visual climaxes ever constructed. I bite my nails every time.

The line “Buona sera,” from Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria, and the scene surrounding it, are among the most moving and hopeful I have ever seen.

There has been quite a bit written about the fact that the upcoming Star Trek will be your first produced script. However, you are pretty seasoned—how many screenplays have you written in total?

Star Trek will be our ~17th script from the first one we wrote when we were in college; our tenth from the time we got agency representation (though only seven of those have officially been in development at a production company and studio). I’ve read that the industry average is thirteen scripts in development for every one that ends up getting produced. I’m definitely still bullish that several of our other projects will make it to the silver screen, so we’ll see how that ratio ends up working out with our slate.

How did you first become involved with Bad Robot? What was it like to work with J. J. Abrams and the group involved with the film?

We had a great initial general meeting at Bad Robot, after which we pursued a project that came to be known as Boilerplate. From there, things took on a life of their own. We feel like we share a creative sensibility and point of view with J. J. and his team. They’ve been fantastic to work with every step of the way on each of the projects we’ve developed together. It’s a relationship we feel very fortunate to have stumbled into.

I could go into more detail about the nuts and bolts of the collaboration, but I should probably leave it at that. People think Edward Snowden got exiled from the country for the NSA Wikileaks scandal; in actuality, I heard his real crime was leaking a super-secret pizza recipe from the kitchen at Bad Robot’s offices.

Which aspect draws you to a story most? Who are some of your scriptwriting role models?

Really, it’s the whole package: world, character, action, narrative. There’s a certain, ineffable quality that makes us look at an idea or a property and say: “It’s a movie.” There’s a scripture that has struck me as interesting where God is discussing the creation of the Earth, presumably with Jehovah, Michael, Abraham, and others, in which he says: “We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell” (Abraham 3:24). There’s something in that that rings very true to me about the creative process. In the initial rush of inspiration, you perceive there’s a space and materials that feel ripe to be put together into a world where characters may dwell. It’s a little like getting a fish on a hook. You feel the first tug on the line, and you start reeling it in. Sometimes it comes very quickly and furiously, streams of inspiration in which the story is coming wholly formed, and you quickly know you’ve got a big one on the line; other times, you reel and reel and reel—only to find out that all you’ve caught is a muddy work-boot. It’s an adventure every time, because you never know getting into it quite how things will turn out.

In terms of role models, we have a bunch. When discussing the relative merits of scenes, sequences, character, or story turns, Patrick and I quote our heroes to each other chapter and verse, weighing them like legal precedents in a court case—Spielberg, Lucas, Cameron, Bob Gale, Lawrence Kasdan, William Goldman; in more recent films, Peter Jackson, J. J. Abrams, Kurtzman and Orci, among others. We also regularly try to read colleagues’ scripts, just to be up-to-date on what’s out there, the ways in which the medium is evolving, and to learn new on-the-page tricks for ways to make things more readable, fun, and impacting.

What is involved in the art of pitching a story? How often do you pitch an idea?

We pitch ideas almost every day to each other, on a weekly or monthly basis to producers, and several times per year to studios when we’re taking on a new assignment. Each pitch will be slightly different, depending on the scenario. Sometimes we’re just pitching a new scene or character beat, sometimes we’re pitching an entire movie. Typically a studio pitch should be fifteen to twenty minutes, hitting only the most important beats: Act I in a good amount of detail, Act II in less, and Act III as a summary.

Usually, by the time we share a pitch with a producer or a studio, Patrick and I have told it to each other so many times as we’ve worked to develop it that either of us could do the entire thing on our own. We’re both pretty high-energy and verbal, so we usually end up talking really fast, finishing each other’s sentences, pitching the action beats and character turns with a ton of excitement and just having fun in the room.

What are some of the challenges you have faced in living the gospel in the film industry? What advice could you give LDS filmmakers in handling those circumstances?

I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve had very few professional circumstances in which I’ve been faced with a project where I was being asked to do something I didn’t feel comfortable with. We will likely at some point end up doing TV, and that has become a space that, even more than feature film, has become somewhat of a minefield, particularly in the epic-historical genre in which we work. I’m certain there will be some questions to be worked out moving forward, but ultimately, I’m confident in our process. We want to do things that are good. We’re not going to do anything we don’t believe in.

As far as lifestyle questions are concerned, I’ve never felt any particular social pressure in Los Angeles to do anything contrary to living the gospel. I guess I’ve been offered drugs and alcohol before, but I think the pressures kids face in most high schools in America are probably greater than any I’ve felt out here.

In the way of advice, I suppose I’d just tell people not to be afraid to be who you are. I don’t make a big show of it, but people I work with usually end up knowing I don’t work on Sundays, that I go to church, and that I observe my Mormon kosher law. You want to work with people who want to work with the real you. Of course, sometimes people have preconceived notions about what it means to be a Mormon, and that can be tricky, but ultimately I don’t know of a time that it has ever hurt me. If anything, it has resulted in my having a network of people who get what I’m about, who value my voice at the table, and have me in the room because they want me there. We have an important voice to add to the conversation. If we’re tactful in how we go about doing that, there’s a lot we can bring to the equation that otherwise might remain under-represented.

In his 1977 talk “The Gospel Vision of the Arts,” President Kimball said, “In our world, there have risen brilliant stars in drama, music, literature, sculpture, painting, science, and all the graces. For long years I have had a vision of members of the Church greatly increasing their already strong positions of excellence till the eyes of all the world will be upon us.” In many ways, your recent work has helped fulfill a portion of this prophecy. In what ways does the gospel affect your storytelling?

First, I’d like to add a bit of a qualifier to the question. As a faith that believes in modern prophets, Latter-day Saints in some ways have a much more everyday relationship with prophets and prophecy than our surrounding culture. Our prophets make statements on a broad range of things all the time, and as a result, we’re comfortable seeing our lives and the lives of others in the context of a prophetic narrative, in both small and large ways. We think in terms of fulfilling prophecy whenever we feel the blessings of living the Word of Wisdom, or paying our tithing—or any number of other ways. I certainly wouldn’t want to give the impression that I see myself as “The One” in some sort of Matrix-like way—because, I mean, c’mon—there’s only one Neo.

That clarification in place, it’s an interesting question, because I feel like the answer could just as easily be “not at all” or “in every way imaginable.” Think about asking the same question of those in other professions: “How does the gospel affect your dental-practice? Astrophysics research? Mountain climbing?” Is there a particularly Mormon way to go about climbing a mountain? Perhaps the answer is “absolutely,” but not in the way people might expect. The gospel affects you as a person, and that affects everything you do. A Mormon mountain climber would likely have a certain way of going about picking out her gear, based on lessons rattling around in her head about emergency preparedness. She might have a particular way of interacting with locals and guides at her base camp, influenced by experiences she had on her mission. She might have a way in which she feels spiritually warned about where she hammers in her pitons. Perhaps reading about Nephi’s experience being swept away into a high mountain influenced where she set her sights to begin with.

I feel it’s the same way with being a Mormon screenwriter.

You said at the recent LDS Film Festival that you love sharing with others that you are a member of the Church. What final thoughts would you like to leave our readers with about being a Mormon artist?

People sometimes seem surprised that I’m a Mormon artist who hasn’t lost his testimony. I’m not sure what it is about the arts that makes some fall away. Perhaps it’s the dissonance of holding so many different worldviews and systems of thought in our heads at once. Perhaps some find the Church restricting. I feel that living life as an active Mormon brings an incredible amount of freedom to me. It protects me from distractions that we often hear of derailing and sometimes ending the lives of other artists. It provides me with a community that fills my life with meaningful relationships and opportunities for service. It helps me approach the world from a place of stability, strength, and confidence. I feel that as I work, I can call upon a power greater than my own to help guide me and my partnership, both artistically and politically, through the various challenges we encounter. Frankly, I like the person the gospel helps me become. I like how people react to that person. I feel like the gospel is like a daily scrubbing that rubs the ever-growing barnacles of cynicism, anger, frustration, and a bunch of other negative mind-states off the hull of my soul, helping me to maintain the optimism, energy, and enthusiasm that are such vital commodities as a screenwriter.

Lastly, I appreciate that the gospel gives me a dual, paradoxical perspective that helps me stay grounded. Moses learned that “man is nothing,” but Jesus taught we can be “perfect,” even as his Father is. I believe that these are both true. Meditating upon my own smallness and being shown my weaknesses helps me from getting too big for my britches; at the same time, contemplating the destiny the gospel teaches that we each have the potential to reach helps me take joy in working to become a little bit better every day, both as an artist, and as a human being. I know I have a lot left to learn, but I trust in the process that has brought me to where I am today, and am looking forward to all the adventures to come as the journey continues. ❧

Sterling Van Wagenen

Wed, 05 Mar 2014 00:00:00 -0700

March 5, 2014

By Candy Eash

Sterling Van Wagenen was the co-founder of the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, and, in association with Robert Redford, he was the founding executive director of the Sundance Institute. He has directed four feature films and has produced over fourteen documentaries, feature films, and/or television series, including the Academy Award-winning Trip to Bountiful with Horton Foote. His work at Brigham Young University includes manager of the TV Group and Director of Content at BYU Broadcasting. From 1999 to 2004, he served as Director of the School of Film and Digital Media at the University of Central Florida. He has served on the media arts panels at both the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, twice chairing the Arts and Television Panel at the NEA. Currently, he is the Producer-in-Residence at the University of Utah, and a partner in Pearl Farm Entertainment, based in Los Angeles.

Photo courtesy Sterling Van Wagenen

Will you share some of your history and how you decided to become a filmmaker?

I grew up as an only child in a rural area of Utah, so I spent a lot of time alone; movies were my passport into other worlds. As C.S. Lewis said of reading, “It helps you to know that you are not alone.” I attended Brigham Young University and had a double major in theatre and philosophy. Before I graduated, I took time off to work in L. A. as an assistant to a British director named Jonathan Miller. He was directing a production of Shakespeare’s Richard II at the L. A. Music Center. I also worked as a script reader for a talent agency. That was my first exposure to the world of Hollywood.

Who are some of your influences and what are a few of your favorite films?

My biggest influences were the three men I worked most closely with: Robert Redford, in starting the Sundance Institute; Jonathan Miller, as mentioned above; Horton Foote, the screenwriter (To Kill a Mockingbird, Tender Mercies). Horton and I made two films together (The Trip to Bountiful and Convicts).

A few favorite films are: Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi, dir.), The Searchers (John Ford, dir.), I Know Where I’m Going (Michael Powell, dir.), To Live (Zhang Yimou, dir.), Tender Mercies (Bruce Beresford, dir.), Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, dir.), A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinneman, dir.), Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, dir.).

Thirty years ago, you had the simple idea of creating a place where independent filmmakers could present their films. Since then, thousands of films have been shown, hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue have been generated, the Sundance Film Institute was launched, and the festival expanded into cable channels and across multiple continents–how do you feel about having helped to create the Sundance Film Festival? How have your views changed with respect to independent film and festivals over the last three decades?

When we started the festival, there was a purity about the original idea. Naïve, perhaps, but the intention was to give independent filmmakers a showcase, a way to present their work without unnecessary hype and Hollywood spin. The idea was for a festival that would be an alternative to Hollywood. Well, that changed with the increasing attention some early independent films got, such as Sex, Lies, and Videotape, by Steve Soderbergh. As careful as Redford was about limiting Hollywood involvement in the festival, when it became obvious that films like Soderbergh’s could make money, the (naïvely) pure idea began to unravel. In my memory, there was a certain sad inevitability to all of it. I think Redford saw that as well, and though he has complained often in interviews, Pandora is out of the box.

What were your goals in developing the Sundance Institute?

The core idea of the Institute was based on two models: the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut, and the visionary book Deschooling Society, by the Jesuit activist Ivan Illich.

The O’Neill Center is an experimental center where promising playwrights can bring their plays and submit them to readings and critiques by Broadway professionals. The idea is that the work would get better with tough but encouraging criticism by the best playwrights, directors, and actors working in the professional New York theater; but also that this work would take place outside the risks and demands of the marketplace. This is where the initial idea for the June Lab at the Sundance Institute came from.

Illich’s book postulated three conditions for learning (traditional school structures not being one of them): (1) open and free access to tools, (2) free association with peers working on the same or similar creative problems, and (3) the rigorous criticism of those he called “elders”; that is, those who have already mastered their craft and can encourage and direct the creative efforts of less experienced artists. We combined these two models when we set up the first June labs at Sundance in 1981.

Will you share a few of your thoughts on the benefits of festivals for filmmakers?

I have two: they are important (1) to help build an audience for the film, and (2) to expose the filmmaker to the realities of a viewing audience. The Sundance Film Festival helps with (1), and is useless for (2) because it has become such an artificial audience experience. Beyond that, it’s all about getting a distribution deal.

You’ve worked in many areas of film, from the typical views of filmmaking in producing and directing to the less-understood areas of broadcasting, teaching, and serving on panels and boards. Which aspects of film and filmmaking are your favorites? And what is it about these aspects that you love?

I love working with writers and actors. Those processes are the most creatively charged and rewarding.

What were your duties when you served on the panels for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts? Can you share a contribution from that time that you were grateful to help in making?

I served as both a panel member and on occasion as chair. The panels are all about reviewing all the grant applications that are submitted to the NEA/NEH, and making recommendations to the National Council on the Arts for funding. Pretty boring stuff, except that one gets an overview of a particular discipline from a national perspective—helps one see what’s going on across the country. A great learning experience.

The creative process is unique and personal. What is developing a story like for you?

There is a certain logic to creating a story, once one gets a fix on what it is the character wants, what his/her objective in the story is. Aristotle said (roughly), “Character is plot, and plot is character.”

The Witching of Ben Wagner was a made-for-TV movie. What is the difference between developing a film for television and developing one for theatrical release?

Television is a disposable medium. Making films for television is like buying a cheap, disposable paperback book: you read it and it falls apart, and you throw it away. Film, on the other hand, is like buying a beautiful leatherbound volume of a classic that you expect to read and keep in your library permanently.

Alan and Naomi and The Work and the Glory films were all adapted from books. In what ways is it easier and harder to develop a pre-existing story and bring a book to life?

It’s only harder for the original author of the book. The book is merely a launching pad for a film script; in the technical sense, a good film script should be a travesty of the book. Joe Wright’s wonderful film of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is a good example.

Though The Work and the Glory was adapted from a novel, the story is set in historical fact, with real individuals people revere. As a member of the Church, what were some of your happiest moments working on the series?

As I said above, my happiest moments were working with screenwriter Matt Whitaker. It was a terrific challenge to take Gerald Lund’s prose and turn it into scenes that held together in a smooth narrative. There is so much history that Elder Lund covered, it was a real struggle to get the books restructured into a form that could be told dramatically in a hundred minutes. I thought Matt did a heroic job. I also loved working with the actors on the set, especially Jonathan Scarfe who played Joseph Smith, Raphael Sbarge who played Parley Pratt, and Father and Mother Steed (Sam Hennings and Brenda Strong). They were all serious actors who wanted to explore their characters in rehearsal and on set when we were shooting. I love the exploration—not knowing quite where you are going, but having wonderful collaborators to help each other find our way. I love surprises.

As a producer, what was it like for you when Geraldine Page won the Academy Award for her performance in Trip to Bountiful?

Very satisfying. Ms. Page said to me when we screened the film for her in New York, “Mr. Van Wagenen, go get me an Oscar.” And we did.

You have been an instructor for many years—what facets of teaching do you enjoy most?

As I said above, I love the exploration with the students. Knowing that we are on a journey of discovery together. Making mistakes, hitting dead ends, and then seeing them break through to another level. That still seems wonderful to me.

How have filmmaking and teaching helped bring you closer to Christ?

They haven’t. It’s the other way round. One draws closer to the Savior through prayer, scripture study, service, and sacrifice, in order to bring that dimension to the teaching and filmmaking. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness …” “After ye have obtained a hope in Christ …”

How has the gospel shaped you as a storyteller?

For me, the restored gospel is the lens through which I see everything. Even so, as Paul said, “we see through a glass darkly.” Even with the light of the gospel, we need appropriate humility as we approach subjects for stories, whether books, people, or in our own imagination. It’s the Holy Ghost that enlivens our minds, illuminates the dark places of the human heart, draws us towards the things of eternity. We don’t do that on our own, and not only Latter-day Saints do it. There have been many gifted, sensitive filmmakers the Spirit has moved. It’s always good for me to remember, when I get too sure of myself, that, as the Savior said, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). We should always seek for the Spirit, but we don’t try to manage it.

What would you like to conquer next?

Myself. ❧

Matt Chatterley

Mon, 24 Feb 2014 00:00:00 -0700

February 24, 2014

By Candela Rice

Matt Chatterley lives in Orem, Utah. He grew up in Orem and in Austin, Texas, and then attended BYU, where he graduated with a BA in art and design and an MFA in painting and drawing. He studied watercolor with Robert Marshall and Glen Turner, and oil painting with Alex Darais, Bruce Smith, Gary Rosine, James Christensen, and Frank Magleby. After completing graduate work, he worked for twenty years in the newspaper industry, as a graphic artist for the Arizona Republic, in Phoenix, and then as art director at the Des Moines Register in Iowa. He is married to Ruth Welsh, also from Orem, and they have six children. In addition to his work as a graphic artist, illustrator, and designer, Matt continues to paint and draw, exhibiting work in the Midwest and recently in Utah. His work primarily explores the beauty of landscapes, but he also paints figures and still lifes.

Photo courtesy Matt Chatterley

When did you start painting?

I think I have been an artist all my life. My parents tell me I named my first blankets with their colors—my pink and green, or my yellow and blue. My mother was an art teacher, one of her sisters loved to paint, and one of my ancestors is John Tullidge, an early Utah painter. So, I like to think I inherited some gene for art from them. I remember always loving to draw, but don’t remember really working at it or using painting as an expression of my artistic view of the world until junior high school or high school. During that time period I remember not being able to sleep late at night, and so I would go outside under the street light by our house and draw the shapes of trees against the sky. As I drew and painted more and more, some of my high school teachers asked me to do drawings for them as well. I didn’t really paint regularly until college, however, when I took watercolor classes during my freshman year from Glen Turner. And when I returned from my mission, I took oil painting from Bruce Smith. It was then I was exposed to the variety of expression and depth of feeling that painting can evoke.

Cedar Breaks. Image courtesy Matt Chatterley

You paint and draw with oils, watercolors, and charcoal. Which one of these is your favorite medium (if you have one) and why?

Each medium has its own unique characteristics and possibilities. I haven’t found that one satisfies the entire range of my response to the world and my desire to express what I see and feel about it. I love what each medium offers as a tool and means of my artistic expression. Sometimes, for what I am feeling and seeing, watercolor seems to be the appropriate means of expression—with its freshness of transparent, liquid paint and the stain of color on textured paper.

Other times it is pencil, charcoal, and ink. I am drawn to the raw expressive power drawings portray. I have several books of master drawings that inspire me each time I look at them. My eyes and mind often respond to these more than the finished master paintings. This is true even when I look at works by a great painter like Rembrandt. I love his paintings, but his drawings and etchings have a life all their own.

Other examples include the paintings of Sargent and Homer. Their oils are masterpieces, but it is their watercolors, more immediate and unfinished, that really come alive for me. Sometimes oils, with their great versatility and range of expression, appeal to me as the means to represent what I am trying to convey in my painting. Oils can be used expressionistically, or they can be more solid, formal, and refined, building layer upon layer of color, texture, and form. And I definitely think there is a deepness and richness that only oil paintings can express.

So, each medium has its place. Sometimes, it is also a matter of how much time I have to make art. I learned this in a real, practical sense as a graphic illustrator constrained by the newspaper industry’s tight daily deadlines. It was a challenge, and sometimes a restriction. But it also afforded me the opportunity to work every day on my craft.

Peoa Hay. Image courtesy Matt Chatterley

How do you prepare spiritually before you paint?

I think our lives have to be our spiritual preparation. By that I mean, for me, you have to be living your life according to the principles upon which the blessings you seek are predicated. It doesn’t work for me to look at spiritual preparation in the same way as, say, making a sacrifice. I rarely fast or pray, for example, over a specific project. Don’t get me wrong, I do fast and pray. And sometimes when a painting just isn’t working, I pray for help in finding a solution to the obstacle. But I believe in the scriptural teaching that to obey is better than sacrifice. Applied to the making of art, that means to me that if my spiritual life is where it should be, it will naturally affect my work for good—whether it’s my work as an artist, as a father and husband, or as a servant of the Lord. That spirituality in our lives depends on keeping all the facets of our lives in the appropriate balance.

How does the gospel influence your work?

The gospel is at the core of who I am. So I think that comes out in my work as an artist. Maybe we don’t see that immediately, or perhaps it isn’t evident on the surface of things. It is not, for example, dependent on my painting a specifically spiritual subject matter. But I hope if someone looks at my paintings, they don’t just say, “Oh, those are beautiful clouds,” or, “That’s a great grove of trees.” I hope the viewer also feels some degree of the reverence I have as the artist for what is being painted, whether it is a landscape, a person, or some flowers.

The Church uses a lot of landscape paintings in its temples—and it has really expanded that use with the recent explosion of murals produced for new temples. If you think of the temple experience, I find it remarkable and significant how much of that sacred time is spent portraying the creativity of God in the fashioning of this earth and universe. If His creativity is that important, it’s appropriate, then, for us to respond artistically, with a meager creative attempt of our own. Our articles of faith express that we seek after everything that is lovely and of good report or praiseworthy. I have tried to make that my guiding mantra, and it certainly is a gospel influence on my work.

Provo Bay. Image courtesy Matt Chatterley

How do you see your work helping build the kingdom?

This seems like a simple question, but the answer isn’t simple. If I think that my success as an artist in this regard is linked to commercial success or recognition, then I could get discouraged and feel that I haven’t helped at all. Measurements of success by that standard are rather fickle. My work has been accepted in some exhibitions and not in others. So, there has to be something more than that.

If I am developing my talent and abilities, with a desire to become more like my Heavenly Father, who is the Supreme Creator, and increase the talents I have been given, or have come to this earth with, then every success and improvement helps build his kingdom.

If someone responds to what I have made with a feeling of appreciation and kinship and insight that lifts or enlightens them spiritually, or simply brings them joy in something beautiful, then I think I am helping build his kingdom.

Occasionally, you get the opportunity to do something directly, for example being commissioned to create an illustration or painting for a specific gospel purpose. Quite a few years ago I was commissioned by the National Park Service and the Iowa Mormon Trails Association and then the Nebraska Trails Association to create drawings representing the great Mormon pioneer trek across their states in 1846 and 1847. The drawings were used on interpretive panels placed at historic sites all across both states. That was a great experience that my family was able to share in too as we traveled the state of Iowa gathering reference photos and visiting sites. My hope for the project was that the drawings would bring to life for someone visiting those sites the spirit of the early pioneers and their commitment to building the kingdom which sustained them in their trials. That historic movement was not undertaken by a people interested in selfish welfare or personal wealth. They believed they were following the direction of God, and that is the spirit of helping to build the kingdom. If as an artist I have that same intent, then I will be helping build the work.

And the Lord Went Before Them. Image courtesy Matt Chatterley

What challenges did you come across while painting your depiction of the Provo Temple, And the Lord Went Before Them, and how did you overcome them?

This painting started with my reaction to a group of clouds and the way the light revealed them, played upon them, and shined through them. Then, in my head, I began to formulate the idea of the clouds relating to the Provo Temple at the base of Rock Canyon in Provo. My wife, Ruth, and I were married in the Provo Temple, and I often run up that hill to the base of the canyon where I enjoy the view of the temple and the valley below. I sometimes run at night and was struck by the image of the temple shining through the darkness. So, I started to block out the painting’s composition and work on the colors and values. As I painted I began to think of the connection between the temple and the tops of the mountains where the Church has been established. And as I worked, several family members and friends saw the piece in various stages of completion and made comments and observations relating to the painting’s message. I had originally considered the clouds as storm clouds in contrast to the light of the temple shining through the storm. But, though a valid idea, the more I worked on the painting that interpretation just didn’t seem right. The clouds and the light associated with them were glorious, not menacing. A poet friend, Michael Parker, suggested that the clouds were reminiscent to him of the cloud that went before the wandering children of Israel to guide and protect them. And there was the answer: the connecting of heaven and earth—the temple, the mountains, and the clouds—all representations of the Lord of light who enlivens all creatures and creation, walking with us, going before us, in our trials and journeyings through life.

Bedouin Camp Above Dead Sea. Image courtesy Matt Chatterley

Do you have a favorite painting of yours? What makes it special?

Several years ago my wife and I visited some friends who were on a mission for the Church in Jordan. They took us around the area that in some ways remarkably resembled the familiar landscape of Utah, but which also evoked the history and people of ancient Israel. We walked along the Dead Sea, visited the River Jordan and the historical location of the baptism of Jesus by John in the wilderness. And we drove up Mount Nebo to the site where Moses looked out over the promised land he would not enter with the people whom he had served for so many years. On the way back down the mount, we came upon a Bedouin camp overlooking, in the distance, the Dead Sea, Jericho, and Jerusalem. A lone shepherdess stood on the rocky cliff above the camp of tents, temporary dwellings, camels, goats, and sheep. You could have seen the same exact scene 3,000 years ago. I snapped a reference picture, and sometime later after returning home, painted a watercolor of the scene. It is one of my favorite paintings because of the feelings it evokes of that trip and the things I felt being in that land.

Your paintings show many outdoor scenes, portraits, and still lifes. Do you have a preference when it comes to these subjects? If so, what makes them more or less enjoyable to paint?

I view all of my paintings and drawings, regardless of subject matter, as portraits. It might be a portrait of a mesa or butte, or a grove of trees, or a person, or a vase of flowers. Each has color and form, characteristics and feelings to explore, know, and interpret.

Having said that, the great majority of my paintings are landscapes, and I think it is because I respond strongly to the places we inhabit and experience, as people, on the earth. This world was created as the place for us to experience mortality, and sometimes, because of what happens to us, these places even become sacred. And so, place is important, and I want to paint that importance. I’m not just painting a road or a tree or a farm. I’m painting a place where someone walked, where a child played, where a parent buried a child, where the challenges of life were worked out and understood. I want my work to convey those feelings, though they may not be a specific representation of them.

I was born in southern Utah, grew up in Orem, lived in the Southwest for a few years and the Midwest for almost two decades. I’ve traveled all over the United States and to the Middle East. And now I live back in Utah. So I paint the landscapes I have been part of and that are now part of me. I haven’t lived in southern Utah for a long time, but I still feel that the colored sands of the canyon country are part of my blood because of the years of my childhood spent there.

Vineyard Farm. Image courtesy Matt Chatterley

Spring Morning Feeding. Image courtesy Matt Chatterley

What are some of the challenges of being a professional painter and how do you overcome them?

I don’t feel I have overcome the challenges of being a professional painter. Especially if you define a professional painter as one who makes their living by their art, then that would be a great challenge I haven’t yet mastered—although I did spend twenty years as an artist, illustrator, and art director for newspaper and magazine publications. But then, I don’t know many artists who make their living from their art solely. Each artist has to find their own way through that maze, I think. For me, now, the challenge is to carve out regular time to work. To continue to labor, to improve, to “toil faithfully into the night” while others are sleeping. I have the hope that someday I will be an overnight success—fifty years in the making. I think an artist is always growing, developing, expanding, building the next project on the back of the projects before it. I think you overcome challenges as an artist like you do those in life. You don’t give up. You keep working, believing in your talent, with faith that eventually you will see the results in your work that you are seeking. For most of us it is a journey of small steps and little successes along the way. Learning things “line upon line” is a principle that can be uniquely applied to artists, don’t you think?

What are you currently working on?

I’m currently working on a series of paintings of southern Utah—images of water, sandstone, and sky based on Lake Powell and other Utah “places.” In addition, I also have a series of watercolor portraits of friends and family I’m developing and a series of still lifes I’m exploring. So, my mind is working in a lot of different directions all at once. I am also in the formulation process of a painting to enter into the Church’s International Art Competition this fall. I haven’t had anything accepted in that venue yet. Maybe this is the year!

What’s Up. Image courtesy Matt Chatterley

Rock Canyon. Image courtesy Matt Chatterley

Where do you see your work taking you in the future?

I hope my work will continue to move toward a personal vision and interpretation of the world and our experience in it. The fun thing is, it’s a process. I don’t have a clear vision of where it will end up. I hope the process will continue to be fulfilling to me artistically, and resonate with others as well.

Any advice for future artists out there?

Art is at its core an expression of who you are. So, making art goes hand in hand with understanding yourself. That takes some honest examination of your own soul and, as the poet Rainer Maria Rilke advised, time in solitude. Just as importantly, however, you must work. Work to learn the skills, techniques, tools, and history of your craft. These are what give you the ability to reveal and express your voice and vision fully.

I think artists and poets share a kinship in the world, because I often find solace and support in poetry, including these words from Robert Frost, which I think applies to the artist’s journey:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference. ❧

Nick Stephens

Fri, 21 Feb 2014 00:00:00 -0700

February 21, 2014

By Ben Crowder

Nick Stephens has been creating commercial and fine art professionally for over ten years. He was born in Utah and has lived and traveled throughout the western United States, and he currently works at his in-home studio in Utah County. He earned an Associate of Arts degree in visual communication with an emphasis in graphic design in 2001. Within the commercial art field he is sought after for his creativity and diverse skill set. His professional experience includes drawing, painting, sculpting, graphic design, architectural model construction, prop making, set design and construction, specialty costumes, tile design, custom displays, and picture framing. Nick’s award-winning fine art is commissioned and collected nationally, and has been represented by galleries in Arizona, Utah, and California.

Photo courtesy Nick Stephens

How did you get started making art?

Making art or being overly active in my creative endeavors has been a consistent pattern since I was very young. My parents provided my brothers and me with endless amounts of printer paper, drawing utensils, play-dough, blocks, legos, sandboxes, etc. They also had a very keen sense for limiting and editing our media participation and encouraged outdoor play and simplistic recreation. These restraints were partially due to budget, but also out of a sense that kids should explore and have unstructured play time. Looking back, I can see that it was rather beneficial for me to have such a childhood.

Drawing has always been something that I was overly interested in. I still have stacks of my childhood art. Perhaps that was my most prolific stage as an artist. To get anything else done in school was always a chore for me. I started noticing that I was better at drawing than the majority of my peers when I was in fourth or fifth grade. I can remember being stubbornly determined to master realistic drawing skills, and to be better at it than everyone around me. (I am still not satisfied with where I am at with my skills, but have given up the competitive side of me.) Throughout junior high and high school I took every art class that I could, except the ceramics and photo classes. I was the newspaper artist and the student-body artist at my high school.

I got my start professionally just after college. It all began when I met Shalece Horejs, a friend of my roommate while I was going to school in Arizona. Her father, John Horejs, was a professional painter and had raised a family as an artist. At this point I was focusing on graphic design as the only practical solution to reconcile my love for art with the seemingly cruel reality that one had to get a “real” job and earn a large amount of money to provide basic necessities in life. Up until this point I had only met one other person who was making a living as an artist. (I need to interject here that no one in my family had ever pursued any kind of creative/artistic endeavor as a vocation. Though many in my family are very creative as a hobby, I come from a long line of hard-working, intelligent and dedicated employees—not freelance artists.) So this newfound friend of mine introduced me to her family. We stretched and primed canvas in their garage, watched her dad paint in the studio, ate meals made by her extremely generous mother, and I got a taste of the home-based production side of the professional art world. A few years later this family’s older son, Jason, started a gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona. He had been selling art at one of the top galleries there for many years and now needed a few new artists to populate the walls of his gallery. At the time I met Jason, I had been experimenting with some of my textural assemblage pieces. He really liked the few pieces that I had done and suggested that I could show work there if I had several more pieces. So, I spent the next six to eight months making a whole stack of work to show. It was October of 2003 that I started showing at Xanadu Gallery.

Mormon Gothic. Image courtesy Nick Stephens

Tell us about painting Mormon Gothic.

While thinking of ideas for a new religious piece, the idea of being careful of what one loved or sought for in life kept surfacing in my mind. Also, traditional values and activities verses the modern consumption of media and outright obsession with self through social media were prevalent themes. I had recently joined a certain popular social media site due to pressure from friends and the lack of traditional contact due to people shifting to an online way of doing everything including communicating and event invitations. I only made it four months on there before I was completely overwhelmed and had the realization that I was rapidly changing from the person that I was, into being selfishly obsessed with carefully grooming my online persona and feverishly checking on that site all the time. The daily frenzy and the complexity of new social expectations without any hard and fast rules was too much for me. Ultimately, I made the personal decision to cut that particular aspect of online connection and take my social losses to regain my old life back, where all I have to deal with are the internal voices that can already be difficult enough to quell.

Cascade. Image courtesy Nick Stephens

While I was pondering these things, the image of the famous painting American Gothic by Grant Wood kept coming into my mind. Being fully aware of its ubiquity in being re-purposed for anything from cookie packages to family reunion t-shirts, I still felt that it would be perfect to utilize for the idea of being careful of what you want or love in life. Also, the idea of playing off something that was iconic and popular yet old-fashioned at the same time was very appealing to me. My original concept consisted of two panels. One would have been what I call the “less effective example” and the other panel would be the “ideal” example. I envisioned a young married Mormon couple as the subjects, but they would be doing entirely different things in each panel.

Panel #1 would show them in very expensive and flashy clothing. The man would be holding his phone or device instead of the pitchfork. Completely engrossed with earbuds booming, he would be looking intently upon the screen and be slightly turned away from his wife. His wife would be looking at herself in her pocket-sized makeup mirror, or her own glowing device, totally turned away from her husband. On the peak of the roof of their Gothic-style home would be a satellite dish bringing them endless options for distraction. The home would be in need of repair with broken windows and the siding partially falling off.

Panel #2 would have them both dressed in more modest but still respectable and stylish clothing. Both would be standing side by side, and the husband would be holding the scriptures instead of the pitchfork. No trace of a satellite dish, only the angel Moroni on a temple spire peaking over the trees in the background, with the home in good repair. (Brigham Young would be so proud!) I was not trying to create an anti-tech painting, just something that would help all of us to consider our usage of technology, what could be the end result or consequences of selfish or narcissistic tech consumption on a person, family, and ultimately on our society as a whole.

Desirable Above All Other Fruit. Image courtesy Nick Stephens

The models for the piece were in my ward at the time. The husband had the perfect bald head and his wife just so happened to have similarly attractive features that worked perfectly for this piece. I did an initial photo shoot with them before they had their first child. I was fully intending to paint this piece with two panels, but ended up putting off painting it for a year after the photo shoot because of other work that I was involved in. The following summer I decided that I needed to do a more professional photo shoot with the models. I also realized that my multi-panel idea was more work than I was ready to bite into. After all, I was barely learning to do figurative work after years of only doing abstracts and landscapes. I had also been feeling that it would be better to just focus on the positive example rather than the less effective example. I enlisted a friend who does amazing photography work to help with this second shoot. I had already been considering changing the scene to include their new baby boy, but was still holding on to the idea of the scriptures. We spent the majority of the photo shoot with their son in his father’s arm. I am glad that we did. While reviewing the photos I really liked the look of the ones with the baby. It was then that the painting shifted to be more about making family-friendly choices, and loving real things that are more in line with God’s plan for us as families. Interestingly, the following year I spent working on this painting seemed to be full of anti-traditional-family propaganda, policy-making, and massive media coverage, which solidified my resolve to finish this piece and my decision to make it a pro-traditional family piece.

The actual painting took well over a month to paint. I was working in a style that I had very little experience in. It didn’t really help that I had recently moved into a newer house and was in the middle of getting settled in and working on remodeling at the same time. Everything around me was in chaos and people were working in other rooms just outside of my new unorganized studio. To try to stay focused on such a detailed painting in this kind of environment was a definite challenge. Earlier that year, I was thoughtfully introduced to Bill Whitaker by a friend in my ward that modeled for him, and he was very generous in answering all of my questions about technique, materials, tools, and even in talking personally with me about life as an artist. I implemented many of the things I learned from him in this painting.

Photo courtesy Nick Stephens

How does the gospel affect your art?

The blessings of being in the Church and gospel as an artist:

It gives me a place that is stable to rely on when I am confused or overwhelmed. There is peace in the gospel, a resource that everyone needs, especially tormented creative types.
It reminds me that I don’t have to be the one to keep on coming up with the good stuff, that God is the source of all beauty and truth, so he can be my idea consultant. The gospel can provide almost endless supply of subject matter for paintings—just open the scriptures or read Church history, or your own spiritual experiences in life.
It keeps me more balanced than I probably would be (which is a subjective thing—some who don’t know me think that I am a very organized and disciplined person, but it is not true in all areas of my life).
I feel like my art is improved greatly when I involve God in the process. Especially my ability to follow through to the end of it is greatly enhanced.
I still have to struggle through a lot of work. Sometimes my religious works are very trying for my patience. But like anything in life, you just have to humble yourself and admit that it is bigger than you and that you need help from a higher source, and then actually pray to know how to move forward. If no answer comes, sometimes you just have to move forward on a part of it that you know how to do, and then the help will come as you are working. This is easy to say, but really hard to remember to do.
It can give more meaning to my art for me personally. My work can take on a life of its own after being released for public consumption. I love it when a painting I do really moves or motivates someone to do better or feel better about spiritual things. God can take something that came out of my hands and studio and use it for his purposes in others’ lives, even if my original intention or meaning for the piece is different from what others see in it. I love that about art. It is not really mine, and it affects everyone in a different way. That is beautiful.
It helps me process rejection and find hope in moving forward.
The gift of the Holy Ghost helps me know when I am going in the wrong direction or when I need to change something that isn’t working, even if I have already spent many hours, days, weeks, or years on something. The end result is always better.
I get to dig deeper into certain subjects so I can be doctrinally or historically correct in my portrayals of things. This can be very rewarding intellectually and spiritually. This also forms more connections and insights in my mind to various symbols and principles that I may not have had otherwise.
The social and service-oriented aspects of the gospel can be very satisfying and rewarding to a lonely artist stuck in his studio. Having family and friends and assignments of people to watch over really help get me out of my single-track mind.
It also reminds me that I have a lot of improving to do in life and shows the way to do that, because I am weak just like everyone else and fall short all the time.

What have you sacrificed in order to make art? (Things you would like to do but don’t because your art comes first.)

Off the top of my head I could say that there are a few sacrifices that come with constantly making art a priority, such as: a steady income, security, balance, a consistent schedule, expensive entertainment or travel, nice clothes and cars, sleep, healthy relationships, etc.

These sacrifices are no different from those of someone who is starting a business from scratch with very little capital, or someone who decides to marry young and have kids right away. Most people entering into either of these arrangements usually do so willingly and are more than happy to pay the price to make them work. In a sense they don’t feel like it is a sacrifice, but a great opportunity for something meaningful in life.

The flip side to the question is: What great creative projects have never been made because other things like work, home, family, and church responsibilities came first over making art? I hope that there is a time and a place in the eternities to create and get to know such unmade works.

River Rim. Image courtesy Nick Stephens

Photo courtesy Nick Stephens

You work in several different types of media. Which is hardest for you? Which is most fulfilling?

In my fine art I work with oil, acrylic, gel mediums, metal leaf, etc. I work in three different styles—textural abstract (which is basically an assemblage technique using found objects like buttons or washers), mixed media semi-abstract paintings (which may still have texture, but it is only through gel mediums or thick paint), and more realistic paintings in either oil or acrylic or both.

On the commercial side of my professional life I do many different things, including: model making (architectural and film projects), set design and construction, props, foam costume fabrication, sculpting, carving, graphic design, and even a bit of sewing.

It is hard to say what is most difficult for me. I think that each material or technique has its benefits and challenges. There are usually a lot of factors that affect any given project—things like deadlines, complexity of subject matter, tediousness of details, quality of tools, comfort of the workspace I am in, how much it is paying or not paying, temperament of the client, my own temperament that day, how invested I am mentally and emotionally, etc. I know that I get tired of gluing small objects all over panels for hours and days in a row, and certain kinds of tedious models can be really hard on my neck and back, and the types of solvents and glues used aren’t something you would want to freshen the scent of your room with.

Any project that turns out better than I expected is always very fulfilling to me. Art pieces with personal or spiritual significance are generally more fulfilling than commissioned or commercial work, though I usually enjoy those projects as well. It is great to have breaks in between paying projects to get personal art done. Plus, I think that the variety can be very satisfying.

I really enjoy quick observational sketches or “no pressure” paintings that can be done in one day. I also get a calm feeling of contentment when I am modeling clay with my hands. One of the neatest experiences is seeing some set or model you designed and built being used in a film or commercial and having it look convincing and very professional. I remember the first time I got to see my name on the end credits of a local short film that I was proud to be a part of—that was really awesome.

The Garden Gate. Image courtesy Nick Stephens

Can you talk about the story behind The Garden Gate and what influenced it?

The Garden Gate came as a result of working on my painting The Same Yesterday, Today and Forever. This is a painting that explores ancient and modern temples and various symbols associated with each. I was researching the aesthetic details for the doors of Solomon’s temple in 1 Kings. It described cherubim, palm leaves, and open flowers carved into olive wood which were then overlaid with gold. I had drawn up pages of sketches exploring various decorative motifs for the doors. While I was consulting with my brother Brad on this particular design, he suggested linking the imagery of the cherubim and the palm leaf, by making it a scene rather than a decorative motif. So the idea of the cherubim and the flaming sword came to fruition. Instead of a palm leaf, it was now a palm tree with fruit and a sword in it. I did a mockup of this design with the temple painting and held it over the area for the doors. While I loved the design by itself, it just didn’t work with the overall composition of the painting. It was too organic and busy compared to the linear and geometric quality of the painting. I was rather sad to have to cut it from the painting, so I decided that it should be its own painting.

To stay with the original intent of this design I knew that any additional elements I added would need to be influenced by ancient Middle Eastern art. The background is a beautiful Islamic geometric tile pattern, the gate is a typical onion-shaped Persian arch, the cherubim have a very obvious Egyptian-style wing, and the gold is reminiscent of the opulence of the ancient temple.

When I added the gate and the geometric pattern on the mockup version of this piece, I was amazed at how well certain things fit together and lined up perfectly—the stars around the tree, and the corners of the wings touching the corners of the stars. It was like it was meant to be put together in such a way. I chose the colors because they are my favorite colors, and they look fantastic with the metal leaf.

The Same Yesterday, Today and Forever. Image courtesy Nick Stephens

You’ve touched on this a little already, but can you talk about the use of symbols in your art, particularly in The Same Yesterday, Today and Forever?

In The Same Yesterday, Today and Forever, the whole piece is symbolic, in just about every detail. I don’t do this in all my work, but the temple is extremely symbolic and this piece barely scratches the surface of how many things could have been covered, and my knowledge of all the symbols is still in its infancy. This painting was a collaborative piece with my brother, Brad, and I feel it was one of the most directly inspired pieces that I have done. Upon first glance, many mistake it for just a modern depiction of the Salt Lake Temple, and don’t even notice Solomon’s temple on the bottom, until they have looked for a while and start to put things together.

The title refers to the timelessness of the temple ceremony and symbolic nature of what we learn there. There are many differences between the rituals of the Mosaic temple and our modern temple, but they are part of the whole story. One is preparatory to the other, and they are both eternal. Solomon’s temple is reflected below the Salt Lake temple as a foundation for it. The lower portion of the painting has a upward curving arch that represents the Earth or telestial kingdom. The drawing of Solomon’s temple in that area is depicted as a simple line drawing that is bronze colored. Running through this space is a pattern that is hexagonal in nature. The blue triangles of that pattern form a repeating Star of David motif, which is commonly associated with that era and people. The star motif is also representative of the telestial kingdom. I continued the star theme on the doors and the frieze of Solomon’s temple. The brown tones in the hexagons are painted with a palette knife in thick textures to add to the meaning of this section of the painting being earthly or rough. The blue and brown triangles and hexagons together represent the dry land and water of the earth.

At the line between the two temples there is a shape that is twelve-sided. This is the baptismal font with silhouettes of the oxen radiating from it. I placed this between the two temples because it is one of the main commonalities between the two temples—the one font located in the courtyard of Solomon’s and the other under the ground level of modern temples. I placed it underneath the doors of both temples as a symbol of the entrance or gate, since baptism is the beginning point or entrance of all the saving ordinances.

On the upper portion of the painting there is a silver-colored line drawing of the Salt Lake Temple, drawn this way to remind us of precision and exactness or a blueprint for our lives. Inside the temple, the color becomes more opaque and white the higher you go within the temple, which parallels the idea of gaining further light and knowledge as you progress towards exaltation. On this upper portion of the work there are also other concentric circle areas. The area that curves through the bottom and mid-section of the Salt Lake Temple represents the terrestrial kingdom. Inside this circle are various phases of the moon, which is the symbol of the terrestrial kingdom. The crescent moons also line up nicely with two of the horns on the oxen. The upper three circles that are lighter blue are indicative of the celestial kingdom. The highest circle has triangular points that represent the rays of the sun, just as they are carved on the exterior of the Salt Lake Temple. The paint texture and quality within the terrestrial and celestial circles is smooth and almost etherial, and is more blue in hue, representing the sky or the heavens. There is a pattern running through the top section of the painting that is similar to the pattern below, but it is circles that are interlaced, suggesting a linked unit, or the main purpose of the saving ordinances of the temple—they link us to our heavenly family in the past, present, and future.

The actual size of the panel that it is painted on is made according to the golden ratio in sacred geometry, with the golden division happening at the line between the two temples. This division is also known as “unity” and can be a symbol of mediation or of the Savior. In overview, this painting portrays a unified picture of heaven and earth, old and new, states in life and death, the bringing together of God and man, lower laws and higher laws, and the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood.

Fervent Heat detail. Image courtesy Nick Stephens

How did you develop your geometric, textural style of painting?

There are a couple things that started the whole process. The first event happened in the early 2000s when I went to an art show in Mesa, Arizona, with another artist friend of mine. I really liked the textural pieces that were there. I spoke with the artist that night and asked him quite innocently about his technique. His response was that he never tells his secret methods to people. I was rather surprised by his response, but I totally respect him for being so truthful and direct. His answer only made me more determined to figure it out on my own. So I began thinking up any thing that I could to create such textures and tried all kinds of materials. Back then I don’t think there were as many books or online resources for how to make so many textures like there are now. Or, I just wasn’t smart enough to really research long enough to find them. The benefit of trying it all on my own is that I had years of fun experimenting with all kinds of materials, and they actually spawned many of my own techniques that were not originally intended. I still experiment when I have the time, but usually I will look it up online to find how other people are doing it, or just ask other artists who are willing to share their techniques.

The second event has more to do with my heavy textural pieces that often include items like buttons, puzzle pieces, washers, coins, etc. It happened around the same time as the above mentioned art show. I wanted to make some custom tables for my living room, and I really wanted something texturally unique to have under glass inside the tabletop. I was talking about this with my family at Christmas and we came up with a whole list of things you could put on the top of a table to make it cool. The original idea was copper BBs (used as projectiles for air rifles). I actually built the tables and have somewhere in the range of 1,500 BBs in each tabletop. The light from the lamps on the tables makes them glow very nicely. The next logical step was to make similar things but as pieces that hang on the wall, which resulted in many frequent trips to thrift stores and army surplus stores, and other collecting and rummaging from relatives and friends to gather adequate amounts of found objects that could be glued on a board. I also gained quite a bit of experience with many adhesives and gluing techniques over the years.

What are you currently working on?

Right now I have several projects in various stages. I am attempting to put together a series of oil paintings that portray people or scenes that represent the theme of “Hope in Simplicity.” It has to do with simple activities or hobbies that bring great results spiritually and temporally. It also has to do with living providently, a goal that I admire and hope to perfect someday.

I also plan on entering several competitions this year, including the Church’s international show, and have some larger religious pieces started for them. I am doing some art workshops with other artists to further educate myself. I am also currently working on a decent-sized remodeling project at home and have several custom pieces of furniture that I need to build and a gardening system to implement. As usual, I have too many ideas and things to do in the time that I have. ❧

Denise Gasser

Wed, 19 Feb 2014 00:00:00 -0700

February 19, 2014

By Eric W. Jepson

Denise Gasser is a mixed-media artist hailing from Lehi, Utah. She studied drawing and painting at Utah State University, and participated in a study abroad program in Germany. After completing a BFA in Art Education, she survived two years of teaching high school art, and has also taught private lessons to students who range from four to eighty-four years of age. Moving to the Bay Area, then Vancouver, British Columbia, has added depth and maturity to her work as she has immersed herself in the natural wonders of the Northwest Coast. Denise and her husband currently live in Vancouver where she shares a studio with her three-year-old son, Liam, and her fat baby, Grey.

Photo courtesy Julianne Kozak

So, Denise, since you and I are already friends, I’m just going to jump in and hope everyone else is able to catch up. We’ll fit in basic background facts later, but first I want to tell you: whenever I see a particularly peculiar tree, I wish you were around to share it with. I suppose if I carried a camera with me this would be possible, but photos are less than trees and paintings are something else all together. How do trees manifest themselves in your relationships with other people?

Ha! When I heard you would be the one interviewing me I was just bracing myself for some confusingly thought-provoking questions—you did not disappoint!

I don’t know that I would specifically say that trees manifest themselves in my relationships with others, so much as I would say that my relationships with others seem to manifest themselves in the way I feel about trees. They, like people, all have a story to tell, and the more strange and flawed they may appear, the more interesting their story probably is … and the more compelled I am to become better acquainted. But the great thing about trees is that when you spot a super interesting one, you can stare as long as you want, draw pictures of them, and take extreme close-ups without being creepy.

Heather. Image courtesy Denise Gasser

Trees have been symbolic—best I can tell—as long as we’ve had people. From Adam and Eve to Yggdrasil, trees have been working their way deep into our subconscious. Can you nail down when trees first made their way into you? How did they become your muse?

Trees worked their way into my sketchbook repeatedly throughout my college years. I made some of them into watercolors or prints, but didn’t think much of it at the time. After graduating I was living in Salt Lake City, jobless for the summer and wondering if I would ever paint again. One afternoon I was feeling unusually motivated, so I grabbed my sketchbook and headed out to explore the urban sprawl that surrounded my apartment building. Surprisingly, the run-down gas station/hookah shop and mega car wash weren’t offering the inspiration I was hoping for. So I opted for the row of hedges and trees that lined the neighboring apartment complex. I sat for a while and made some really nice, organic sketches. When I got home I grabbed some vine charcoal and drew a large, flowing, slightly abstracted tree directly onto a painted panel. Something clicked. It’s weird, but it was like I finally stopped feeling lost, or so desperate to figure out what kind of work I would make, or what my “style” would be. As I look back through my sketchbooks I can see that it was there all along. Not just trees, but the organic forms, the flowing line quality, and even just the love for drawing. That’s when I really started fusing drawing and painting, experimenting with patterns, and manipulating my materials—because the subject matter was there, and it came so naturally.

Jericho. Image courtesy Denise Gasser

Photo courtesy Julianne Kozak

When did you discover that drawing would be a serious lifelong pursuit?

I have always loved art. Even in kindergarten I prided myself on my “advanced” drawing skills and shook my head sadly as I observed the feeble attempts of my classmates. I continued drawing and painting through high school, and I always wanted to study art “when I grew up.” So it was a little surprising that when I got to college I began to doubt myself. I guess I was trying to be practical, or maybe I just didn’t think I was good enough to make it. I considered dozens of different majors and didn’t even really take an art class until the end of my second year. I had all but settled on being a dental hygienist when I finally took a basic 2D design class. This changed everything. I worked obsessively on every project while ignoring basically everything else in my life. It was like rediscovering myself. At the end of that semester my teacher told me it would be a great travesty to study dental hygiene and encouraged me to look into the art education program instead. It was a huge turning point in my life. I have been making art ever since.

Walter. Image courtesy Denise Gasser

I’ve heard this story many times—hitting adulthood and thinking being responsible means giving up on anything other than certain allowed fields. The number of times my own mother suggested dentistry! I guess I understand the impulse to be “practical,” but there’s certainly a downside if we as a culture push too many people out of the arts. What do you think our future, as Mormons, will be like if we keep producing thousands of MBAs to every MFA?

It will obviously be a great loss for our church. It takes an array of unique individuals with diverse backgrounds, passions, skills, and personalities to continually knit our church together and bring forth the kingdom of God. To see our members gravitate too far in, or away from, any one direction would be a loss. But there is something significant about the arts, especially considering our Mormon history. We have a rich tradition of art and poetry, music and dancing, of enriching and beautifying. Our pioneer ancestors left us a great artistic legacy that I don’t think we can live up to if we all become doctors, lawyers, and accountants.

It’s tough, though, because the Church also has a strong tradition of family and encourages mothers to stay home to raise their children rather than entering the workforce. So there is this added pressure for many Church members, especially fathers, to provide for a family on a single income. The reality of that is pretty harsh. The arts aren’t exactly known for being lucrative, so it’s really no surprise that many people feel it’s unrealistic to pursue it as a career. Some may choose to “do the art thing as a hobby.” But life is busy and complicated, and often we can do little more than get through the day, barely accomplishing our immediate tasks at hand. Staying invested in art and keeping your drive and passion to create is so challenging when you are trying to fit it into the tiny, leftover corners of your life. But those who pursue a career in the arts are really allowed to plunge the depths of their potential and give back something that we all (a religion, a society, a world) benefit from.

Keeping a continuous workflow has been a constant battle for me. As a stay-at-home mother of two young children I find it almost impossible at times to keep painting; at the end of the day I often feel I have nothing left to give. But I have also found that when I force myself into my “studio” anyway, I am so much more stable, balanced, and fulfilled.

Robin. Image courtesy Denise Gasser

Marin. Image courtesy Denise Gasser

I think this idea that the arts make us more “stable, balanced, and fulfilled” is absolutely true, whether we are consuming or producing. What art are you a consumer of these days?

I have actually been really interested in, and surprisingly inspired by, children’s book illustrators. I spend an inordinate amount of time in the children’s section of the library these days, and I am consistently impressed with the way that many illustrators are able to walk that fine line between illustration and fine art. I feel like illustrations can get away with a lot more, like they can be playful, kitschy, overly fantastical, funny—things fine art is usually not allowed to be. Some of the illustrators I am most excited about right now are Pamela Zagarenski, Brian Wildsmith, Alice Melvin (especially Counting Birds), Oliver Jeffers, Lisbeth Zwerger, and Anne Bachelier (especially her Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland). Their work feels really intuitive, and their use of color and pattern are really inspiring. I think it’s taken my work in a more colorful, lighthearted direction.

That’s a great list. I know Brian Wildsmith, of course, and we have an Oliver Jeffers book too. The others I was less familiar with, but now I’ve googled them and I agree: they’re great. And now I think you’ve already begun an answer to this question, but I know you have more to say: What are you doing to share your passion with your sons?

We definitely do a lot of art together. Liam gets pretty excited when I actually get up the ambition to give him an “art class.” He was the distant bystander of many art classes when I used to teach private lessons, so he loves when he gets the chance to be the student. I also buy him sketchbooks so that most of his drawings are in one place and he can pull it out on his own anytime. I think the most important way I share my passion, though, is just through day-to-day interactions. I keep my easel and supply cabinet right in the middle of our living space so Liam sees my work on the easel every day. Sometimes we have little conversations where he tells me what he likes about my paintings. It’s surprisingly validating! I also try to help him see the world the way an artist sees it. We always try to point out beauty when we come across it, whether that be nice views from the car window, or moss on the trees, or even just commenting on how beautiful the sunshine is. I also like to tell him the names of the authors and illustrators of the books we read together. I think it all makes a difference. As for Grey, at eight months, he is still the silent observer of it all. Though I do occasionally strap him to my chest while I work and let him chew the end of a semi-clean paint brush. So that’s a start at least.

Photo courtesy Julianne Kozak

Betty. Image courtesy Denise Gasser

Ignoring the fact that I love your art (I’ll bet you didn’t know we already own three of your pieces), one of the things I admire most about you is how you, Denise, who clearly have what it takes to be a solitary visionary, are such a killer collaborator. The first work of yours I saw was for 9 Muses which—correct me if I’m wrong—involved eight other painters and nine poets. And the impact you had on artists in our ward (before you abandoned us for Canada) as we met together and worked together and discussed each other’s work has proven irreplaceable. You have a great talent as a teacher, mentor, friend.
We’ve already hit on these ideas of community, but let’s look forward now. You will have a fulfilling personal career (of course), a fulfilling family life (of course), and through it all you will remain your charming, affable, approachable self. These seem pretty inevitable to me. But then, like Lehi, your turn will come to lie down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return. Now, no one gets to decide their legacy, but rare is the person too shy to imagine it. If it’s not too morbid, how do you want to be remembered by those who will someday replace us?

Haha, you are way too kind in your compliments. I’m glad all those things seem inevitable to someone, because on most days I’m not so sure! Honestly, I think I would want to be remembered as someone who never quite “had it all together,” but died trying. I can’t tell you how many times I have berated myself, saying, “Why can’t I just pull it together!?” But maybe that’s just it—maybe nobody really ever does have it together … some are just better at looking like they do. Especially in a world of Facebook, Instagram, and mommy blogs where it’s so easy to make it look like we’re “living the dream.” It’s just not real. That’s actually why I started a blog, Denise Paints, detailing the ugly, hilarious, and sometimes wonderful moments I experience in art and motherhood. A lot of people have asked me, “How do you manage to keep painting while mothering two children?” The short answer is, I don’t … at least not very well, anyway. I am always letting something slip, I am constantly forgetting things, and I often feel my contributions are less than adequate. I go for weeks where I don’t paint at all, or I go through weeks where I paint every day and Liam ends up watching way too much TV. It’s a constant balancing act, but it’s worth every bit of the struggle. I want to be remembered for making works of beauty, infused with the very best and worst of everything that is in me.

Eugene. Image courtesy Denise Gasser

Grey. Image courtesy Denise Gasser

How does the gospel influence your work?

I wouldn’t say that I have ever consciously drawn direct inspiration from the gospel, but obviously the gospel is a huge part of my life, and it colors everything that I do, whether I am aware of it or not. From the time I started painting trees I have been trying to figure out why—what drives me, why do they inspire me so much, what am I even trying to say? It has been interesting these past couple of years, as I have become more thoughtful about my work, to see how many of the themes coming out in my paintings parallel themes found in the gospel. Some of this comes through in my artist statement, like the idea that I embrace tension in my art and use it to strengthen my work, parallels life, and the whole theme of the refiner’s fire. Trees themselves are among God’s most beautiful and significant creations and pop up everywhere in the scriptures, offering wisdom and guidance. Or even just the fact that my main intention is to create works of beauty that will inspire and uplift the viewer … as Mormons, “we seek after these things.” The gospel is there, in subtle tones, informing and enriching every aspect of my life.

Last question. What’s on your easel right now?

A big, colorful, half-finished tree—what else? ❧

Vanja Y. Watkins

Mon, 17 Feb 2014 00:00:00 -0700

February 17, 2014

By David Layton

Vanja Yorgason Watkins is a B.A. and M.A. graduate of Brigham Young University. As a music educator she has taught in the Ogden City Schools, the Salt Lake City Schools, and in the BYU School of Music, and has presented music workshops throughout the state of Utah. Now, sort of retired, she teaches private piano. She served on the Primary General Board and on the General Music Committee of the Church and is the composer of two hymns in the current LDS hymnbook as well as many songs in The Children’s Songbook. She was a regular presenter at the BYU Workshop on Church Music, and has conducted four choirs at General Conference. Sister Watkins is a former stake Primary president and stake and ward Relief Society president. She has served in varied musical callings in the Church and is currently ward choir director and Primary activity day leader in the Ensign Peak Ward in Salt Lake City. She is the mother of five children, grandmother of thirteen, and the wife of the late Dr. Jack B. Watkins.

Photo courtesy Vanja Watkins

You were an avid singer as a child. Tell us about your childhood and musical upbringing.

Oh yes, I have always loved to sing. My parents told me that as a young child I would sing for a long time as I lay in my bed at night before falling asleep. Although I have just an ordinary voice, I have a good ear. That has been enough to give me some great musical opportunities.

My visionary parents encouraged us to learn and enjoy good music. My dad, Milton Yorgason, was a violinist, and my mother, Norma Johns Yorgason, was a pianist and organist. My most pleasant memories of home are of listening to them rehearse in the late evening hours when they were preparing for a performance. My mother accompanied choirs, soloists, and ensembles for years, and I loved having people come to our home for rehearsals and hearing a wide variety of musical literature.

My four brothers and I have always been involved in singing and playing various instruments. We learned in our early years in family night that we could sing four-part hymns in tune unaccompanied. That delighted us then and still delights us when we gather as siblings.

Our parents felt music was such an important part of our upbringing that they sacrificed to pay for our music lessons. My piano lessons began when I was seven and in the second grade. I practiced pretty well until about the eighth or ninth grade, but then I got so busy accompanying soloists and groups to perform that I didn’t prepare my own pieces for lessons. Sad to say, my teacher dumped me! I was stunned! Fortunately, after a few months without lessons, I was allowed to start again with a different teacher, one who helped me expand my repertoire and prepared me for more opportunities. I loved accompanying choral groups in junior high and high school because it gave me a sense of belonging as it fostered friendships as well as musicianship.

What influenced you to choose music for a career?

My music teachers were the strongest influence on my choice for a career. These good teachers really seemed to enjoy what they taught, and they certainly made me happy. I wanted to pass on my joy to others.

As the first career day in high school approached, I had a strong impression that I should be a music teacher. From then on, I really didn’t waver in that decision. My high school choral teacher, Edward Sandgren, was truly a mentor for me, not only during my high school years but also when I returned to Ogden to do my student teaching with him at Ben Lomond High School. At that time my goal was to be a secondary choral teacher. But as I began working with students, I realized that most of them had not had basic musical experiences. I had the distinct impression that the best place for me to begin teaching was in elementary schools. That had never entered my mind before, but it was a very strong impression and I knew I needed to follow it. My dear professor and music department chairman, Dr. John R. Halliday, who directed the BYU Madrigal Singers in which I sang, influenced me to return to BYU for graduate work. He guided me to Lue Groesbeck, who had recently joined BYU’s music faculty to teach elementary music education. I learned so much from her that I could hardly wait to begin teaching. I knew I had found my niche.

Of all you learned during your B.A. and M.A. at BYU, what were the lessons that most inspired your work in later years as a teacher and composer?

Lue Groesbeck was the perfect teacher and mentor for me. I gained valuable ideas for composing children’s songs as I studied her 1966 master’s degree thesis, Criteria for Selection of Children’s Songs in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her detailed studies and research revealed the characteristics of good lyrics and music. Those guidelines have greatly benefited me, and I have shared them with others as I have taught occasional workshops and classes.

Professor Groesbeck was an inspiration to me. When I was her student, she was serving on the Primary General Board, and she had a great vision of both school music and Church music. But more than that, she loved children and knew how to touch them with the gift of music. Her experience in teaching grade school students enabled her to bring a practical view to her university teaching, and her advanced studies with prominent music educators added richness to the lessons she gave me as a graduate student.

From her I learned how to teach a song by rote, and I have used and taught that foolproof plan over and over ever since. I also learned from her how to analyze a song. Those seem like such simple things, but I could see that these ideas worked for teaching music to both children and adults. What valuable methods they have been for me! Knowing what is in songs written by others has helped me know what to put in the songs I would someday write.

Lue occasionally asked for my opinions about Primary music, and she really seemed to value what I said. I know it was through her that I was called to serve on the Primary General Board about two years later in 1963, although she humbly said that the Lord had called me. While I served on the music committee of the Primary General Board, opportunities for composition opened for me. For example, I helped evaluate songs that came to The Children’s Friend magazine. I found that some of the songs were good and some weren’t so good. Some just needed little fix-ups, and I offered to make them—grateful for the music theory classes I had taken and for other classes that required some composition. At that time, the Primary Board was responsible for writing class lessons, songs, and programs. When I was asked to set some verses to music that had been written for those purposes, I realized that I could actually do that.

Photo courtesy Vanja Watkins

What are the most rewarding aspects about being a music educator?

When I began my first real job—as coordinator of music in the primary grades of the Ogden City Schools—I could hardly believe I was being paid to do something I loved so much. I really enjoy working with music and people, and that joy is my reward. Children delight me, and I feel great satisfaction when I can bring something to their understanding that uplifts and benefits them and even touches their souls. Music can do that, and I love to see it happen. It happens with adults too, and I have found much satisfaction in giving workshops and classes to teachers of children.

How has the gospel influenced your work?

The gospel influences everything I do. The doctrines and standards of the Church are always in my mind as I select the music and the words I choose to teach or set to music. I was influenced long ago by a statement made by President Heber J. Grant in Stories of Our Mormon Hymns (1961) by J. Spencer Cornwall: “The more beautiful the music by which false doctrine is sung, the more dangerous it becomes.” In composing, I look for texts that have inherent beauty and that adhere to truth. I was fortunate to be schooled by faithful sisters I served with on the Primary General Board in the early 1960s who willingly followed the guidelines given in what was then the new correlation program of the Church. We were counseled that children have the right to know that everything they learn in lessons and music at church is true. I saw how obedient these sisters were as they followed the counsel to discontinue including Halloween songs and secular Christmas songs in the Primary repertoire. I learned then that there is safety and peace (as the Primary song says) in following the counsel of the prophet.

I remember the powerful influence my past teachers had on me, and I want to be a good example for children. I feel it is important to live the principles of the gospel—not only for myself, but also for those who may look to me for guidance and support. As a composer I want my music to be a framework for truth. I love the thirteenth Article of Faith which states, “If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.” I hope my contributions are seen in this light.

What was it like working on the Church’s 1985 Hymnbook Executive Committee?

This was a highlight among the spiritual experiences I have had. Each member of the Hymnbook Executive Committee felt as I did that it was a sacred trust given to us. Six of us met regularly in the reviewing, compiling, and editing processes. We also had an additional perspective from two other members who lived outside the local area. Individually we all reviewed the same hymns given to us in batches, and from those reviews the hymns of greatest quality were retained for further review. We gave each of those hymns a fair hearing not only by review but also by performance. Among us we had singers for each part, and each singer was a good reader. We drew close in spirit and friendship as we stood around the piano and sang together. I just loved doing that! There was a unity and a spiritual sense among us that helped us agree on the hymns to be included in the new hymnbook. There is still a unity among us that makes us friends forever, and we continue to meet socially and occasionally for hymn presentations.

Each of us could relate spiritual experiences having to do with our work on the hymnbook. We know that we received divine direction and that we could not have done this work without the help of the Lord. We also had ongoing communication with the Brethren through our chairman, Michael Moody, who worked closely with our Managing Director, Elder Hugh W. Pinnock of the Seventy. We were enriched and guided by the counsel of the Brethren and were assisted by numerous others who gave service and feedback.

Coming to know the hymns in this hymnbook has been a blessing in my life. Each one has beauty and a purpose for being there. Although some hymns are less known than others, we had hopes for all of them to be loved and sung because of their inherent worth. I still think of this as the “new” hymnbook and am glad it is so kindly accepted and utilized. I love to see these books dotting the chapels of the Church and feel grateful to have been a part of this glorious effort.

What was your inspiration for the hymn “Press Forward, Saints”?

Never have I had an experience in writing music like this. It did indeed come by inspiration, and each time I reflect on this miracle my gratitude increases. Let me tell of this experience as succinctly as I can without omitting important details.

The stirring text for this hymn was accepted by our hymnbook committee fairly early in the selection process. In this process there was no identification on any original texts or music, and only after a hymn’s acceptance did we learn of the origin. We were delighted to discover later that this one was written by one of our own committee members, Marvin K. Gardner, who has an inspirational account of his own about writing the text. We found a musical setting that fit the words perfectly, including the alleluias. It was a borrowed tune, and we immediately requested permission for its use. Rarely was permission refused, so we moved forward assuming it would be granted as we pursued other matters.

Some time later, I was at a dinner with my husband when I heard an insistent melody come into my head along with the words of the first line of this text. Even with the conversation at the table, I kept hearing the melody—and it stayed until I was quite sure I could remember it. Throughout the evening, the second, third, and fourth lines of words came successively, each with a tune that stayed until it was safely stored in my memory. It was like taking dictation in my music theory classes, but I had no manuscript paper with me and had to wait until I reached home to write down what I had heard. I wasn’t sure why this melody was coming to me because we thought we already had a setting for the words. Still, it seemed important to notate it immediately. During the night, the harmonization ran through my mind, and I wrote out the parts during the next few days. Then I put the hymn away in a drawer because I didn’t think we needed it.

Things changed when we received notification that we were not given permission to use the hymn setting we had requested because of a legal agreement between the author and composer that their words and music could not be separated. Suddenly our text had no musical embodiment, and publication time was very near. About that time our chairman, Michael Moody, asked each of us if we had something else that we would like to submit. I was surprised by that request because our committee had been advised that we could submit only one hymn each—and I already had one in the section of children’s songs, “Families Can Be Together Forever.” I immediately thought of the hymn in the drawer and told Michael I did have something else, and he encouraged me to have our secretary slip it into the next batch for review. I had no guarantee it would be accepted, but I felt I must have been given this music for a reason. So I took it to our secretary without my name on it. At our next meeting, we sang the new hymn setting and it was quickly accepted.

I am not sure how to describe this experience. I knew my hand had written the music, but I also knew it had been given to me from a heavenly source. Perhaps the best way to explain this is through the title of another hymn, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way.” By inspiration, the music for this hymn was ready when we needed it, and I am truly grateful and humbled to have had a part in it.

What was the writing and collaboration process like for “Families Can Be Together Forever”?

Sister Ruth M. Gardner wrote the lyrics for this song while serving on a Primary General Board committee that was preparing the Children’s Sacrament Meeting Presentation for 1980. The presentation was titled “Families Can Be Together Forever.” Being musical herself, she had attempted to write music for the lyrics but was not satisfied with her efforts. She telephoned me, gave me this background, and asked if I would set her lyrics to music. When she brought the lyrics to my home, she expressed her hope that this song would fill a need for songs about families because there weren’t many in the Primary repertoire at that time. That was a daunting request, and I wasn’t sure I could meet her expectations. I wrote and rewrote a number of times as the deadline neared, hoping and praying the right melody would come. The only change I made in the text was to repeat the last line of the refrain, and Ruth approved that. When I thought the song was completed, I sought a feeling of affirmation and peace through prayer, which is how I know I have finished writing. Then I called Ruth and asked her to come and hear the song. I was pleased that she felt good about it. After being approved by the various committees involved, it became the theme song for the Children’s Sacrament Meeting Presentation in 1980.

I loved working with Ruth Gardner. We were not on the Primary General Board at the same time, but she and I taught together for years at BYU workshops on Church music. I am so grateful and happy that this song unites us, and it truly hallows her memory in my mind.

How did you get involved with writing the Articles of Faith songs?

Sister Naomi Shumway was the impetus for this work. As general president of the Primary from 1974 to 1980, she had been invited to observe a Primary for children with learning disabilities. These amazing children had been able to learn every word of the Articles of Faith by singing them to old familiar melodies that they could easily pick up. Sister Shumway felt that if these children could learn the words so effectively by singing them, all children should surely be able to do so as well.

While serving on the General Music Committee, I learned of the desire for new musical settings for the Articles of Faith and submitted a few melodies for consideration. I was encouraged to continue with all thirteen and then to write accompaniments for them. I had loved the Articles of Faith ever since memorizing them as a girl in Primary. And as I became more deeply acquainted with each one, I began to love them even more and to feel that each has a distinct personality.

When I was in college, I had heard that one of the music composition faculty members had indicated an interest in setting the Articles of Faith to music. At the time, I thought that was hilarious because the words don’t even rhyme—and I wondered while he was at it, would he set the phone book to music too? I have since repented, of course. As a music educator, I am well aware of the power that music has in organizing the efforts of the brain, and I have been rewarded many times as I hear stories about children who have mastered the memorization of the Articles of Faith because of the songs. I hope I will get to meet the Prophet Joseph Smith in the eternal world and that he will feel all right about our collaboration.

From left: Bonnie Goodliffe, Marvin Gardner, Vanja Watkins, Karen Lynn Davidson. Photo courtesy Vanja Watkins

How did you balance raising your family with your service on the Primary General Board and General Music committee and with your work as a composer?

My husband, the late Dr. Jack B. Watkins, was a generous support and facilitator. We met in 1963 when he was chief of surgery at Primary Children’s Hospital and I was a recent member of the Primary General Board. We married in May 1964 at the end of the school year, and I didn’t go back to teaching until twenty years later, when our children were pretty much grown. We agreed that our family would come first, and that our Church callings came next. He considered my Church assignments to be very important, and he knew I needed time to fulfill them adequately.

When our children were young and I had committee meetings and assignments at home or away, Jack often adjusted his office hours to be at home with our children. As they grew older, Jack continued to assist me with them when he could. As a doctor, he was always the first one to answer the phone in our home. I learned how efficient he was in handling the calls when people who had called for me would occasionally tell me he had told them I was too busy to take on a task they had in mind for me. I have a hard time saying no, and he knew it.

With Jack’s busy schedule, we didn’t do a lot of traveling or socializing except with a few friends and family, so I was able to be at home to work on the projects I had. Of course, life was busy with five children, but somehow I was always blessed to accomplish the work I had to do and still enjoy the family. My children are all musical, and we had them sing together for a variety of events. They also learned to play instruments for their own pleasure. One of our favorite activities was and continues to be a family bottle band, and we still get the giggles when we play. I wouldn’t exactly say I put pressure on my children to sing, but one of my daughters says they refer to themselves as “Vanja’s Trapped Family Singers”!

You’ve commented about inspiration for melodies coming at random times and in random places. What is one memorable experience when this happened to you?

No doubt the most memorable and amazing to me was the melody for “Press Forward, Saints.” And I remember that I was really on the move while composing the music to the Articles of Faith. Some of the songs were written at home, some at the park while I watched my children, and some at the home of my parents as I watered their lawn while they were away. I made sure I had manuscript paper with me wherever I went.

How has your composing evolved over the years?

I try to learn as I go. Since most of my compositions are songs or hymns with lyrics, I carefully study the words. The natural rhythm of the words, word accents, and meanings influence the way I try to create melodies for the lyrics. I agree with a statement made by Monteverdi: “Let the word be the master of the melody, not the slave” (as quoted in Encyclopedia of Quotations about Music, Nat Shapiro, comp., p. 150).

One thing that has affected my compositions for children is coming to know the child’s voice and how it develops. I try to be mindful of the limits of the vocal range and also of the intervals that may be difficult for children to sing. Adults can also have trouble singing some intervals, so I try to make my melodies as singable as I can without being too predictable. I do endeavor to avoid trends and to come up with something fresh in each piece.

What projects are you currently working on in your retirement?

There are so many things going on in my life right now that I laugh at the word retirement. Because of my association with Marvin K. Gardner, I have wonderful texts that can be set to music. Our first collaboration was “Press Forward, Saints,” and Marvin never knew that was going to happen. Since it did work out well for both of us, Marv suggested we collaborate on an annual Christmas song. That began in 1987, and we have written one together nearly every year since. We have also worked on various songs for The Children’s Songbook, Church magazines, contests, and other purposes, and we keep an eye open for opportunities. Marv is a gifted author, and I love every text he sends me.

I also enjoy writing music for productions for school children. My friend, Jo Lloyd, teaches second grade. Each year she creates or adapts a story and writes the script and lyrics, and I write the music and accompany the singing for the program. I guess I have a latent desire to be a Broadway composer because that is somewhat the style of these songs—very much simplified, of course.

As the choir director in my ward, I like to customize some of the hymns to fit our choir by adding intros, interludes, modulations, and free accompaniments. I don’t have plans to publish them; I just keep them in a file.

I guess we could consider my piano students a project too. Each week I spend three days after school teaching some fine young people, and I truly hope they are learning to bring out the music in their pieces and let their artistry and skills bless their lives. I also hope they will be accomplished enough to be of service in musical callings in the Church.

I tell myself that this is the year I will carry out my dream project to learn my music notation program because I still notate everything by hand. I have a great computer program, but I just need to buckle down and work through it.

How has composing strengthened your testimony of the gospel?

I look to our Creator as my source of inspiration. All the good in my life comes from our loving Heavenly Father, and I know that His vision for each of us can be seen in the way He nurtures us individually. I think that the process of creating invites the Spirit and that our Father cares very much about the outcome of our efforts—so much so that He will touch our hearts and minds with ideas that shape our work. I don’t know just how it is done, but I have felt His influence and love wash over me, particularly when I am composing music to accompany words of truth and deep spiritual significance. Such sacred moments testify to me that music matters to Him because it can bring forth feelings that draw His children near to Him and His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. I believe strongly in the doctrine that attests to our receiving spiritual gifts, and I am thankful for the gifts that I have received and for the opportunity to use those gifts in various ways. I have been in the right place at the right time for some amazing opportunities, and for that I express my deepest gratitude to the Lord.

If you had one overarching goal for your composing career, what would that be?

The first real song I ever wrote was just to meet the requirements at the end of my second-year theory class. I thought the song was okay, and it met the requirements. But it suddenly looked better when a friend asked if she could sing it in her spring recital. Really? I thought. Someone wants to sing something I wrote? Listening to her sing that song filled me with great delight and some confidence. How satisfying it felt to have someone perform something I had created. I can trace my urge to compose to the feeling I had and still have when others want to perform music I have written. I have a sincere desire to share the music that is inside me. I sincerely want my music to be of service to others, and I hope it reflects my love for the Lord. ❧

Jenny Oaks Baker

Fri, 14 Feb 2014 00:00:00 -0700

February 14, 2014

By Annie Mangelson

GRAMMY-nominated artist Jenny Oaks Baker is one of America’s most accomplished violinists. She has released eleven albums since 1998 which have sold over a quarter of a million copies and consistently charted on Billboard, including the number one spot on the Top Classical Albums chart. Her album Wish Upon a Star earned a nomination for the 54th GRAMMY Awards for Best Pop Instrumental Album. Jenny began playing the violin at age four and made her solo orchestral debut in 1983 when she was only eight years old. She received her Master of Music degree from the renowned Juilliard School in New York City and her bachelor’s degree in violin performance from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She has performed as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Strathmore Hall, the Library of Congress, and as a guest soloist with the Jerusalem Symphony, the San Diego Symphony, the Utah Symphony, the Orchestra at Temple Square, and the internationally acclaimed Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Jenny has also soloed with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center under the direction of Marvin Hamlisch. Jenny, her husband Matthew, and their four children reside outside of Washington, D. C.

Photo courtesy Deseret Book

You started playing the violin at a very young age. Did you always envision yourself as a concert violinist?

I always hated practicing but I loved performing, and I always knew I wanted to be on stage, so I did always aspire to be a concert violinist.

At what point did you realize that this is what you wanted to do with your life?

Early on, my parents recognized that I had a musical gift, and they taught me that I had a responsibility to the Lord to develop that gift. So growing up, I worked hard to try to reach my potential so I would be ready to use my musical talents to build the kingdom. At age fifteen, when I received my patriarchal blessing, I received further understanding that the Lord did have a plan for me and my music, and I became more determined to practice hard so I would be prepared for the things that the Lord had in store for me. When at age seventeen I auditioned and was accepted into the Curtis Institute of Music, one of the world’s best music schools, I could see that my dream was in reach.

Who has been one of your most influential teachers, and why?

I have had some amazing violin teachers. I am so grateful to have been able to study with Jaime Laredo, Victor Danchenko, Pamela Frank and Robert Mann at Curtis and Juilliard, but my most influential teacher was Utah Symphony Associate Concertmaster, Leonard Braus. Mr. Braus started teaching me when I was fourteen and he really believed in me. He whipped my playing into shape and encouraged me to audition for Curtis. My parents were only paying him for sixty-minute lessons, but my lessons often lasted three hours. He gave me the skills and confidence I needed to get into Curtis and then survive the experience. I am eternally grateful to him!

You have had the opportunity to perform with many talented groups and people, as well as at several prestigious venues. What has been your most memorable performance?

My musical highlights have been performing with the National Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and at Carnegie Hall. Spiritual highlights have been performing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, performing “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, and being a Time Out for Women presenter. My favorite performances are those when I am able to feel the Spirit really strongly as I play, and know that those in the audience are feeling it too. It is a great privilege to be a vessel through which God’s love and Spirit can be felt by others.

Photo courtesy Deseret Book

What are some challenges that you’ve overcome?

It was incredibly difficult for me to leave my parents at age eighteen and move to Philadelphia to go to the Curtis Institute of Music. I lived by myself in an apartment in Philadelphia and was the only Mormon at the school. My parents didn’t have the money to visit me more than one time in all four years, and I could only go home at Christmastime and in the summer. I was incredibly homesick and lonely all four years, but I worked incredibly hard and felt that I was on the Lord’s errand, so I stuck it out. I am so grateful I survived it! It was an incredibly valuable musical experience.

Who inspires you in your work?

I try to be inspired more by the Spirit than by any particular person. I aspire to do what the Lord would have me do, not follow the path of any other artist.

Your album Then Sings My Soul (2010) was number one on the Top Classical Albums chart. What went into arranging the songs for this album, and how did you choose which songs to include?

Sam Cardon wrote all the arrangements on that album. When choosing the songs for the album, Sam and I tried to pick really inspirational classical and sacred songs that would touch hearts and be truly soul-filling. I am very grateful to Sam for writing such gorgeous arrangements. He is an amazing composer and a very inspired man.

Photo courtesy Deseret Book

How does being a disciple of Christ influence your music?

I always try to record and perform music that is uplifting and will bring people closer to the Lord. I know I have been given a gift to perform sacred music with the Spirit, and I always try to program music that enables me to use my gifts. I also pray before and rely on the Lord during every performance. I do not know how anyone can have the guts to get up on stage without knowing they can call upon the Lord for help!

Your 2011 album Wish Upon a Star was nominated for a GRAMMY. What inspired this album?

I have four children, and when I recorded Wish Upon a Star, I had been living and breathing Disney for ten years straight. Plus Disney has so many wonderful musical themes to pull from. It was really a no-brainer to record a Disney album!

Can you tell us more about the album?

Kurt Bestor produced and arranged Wish Upon a Star. Kurt has arranged music on nearly all my albums, and he is brilliant! Kurt really knows how to write music that enables me to play from my soul. Kurt took classic Disney themes and recreated them in a way that makes them new yet still familiar. It is an album that adults love because the music is sophisticated, yet children love because it is Disney. It is not a kiddie album, but kids love it.

As a musician, what are you trying to convey to listeners through your music? What do you want them to take away from one of your concerts?

I really just want my audience to feel the Spirit through my playing and to come closer to the Savior through my music. I want them to feel the love of the Lord. My favorite comments are no longer those that praise my playing, but those that tell me that my music touched them. I am just as thrilled to hear sniffles in the crowd as applause.

In what ways do you work to achieve these goals?

When I was younger, I practiced hours and hours a day to try to perfect my craft. Now I make sure that I am prepared musically for every recording and performance, but I also try to make sure that I keep the commandments so I am worthy to play with the Spirit. I also pray before every performance that I will play my best and feel good about my performance. I also try and feel the emotion of the music 200% so my audiences can feel it 100%.

We understand that you will be releasing another album this year, featuring classic rock songs. Can you tell us a bit more about it?

Yes! The title of the album is Classic: The Rock Album. I am very excited about it. Kurt Bestor is arranging and producing the album and he has done another amazing job! He has arranged these classic rock themes for solo violin and orchestra in a really classical way, so those who appreciate classical music and those who like popular music will all like the album. Some of the rock ballads have absolutely gorgeous melodies that lend themselves really well to the violin. And Kurt has been really inventive in taking some great rock anthems and converting them to fabulously flashy violin showpieces. For instance, he did a mashup of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. There is also a Beatles medley called the “Liverpool Suite” that is phenomenal! I know that young and old will love this album because the melodies we have chosen are beloved and the writing is spectacular. We also have been really careful to only choose songs that have appropriate lyrics so that the music can still be uplifting. It’s going to be a great album!

How do you balance motherhood and your successful career as a violinist?

I have a really supportive husband! Matt is willing to work from home and manage our four children while I am away performing, and is happy to do so. He never complains when I have to practice or when I have to leave to perform. He cheers me on and joys in my successes. I could not have been successful without him. I also don’t have to practice as much as I did when I was younger, so I can get it all done while my kids are in school during the day. It is much easier to balance motherhood now that my children are a bit older.

What is tricky now is managing my career along with their musical pursuits. They are each very talented musicians, and I spend most of my days practicing with them and taking them to their lessons. Laura is twelve and plays the violin and the percussion, Hannah is ten and plays the piano, Sarah is nine and plays the cello, and Matthew is seven and plays classical guitar. I spend much more time developing their talents than sharing or working on mine. But what is incredibly rewarding is that I am now able to program them into many of my shows, so they come along with me to some of my performances and we perform together. And my husband used to be a DJ in college and so he is able to help with the sound. My concerts are becoming family events and we all enjoy this!

Photo courtesy Deseret Book

How does your role as a mother influence your music?

I am very careful to not leave my family more than absolutely necessary. I fly in on the day of the show and fly out on the first flight out the next morning. I also say no to some performances in order to have more family time. Because I do have to leave once in a while for performances, I also am careful not to spend time away from my family for other pursuits.

What do you teach your kids about music and following their dreams?

As I said, each of our kids are musical and practice long and hard. I have tried to teach them to work (practice) first and play later, as my parents taught me. I have tried to help them see that their gifts have come from Heavenly Father and they have the responsibility to develop them and use them to build the kingdom. My parents never pushed me to become a musician, and I will not push my children to be professional musicians, but I will require them to work hard to develop their talents so that if they choose to go into music, they will be good enough to do so. And if they decide to go into something else, they will still be able to enjoy music and bring joy to others throughout their lives. ❧

Ryan Little

Wed, 12 Feb 2014 00:00:00 -0700

February 12, 2014

By Candy Eash

Born in Vancouver, Canada, Ryan began his directing career with The Last Good War, a short film that received the Jimmy Stewart Memorial Award and an Emmy at the 1999 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences College Awards. In 2004 Little directed his first feature film, Saints and Soldiers. This critically acclaimed film received the Best Picture Award at over fourteen film festivals, two nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards and the $100,000 grand prize at the Heartland Film Festival. Ryan followed up his feature film debut with the ABC Family Channel original comedy Everything You Want, starring Shiri Appleby (CW’s Life Unexpected) and Edie McClurg (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). In 2006, Ryan directed the western Outlaw Trail staring Bruce McGill (Match Stick Men) and Arielle Kebbel (The Uninvited). In 2008, Ryan directed Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings), Neal McDonough (Band of Brothers), Gary Cole (Office Space), and Penn Badgley (CW’s Gossip Girl) in Forever Strong, the true story of the Highland Rugby Team. In 2011, he directed Age of the Dragons, a fantasy-based adaptation of Herman Melville’s classic story Moby Dick. The film stars Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon) as the obsessed Captain Ahab and Vinnie Jones (Snatch) as the incorrigible Mr. Stubbs. Ryan worked with producer Dean Devlin (Independence Day) on the TNT pilot Blank Slate.

Photo courtesy Ryan Little

There are a lot of stories in the LDS film community about your start in filmmaking—will you share the true story of what brought you to film and how your first feature came about?

My first exposure to working in the film industry was back on a TV show called 21 Jump Street, starring Johnny Depp. I got to be an extra off and on for a couple years. Growing up in Vancouver was great because there was a ton of stuff being filmed up there. Eventually I got to work as a production assistant on a handful of TV shows and movies—mostly picking up garbage, holding signs, making coffee. Very glamorous stuff.

After that, I attended the film program at BYU. They had great resources for filmmaking—sound stages, 35mm film equipment, even their own in-house lab for developing film. It was awesome.

Somewhere along that path I made a short film called The Last Good War. It received a Student Emmy as well as a special award from Jimmy Stewart’s family. I showed that film to a fellow filmmaker named Adam Abel and he liked the idea of trying to make a WWII feature film. So we went around and showed the film to some people he knew. They loved it and gave us enough money to make Saints and Soldiers. That’s pretty much how my directing career started.

So war stories have been a theme of yours since the very beginning. You’ve stated that you were fascinated by World War II and that “making these films is our way of honoring those who have done so much to fight for our freedoms.” With so many stories, how do you choose which to make? And how do you choose which moments to highlight in storytelling?

I have always been fascinated by WWII films. I don’t know why; I just am. I love being able to remind the viewers that there were people who gave their lives for our freedom. Veterans are just amazing people. I read a lot of WWII books. Some are good and some are great. There are gems out there—you just have to put the time in to find them. Usually the stories we choose are based around a moment in time, a single event where someone does something really brave, where they risk everything for the greater good. That is what we try to build our stories around.

Photo courtesy Ryan Little

You have worked as both a director of photography and a director. Can you explain the difference between the two and share your experience of doing both on a project?

For me, directing and being the cinematographer is the same. People ask me all the time, “How can you do both jobs at the same time?” I don’t really know—it’s just the way I learned filmmaking. I come from a family of photographers, so the creative bug came for me through telling stories with images. The directing part came later.

When I can, I try not to do both jobs. It’s usually a budget reason when I do it—it saves the production money for other things. The real problem comes with actors. If you are the cinematographer and the director, it means you are splitting your time between lighting and working with your actors. That can have a negative effect on the performances you get.

Each project is different; each has its own needs. In an ideal world I would just direct, so I could give the actors the time they need to really shape what they are doing in a particular scene. I really love being the cinematographer for other directors. It is really fun to step back and watch someone else direct. I always learn something new from other directors I work with.

You’ve had the privilege of working with some pretty amazing and well-known actors–Danny Glover, Sean Astin, and Neal McDonough, and some of your own movies have helped to establish some pretty incredible LDS actors like Corbin Allred and Jasen Wade. What do you look for in an actor?

I have been very blessed to work with some very talented people. I always learn so much from those who have been in this industry much longer than I. Truthfully, I think Corbin Allred and Jasen Wade were already established before—I was just lucky enough to persuade them to work with me.

In respect to hiring actors, there are a few things that come to mind. I only work with actors who are respectful of the crew. I don’t tolerate actors who think they are better than anyone else on set. It doesn’t fly with me. Everybody works hard on set, not just the actors. I like to work with actors who are prepared. When an actor comes into an audition, I expect them to be “off-book”—they need to memorize the dialogue for the scene. I don’t care if they change the wording a bit, but if you come in the room and just read off the script and wing it, then there is no way I’m going to hire you. If you can’t memorize a page of dialogue for an audition then how are you going to do a 120-page script when it’s time to shoot? I also look for actors who love acting. I can always spot the ones who are in love with the idea of being famous. I am not interested in those kind of actors.

Each project has its own unique challenges, and with each project your skills increase. Which film has helped develop your skills as a director the most? What specific experiences brought about those changes?

Every film is a challenge. They are all different, so the challenges are different. I wouldn’t say that there is one film that has taught me the most.

In respect to the film I am working on now, called The Void, I have been learning a lot about working with and coordinating the picture vehicles. We have five tanks in this film and they are dangerous, so you have to be organized and plan things out carefully. That is something new for me, so now I have better skills in respect to shooting those kind of scenes. The next film will be completely different.

From the perspective of a director, what are your thoughts on how film festivals help in the creation and promotion of films?

I love film festivals. They are great places to interact with other filmmakers, to see what they are doing and to learn from each other. The kind of people who attend film festivals are the real fans. They are so supportive of your work. It’s very therapeutic for me.

Pick your festivals carefully; not every festival is right for your film. If you want to win and get some good buzz going on your film, you need to attend. So many people enter their film in a festival but don’t go. Those are the films that no one really sees. You have to be there promoting your films—people come to the festivals to meet the filmmakers. Only good things can come to your film from showing your work at a film festival.

Photo courtesy Ryan Little

You’ve stated many times that Raiders of the Lost Ark is your favorite film of all time. In what ways has this film influenced your storytelling?

I remember walking out of Raiders with my dad and saying, “I don’t know what that job is, but that is what I want to do.” I didn’t know who Steven Spielberg was back then and I certainty didn’t understand what a director did, but I was determined to figure it out. I am not sure if my films have very much in common with Raiders, but I do look at that film as an inspiration for why I do what I do. Raiders is one great roller coaster ride.

At the LDS Film Festival a few years ago, you said that the easiest road to success for a film is to completely understand your audience, and then to stay within the boundaries that audience allows. For example, if a filmmaker is making a purely Mormon film, they need to be realistic about the budget due to audience size and they need to know that the subject most likely will not be relatable to more than that audience. How do the Saints and Soldiers films transcend being simply LDS films?

I have always seen Saints and Soldiers as a film for everyone. I wasn’t trying to make it for one specific group of people. If it appeals to Christians, great. If it appeals to WWII veterans, fantastic. I always strive to make films that can be as universal as possible.

You’ve said you like exploring the spiritual aspects of the human experience. How does the gospel influence your filmmaking?

Not every film I get to direct has a spiritual connection to it, but I love it when it does. People are emotional beings and as long as the spiritual elements of your films are not didactic, then it can be a wonderful way to express your theme.

What are your hopes for future LDS filmmakers and the future of Mormon film?

I love seeing what other filmmakers are making. I saw The Saratov Approach when it came out. It was very great. Fresh. I think as long as you can come up with things that are new, people will support it. I think a lot of people are going to see that movie who are not LDS as well, and that is what I love to see happen.

What are you currently working on, and what would you like to do next?

There are a few projects in development right now. I have been offered to shoot a supernatural thriller in Canada this summer. That will be something new for me. I’m sure I’ll learn a lot from the experience. ❧