Michal Luch Onyon was raised in a family of talented artists. Both her parents were accomplished designers and painters who worked for the Church, her sister works in stained glass, and her daughter and nephew are accomplished artists and performers. For example, her mother illustrated the Children’s Songbook. I lived with her nephew, Bryan Hernandez-Luch, on my mission and he would regale me with stories of his family that made them seem, to me, like the Royal Tenenbaums of Mormon art. Onyon received a BFA from the University of Utah and began oil painting several years ago after a career in illustration and graphic design. She adds, “My hobby has been pleine aire watercolors done on almost every vacation for 25 years. I think all these past experiences help me as I discover that painting encompasses more than a lifetime of challenges and ideas. It is a timeless feeling to escape everyday life by trying capture and reinvent from a world so much bigger and varied than we can imagine.”

Growing up in a family of artists how did you find your style and voice? Like the cartoon of a man with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, I have a family art jury sitting on mine. One side is the critique, the other encouragement. It has taken a while to get past such talented parents. I may never be as excellent as them. I pretend not to care or that I am not as invested to avoid that critical voice. Ultimately, you build on your own passions, strengths and accomplishments. I see the influence of both parents in my work and it is exciting to me. I can say, “Mom was here…she loved patterns and nature” or “my father is coming through with his bold sense of structure” You mature and know what you love and can appreciate the influences that flow through you.

How did you get to the point that you could make a living with your art? I hate to tell you. I am not feeding a family on my artwork. There are some smart choices I made in the past so that I have the liberty of painting now. I worked as a graphic designer on logos, catalogs and t-shirts for more than 25 years. I was a window display artist and made plein aire watercolors for more years. I married a hard working man who is generous and lets me do what I want (as long as I make dinner). I paint endless hours with a desire to become good despite little monetary reward. I am a terrible business woman, but… I am busy in my studio.

Your parents were both artists for the Church. How would you evaluate the Church’s relationship to art today? I think the LDS church is proud of its artists, especially if they create predictable pictures of church subjects. It is impressive to see that a culture can produce accomplished people. So if you can get well known you are a shining example of “We are Mormons”. I do not feel like there is any social or doctrinal support or encouragement to women who work to get there. Like the general culture, there is little understanding of the individual who creates art and their need for self expression or respect for the time it takes.

Visit Michal Onyon’s website.

Maddison Colvin is an innovative artist currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at BYU. She holds degrees from Whitworth University and BYU. Her collection Swarms is engaging and contemplative. She writes, “In Swarms I paint or film masses of organisms behaving as a single group, exhibiting behaviors outside the ability of the individual organism- effectively erasing the individual and placing it within a network of incommunicable collective knowledge.”

You have said Swarms examines ‘masses of organisms behaving as a single group’. What have you learned from this project? This was an unusual project for me. Usually, the work is a process of learning, and ends up as an artifact of that arc. The first swarm I made was very much in this vein- I painted birds onto vellum, cut them out carefully, and re-assembled them in a semi-sculptural form. Over the course of that piece, I became more and more interested in emergent behaviors, and did a lot of research about this particular kind of intelligence. However, because I kept making the swarms for over a year and a half, they ended up being more of a formal project- how do these bodies fit together, how do they form a unified whole, how do these unified wholes differ from each other visually/materially – rather than a conceptual one. In other words, the idea was finished at the beginning. I’ve really loved making these pieces but I don’t want to exhaust the concept any more than I have. Fortunately, the thinking of the project has branched off in a couple of directions.

First, a really valuable idea coming out of the swarms project is that of individual identity being subsumed or obliterated by communal behavior. I’m researching utopias a little, and specifically thinking about utopian communities being necessarily universal. The structure of a utopia usually diminishes the needs of the individual in favor of the needs of the whole, and requires the individual to behave as a functional unit in that whole. There’s something hugely appealing in that, and something very alarming. I see this conflict within a lot of people’s lived experience of the LDS church, and I’m going at it from that angle. What about faith requires the faithful to lose themselves somewhat to find a community? Does sameness produce unity and harmony or does sameness erase the self? I think a little of both and I kind of enjoy that tension. So I guess in retrospect, the swarm pieces taught me something about religious communities and how they function.

Secondly, I found the swarms to be sort of distant, like you can sit back and look at these obloid objects depicted on a surface.  I wanted the organisms to feel more immediate, personal, and intimidating. One solution has been some oil paintings depicting thick vegetation. I wanted them to feel kind of consumptive, to fill the frame of the painting and feel a little more intrusive. I also made two video pieces of worms and roaches respectively, filmed from beneath through plexiglass so they fill the frame. I might be getting somewhere with this, but I need to beat it into the ground for a little longer first.

How did you get started in art? I was an army kid- both my parents were GMO’s – so I grew up moving around the country. Because we moved so frequently, my parents choose to homeschool all their kids. My time was largely my own after I got all my homework done, and I would often get up at 5 or 6 in the morning just so I could be done with everything by noon. Then I’d spend the rest of the day reading and drawing. Drawing was a huge challenge for me and I was into it in the way a lot of kids were, getting obsessed with horses, bugs, dinosaurs, whatever. I eventually did dual-enrollment high school at a community college (SFCC in Spokane) and they had a great art program that really sucked me in. I spent a lot of time exploring and experimenting in undergrad (Whitworth), which resulted in some seriously cringe-inducing art that my parents love to hang in prominent places in their house. It probably wasn’t until my second year of grad school (BYU) that I felt competent decisions were evident in my art making.

Visit Maddison Colvin’s website.

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Rob Adamson, a Utah-based painter and teacher, recently participated in the prestigious Carmel Art Festival held in Carmel, California. Some of the best painters and artists from all over the world come to compete in this event. All 60 artists were chosen by a jury selection to participate in the event. Participants have two days in which to produce two paintings en plein air. Plein air is the French term meaning “in the open air,” denoting the manner of a 19th-century style of painting outdoors that became a central feature of French impressionism. Adamson was awarded an Honorable Mention for his painting titled Fisherman’s Wharf (above).

Describe your experience at the Carmel Art Festival. Of all the competitions I have participated in Carmel has been the most significant. This particular competition has well-known, master artists competing nationally and internationally. Winning an honorable mention at such a competition was thrilling.

How does working outside compare to your studio? Working en plein air is very different than working in the studio. When painting outdoors on location there are a number of things the artist has to deal with like the changing light, bugs, weather, heat, cold, rain, or snow. However, working in the outdoors also gives the painting a freshness, spontaneity and authenticity that cannot be accomplished in the studio. Plein air painting, I believe, is the best way for an artist to really sharpen and hone their painting skills.

What’s up next for you? I just finished competing in the Midway Art Assoociation Plein Air Painting Competition held in Midway, Utah. I received 1st place for the main competition (above), 2nd place for the studio competition and another 1st place for a 3 hours (classic car) paint out.

Visit Rob Adamson’s website.

Margaret Morrison created a series of oil paintings called Child’s Play that vividly animates all of those toys up in my mother’s attic. Morrison lives and paints in Athens, Georgia. She is an Associate Professor of drawing and painting at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia. She was profiled previously for her series Larger than Life.

How do you approach your artwork today compared to early in your career? In many ways my approach has remained somewhat constant. I still draw on my life’s experiences, using friends and family as models. One can pretty much watch my children grow up in my paintings over the last 25 years. In addition, I’ve always been enamored by shiny, translucent, reflective objects which harken back to Dutch still-lifes which I have loved ever since I first saw them in the museums of Europe. I traveled extensively with my family when I was a little girl. I’m equally in love with a stage-like lighting. Something mysterious and magical happens when you take the simplest, most mundane object and throw a light source on it.

Over the years I have also loved working in oils; but honestly, lately I had gotten to the point where I understood the materials so well, that few surprises or “artistic accidents” found their way into my paintings. So, last year I wrote a proposal and was awarded a faculty research grant allowing me to purchase a vast assortment of acrylic paints and mediums. This definitely has started pushing me into new territory as I’ve tried to get my head wrapped around an entirely new medium…. a medium which holds untold surprises and frustrations. I’m finding that I’m thinking differently, I’m more willing to destroy and then work back into a piece, layering one transparent layer over the top of another. So far, I’ve been excited about this brand new adventure and I’ve been pleased with the results.

How do your two worlds as a Mormon and an artist fit together? Years ago when I was a graduate student and a young mother of two, one of my committee members came into my studio and said, “So, what’s it going to be, an art career or the picket fence?” My reaction was, “Hey buddy, just watch me do both! And who said I had to choose. God gave me this fire in my belly and I figured that He expected me to do something with it. I was also certain that my family was my greatest joy and that I could figure out how to balance my career and my family. Now looking back, my four children and my wonderful husband have loved the journey, being a part of my grand adventure has blessed all of our lives. Every time I have an opening, we all head up to New York City to celebrate together. One of the most wonderful perks of my faculty position at the University of Georgia is teaching for the Cortona, Italy Study Abroad program. As a matter of fact, my husband (who is a chemistry professor at UGA) and I teach a course that we designed together. Our course, PropART (Properies of Art and Restoration Techniques) covers the chemistry of art processes and conservation.

Images courtesy Margaret Morrison/Woodward Gallery.

Visit Woodward Gallery’s website.

Ken Corbett is an accomplished oil painter who loves portraiture. His paintings of Frederick Douglass (above), Oliver Cowdery (below), and Joseph Smith, Jr. (below) capture some of the most intriguing people of the 19th century. Corbett worked for 11 years as a firefighter before moving to art full-time. Corbett is the father of seven and he lives in Utah.

Describe your creative process. I see inspiring things everyday wherever I go. When something I see resonates inside me, I’ll remember that and think about it for a long time–hours, days or longer. It could be a beautiful scene of a landscape or people or animals or anything that my eye sees the beauty of color and values mixing and contrasting together to create a something interesting. I’m an artist that paints what I see. I can change elements around or delete others but usually have to depend on what is in front of me or what I have seen previously. The creative process for me usually is making what I want to show in a painting worth looking at. Making the composition and the elements of what I’m painting work together.

You’ve had your work included in temples. Explain a little about that process. The process to submit artwork for temples is interesting and long at times. The committee to evaluate art to be used by the church for temples or anything else, meets quarterly. There are three committees that review the art and a final thumbs up needs to come from the First Presidency if accepted by all others. It can take many months to work through all that and even longer to get paid but it is a huge honor to have a painting hanging in a temple. In 2001 I ran into artist Grant Romney Clawson by chance. He later called me and asked me to help him paint some paintings for the Nauvoo temple that he had been asked to do but was too busy. That was a great experience and came at a time when we needed the work for my family. That experience told me that God was watching over my family.

What are you working on next? I’m working on a couple of Church history paintings right now. I’m also looking to do a few more landscapes, figurative paintings showing people in everyday experiences, and also a few more biblical stories. I feel lucky to be able to paint any day I get the opportunity to do so. I’m not as happy doing anything else.

Visit Ken Corbett’s website.

Images courtesy Ken Corbett and ABC 4 Utah.