Rei Hamon is one of the most accomplished artists in Church history, but also one of the least known. He was born in 1919 the son of a white mother and a part-Maori father and grew up in Gisborne, on New Zealand’s North Island. He passed away in 2008. Hamon was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to art in 1981.

One newspaper article explained, “The former Ministry of Works roads and drains man was 46 when he found he had the power to create pictures that captivated viewers. In 1965 he began creating images from millions of dots using a ballpoint pen, and later, pen and ink. The technique is known as pointillism. And, not to put too fine a point on it, the sale of his bush, bird and animal works made him a small fortune. The prices for his work bolted. Many took hundreds of hours to complete. A work priced at $2500 in 1974 (today, $24,300) would be dwarfed within four years by a $10,000 work and a $20,000 price tag on a painting in 1975 (today, $113,000).”

Richard G. Oman wrote of Hamon, “When Queen Elizabeth II visited New Zealand as part of her royal tour in 1976, the New Zealand government presented her with a large pen-and-ink drawing by the country’s foremost landscape artist, Rei Hamon. The high compliment his country thus paid to Rei Hamon is of particular significance to Latter-day Saints, for Rei Hamon, the oldest of fourteen children and the father of fourteen more, is one of them, a lifelong member of the Church. His drawing of a New Zealand landscape, Jewels of Okarito, now hangs in the queen’s palace in England.”

He was prolific both as an artist and as a father. Richard G. Oman writes, “Shortly after his marriage a close relative died. Rei and his new bride accepted the responsibility of becoming the parents of the orphans. Some years later his wife caught typhoid and died while nursing a sick child after a disastrous flood. Eventually Rei remarried; his new wife was a shy, beautiful young Maori widow. She became a warm and loving mother to her instant family of ten children. Together, she and Rei had four more children, in addition to foster children. [T]he Hamons [were] parents to thirty-one children, many of them orphans.”

Images courtesy Hamon Arts NZ.

Colby Adams Sanford recently returned from living and painting in China. As an artist he likes to work with acrylics, wood, and all types of reclaimed materials. He and his wife now live in Provo, Utah. Sanford says of his unique style, “Reclaiming materials and making them something beautiful – a metaphor of what Christ can do for us.”

Where in the World is Colby Adams Sanford? I am so glad that you asked this question. As of this spring I am living in Provo, Utah… But I think that you might be referring to the fact that my wife Alicia and I love to travel. We were living in China for the past couple years, so that took us around Asia. On our way home, we took a marvelous trip through Europe. We are itching to go on another adventure. Anywhere! I think our next trip is going to be the East Coast to visit some dear friends and family, but Iceland is also at the top of the list. I think that it is important to see something new. The most honest and exciting way to do that is to get out and walk around. The further from the studio the better.

You like to work with reclaimed materials. Explain why and describe some of the items. Old piles of wood. The more beat-up and gnarly, the better. My favorite so far are the 20 year old boards from the ceramic factory in China where we lived. The boards carried the ceramic products from one station in the factory to another. They have layer after layer of splatters, sprays, strokes, and stains of paint and glaze. The visual information there is really intriguing to me. While in Europe, I was able to paint on an old leather glasses case near a park bench in Rome and an inch by inch tile that had washed up on a beach in Spain.

In my studio now I have a few rocks, some rafters, and more China boards that I shipped back to the states. Oh! And a piece of floorboard from the bedroom my dad grew up in. The house has long since fallen down but my Dad and I crawled in with a saw and swiped a slab. That is going to be one emotional painting experience.

There is a deeper meaning that has me searching for found materials all the time. I take the abandoned garbage, spend time with it, polish it up, and give it life and value. I get emotional thinking about the atonement and what it does for us in our various states of garbage and despair. Through the atonement we can be polished back up and find our innate worth.

Describe your travel art kit. I use 4 colors, three (ish) brushes, a straight edge palate knife, and a little spray bottle. Titanium White, Mars or Ivory Black, Raw Sienna and Burnt Sienna. Oh! And a small tube of gold. The travel set is always acrylics because its dries quickly and I love the texture. It is all bundled up in a small orange pouch that my wife gave me. She had it while we were dating and I always coveted it. Along with that, I usually have a couple of pieces of wood in my backpack.

On all of our travels, my paints are the first thing I pack. Painting on the airplane while my wife sleeps on my shoulder is probably one of my absolute favorite things to do. The airport security is usually pretty nervous about me taking the kit on the plane. I rarely make it through security without them opening my orange pouch, but usually there are no problems. On our last trip out of Hong Kong, they took away my palate knife. Really guys? I bought a new one in Florence.

Visit Colby Adams Sanford’s website.

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Nick Stephens‘ project, The Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever, is a symbolical representation of temples and afterlife in Mormon theology. This mixed media on board was included in the Church’s 9th International Art Competition and Stephens explains some of symbolism in the video below–much of it went over my head when I saw the painting in person.

You do a lot of religious art, how do you pick the subjects for those pieces? Some are out of necessity, like a religious show that has a specific theme like the Church’s International Art Competition. Mostly, I work on subjects that I am interested in and that can fit my style. Especially if it is something that can be portrayed in a symbolic manner, then I am very interested in finding clever and inspired ways of interpreting that subject. I may do more illustrative work in the future, since there is only so much that can be done with symbols.

Visit Nick Stephens website.

Purchase the print for The Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever.

Paige Crosland Anderson grew up in Provo, Utah in a tight-knit family. After traveling for grad school and internships she and her husband settled in Salt Lake City with their two daughters. Her family has creative strains on both sides and she says, “My desire to speak to the importance of the connection we have to our families is central to my work.”

Your paintings have a definite style–I would call it geometric. With regards to how I developed my current “style” I’d say it grew out of the concept I was trying hard as a student at BYU to convey. I wanted to talk about ancestry; what we inherit, what we pass on; this idea that we are inextricably linked in both directions and that we are trying to simultaneously claim that inheritance and leave one to our posterity. This idea coupled with how much I was looking at pedigree charts, naturally led me to patterns. Compounding this was my grandmother’s influence who is an award-winning quilter. As a student I used patterns from William Morris to common quilt patterns to designs I would make up. Now I stick to a few patterns that are primarily drawn from traditional pioneer quilts. I think quilts give a good nod to women and women’s work. They seem like something many people physically inherit. I’m also very interested in the meditative processes involved in many domestic crafts like quilting and like to incorporate that methodical feel to my work.

Describe your process. I begin by getting out my rulers and drawing out the pattern. Then I’ll paint the pattern in full, let that dry, and paint it again in different colors. I generally do this until it is about 3-4 layers deep in most places–depends on the painting–and use a power sander to break down through the layers and expose the various marks and colors beneath. After I’ll go back to the easel and paint in shapes that don’t aid in the composition or don’t have particularly interesting colors or textures. I alternate between painting and sanding until I’m happy with the composition and colors. I loved printmaking as a student because of the thrill of not knowing exactly what was going to come out the other side of the press (maybe this is just because I was an unpracticed printmaker), but I like to think that sanding gives me that same sense of anticipation as I wait to see what I uncover.

The whole process start to finish is very meditative. It’s rhythmic and methodical. I enjoy this part of the process and also think it lends to the meaning behind my work—that we are building on what was given to us, that the mistakes can turn out to be beautiful, that by doing the same small acts day in and day out we create meaning and vibrancy, even though while we’re in the middle of the dredges it might not seem that way. We often assume that something with routine and method is also predictable. Life experience, however, shows us otherwise. We soon discover that we’ve grossly underestimated the sum or our ceremonies.

After graduating from BYU, tell us about your progress on the commercial side. I had my first daughter a few months before receiving my BFA at BYU. Also at the time, I knew my husband’s schooling would soon take us to Italy and Washington, D.C. Needless to say, I really thought that my artistic season would be on hiatus for a while, at least in a serious way. My husband urged me to get supplies out and get working again. While in Washington, D.C. the next year, I started painting patterns again. I began with some landscapes and other things but found that I missed that contemplative repetitiveness that painting patterns gave me. I sold a few paintings to friends that year and left a painting with our landlord as a thank you before moving to Utah.

A few months later (after the birth of my second daughter) a friend of my previous landlord called up, told me she had seen my work and loved it, that she was in Salt Lake and would be at my house in an hour to see some paintings. I was panicked. All I had was a few watercolors and had a few unfinished studies. She came, stayed for hours and we talked art and she really lit a fire in me. She put together an art show that hung at Communal Restaurant in Provo for a few months. Coincidentally, Susan Meyer (a gallery owner in Park City) spoke in Provo during that same time. I reached out and asked if she’d like to grab a bite at Communal after her talk. She agreed, but said she didn’t think the timing was right for her to talk representation at that point. I didn’t mind, I was just excited to meet. She was enthusiastic about my work as soon as she saw it hung and by the end of the night we had an agreement to show at her gallery.

That was a little over a year ago. Since then things have picked up for me in a lot of ways. I used to think as a student that going the commercial route seemed to be “selling out” in some way, that I’d lose my artistic identity or creative force. I’ve found just the opposite to be true. I’ve never been more productive, had reason to work so hard and meet so many great people through art.

Visit Paige Crosland Anderson’s website.

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Gregory Mortenson is an incredibly talented painter and his recent series and work in Haiti is remarkable. American Artist magazine explains, “Mortenson is one of the most accomplished in a new generation of painters who have embraced the rigors of training in the atelier tradition. This prowess is most evident in his portraiture, where the precision of description and delicate paint handling give a quite breathtaking sense of presence to the subject.” Mortenson got a BA from Southern Virginia University and then spent years in additional training and apprenticeships including a four-year curriculum at the Grand Central Academy of Art under Jacob Collins. He  lives and works in New York City.

You and your wife spent time rebuilding an orphanage in Haiti after the earthquake of 2010. After the Haitian earthquake a friend of mine quit his job as a middle school teacher and moved to Haiti to see what he could do to help. He was funded by a philanthropist that basically said, “Take this money and see what good you can do.”  My friend came across an orphanage that had been relocated into the countryside from Port Au Prince. Their building had crumbled in the city and they found themselves living in a cow pasture with 30 children in a tent. My friend found them and knew this was the group he could help the most. He bought them the field they were living on and began building housing and schools for them to use. It was then that I went to Haiti with my wife and a group of friends that I grew up with. We helped with the building of the schools and some of my tech-savvy friends spear-headed an on-line fund raiser (Hope for Life Children’s Home).

I remember arriving in Haiti and seeing the devastation of the earthquake everywhere. So many people had lost their homes and loved ones. There was mass depression everywhere. It was a two-hour drive from Port Au Prince to the orphanage. The whole way I was imagining how much worse the atmosphere of the orphanage must be to the images I saw as I drove there. To my surprise, their orphanage was a haven of hope away from the devastation everywhere else. The grounds were filled with laughter and even though these children had lost their birth families, they had made a much larger family. It was that very triumph of the human spirit that I wanted to capture in my paintings.

I returned to Haiti two summers ago to teach art classes for another school. It’s a school co-founded by another of my friends. He is a neurologist from Utah and returns every few years to do humanitarian work and train the Haitian doctors. He co-founded a school there with some educators. I taught art classes with a group that he had invited. (Donate to Zion’s Children of Haiti.)

Our careers are a series of steps–many forward and some back. After I finished studying at the Grand Central Atlelier, I noticed that students that had studied before me were either very successful artists, or working another full-time job and doing art on the side if at all. I wanted to be counted among the first group. I made a mental check-list of what they were doing right and what I needed to do to be a successful artist. I needed to 1. Paint at least 8 hours a day. 2. Enter prestigious competitions to win accolades and get my name out there. 3. Start teaching on a limited basis. Those three things really catapulted my career. Working eight hours a day gave me enough paintings to enter the competitions. Winning the competitions made the galleries interested in me. And finally teaching allowed me to give back while remaining involved in the art community that brought me to New York.

Explain the atelier tradition. The 17th, 18th, and 19th century artists were tremendous draftsman that continue to inspire today’s artists. They were all trained in the atelier system which involved a master artist that trained apprentices. It involved a lot of drawing and painting the figure from life, as well as drawing and painting casts from Greek and Roman statues. These systems eventually evolved to the prestigious 19th century French Academies. The method of training faded away in the twentieth century as representational art fell out of fashion. I studied at a four-year-school modeled after this method.

What is next? I’m currently working on a one man show with Arcadia Gallery in New York City this November. It will be an extension of my Haiti series. I hope to raise a little awareness for the orphanage. I’m also teaching a three-day workshop in southern Utah this June and another in New York this August.

Visit Gregory Mortenson’s website.

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