On Monday, Oct. 28, the Springville Museum of Art hosted an interfaith panel and discussion following the opening of the 38th Annual Spiritual and Religious Art of Utah exhibition.
Art museum director Emily Larsen said alongside the spiritual and religious art exhibition, the museum typically runs an event that brings together different perspectives relating to the show.
Larsen said although the Utah community is has a large percentage of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there are many people in the community who have different faith traditions or who are experiencing faith transitions.
“Our show holds space for all of that — for all of those different experiences and perspectives on religion and faith,” Larsen said. "This conversation will just be about what’s powerful about bringing those all together in one exhibition.”
For this year’s event, the museum collaborated with Ganel-Lyn Condie, author and mental health advocate who is creating an interfaith platform through her social media.
Condie led the discussion on spirituality and art with the panelists, which included Larsen, Charlie Bird and featured artists from the exhibition Paige Anderson and Chauncey Secrist.
“Art and music for me are ways in which we get to have conversations without words,” Condie said as she started the panel. “We get to understand people’s hearts and lenses of light without always knowing what words to use.”
Paige Anderson, a featured artist in the exhibit, mainly creates pieces made up of hundreds or thousands of tiny shapes.
Anderson said while her pieces may look complex when finished, when she’s creating a piece she finds the process to be very meditative as she goes piece by piece.
Speaking on motherhood, Anderson said she is constantly doing things that are going to be undone, all day long. She said she needs moments to come up for air and one of the ways she does that is through her art.
“When I’m able to make a piece,” Anderson reflected. “It’s just kind of a way to process being a mom. And that then translates into discipleship or prayer. … All of those things can be tedious, but we get glimpses of divinity as we persist through them.”
A large part of the panelists' conversation revolved around “building bridges” through religious and spiritual art, as Condie put it.
“I don’t know that religion itself is the thing that’s creating those bridges and connecting people, but the openness to that bridge even being there," Chauncey Secrist, another featured artist said.
Secrist said that to him, shows like the Religious and Spiritual Art of Utah exhibition are important because he’s able to showcase his work as an atheist alongside his religious colleagues’ work and create dialogue.
“That dialogue exists because we’re all open to it,” he said.
Frank Baker, another contributing artist, chimed in from the audience that he sees the intersection of art, religion and science being at the foundation of the universe.
“Every story that we tell is based on that,” Baker said. “It’s a story that we tell ourselves so we can understand what the universe is. Some people tell it in science and some people tell it in Jesus.”
Baker said he believes it all ties together, like woven threads that connect everything.
When looking for the foundation that connects it all, Baker said, “Well, look at it. It’s on the walls — it’s everywhere. That’s my story, you know; that’s your story.”
Charlie Bird, award-winning author, podcaster, therapist and former Cosmo Cougar offered his thoughts on the exhibition.
“Something about this specific exhibit that I really enjoyed was being able to see other people’s truths or lived experience,” Bird said. “It’s just adding these layers of understanding and communicating on a much deeper level than words ever could.”
The Spiritual and Religious Art exhibition will be up through Jan. 8, 2025.