Maxwell Institute Podcast #153: The Book of Mormon Art Catalog with Jennifer Champoux

Joseph Stuart: Welcome to the Maxwell Institute Podcast. I'm Joseph Stuart. When's the first time that you remember seeing the Book of Mormon depicted in art form? For me, it was looking through the gospel art kit that my family had received for Christmas one year when I was about six. I remember looking through and being fascinated by the different depictions of what prophets and families looked like in the Book of Mormon, Jennifer Chanpoux, an art history scholar in partnership with the Willes Center at BYU's Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship has created and curated the Book of Mormon Art Catalog, which seeks to provide unprecedented access to visual imagery inspired by the Book of Mormon, through a comprehensive open access and searchable database. In this role the catalog supports research and education, aids scholarly and artistic work, promotes a greater knowledge of artists worldwide, provides a study and devotional resource for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and creates opportunities for increased understanding and collaboration. I'll add that because we're discussing art today, I would also recommend that you take a look at the Maxwell Institute YouTube channel, where Jennifer has given a lecture and we have posted it there, which you can find by googling Neal A. Maxwell Institute YouTube, please also be sure to follow us on Instagram and Facebook at @BYUMaxwell. Now without further ado, let's speak with Jennifer Champoux. Welcome Jenny Champoux to the Maxwell Institute podcast.

Jennifer Champoux: Thank you so much for having me.

Stuart: Of course, it is our pleasure to host you today. And you're here to discuss the Book of Mormon Art Catalog. When did you first conceive of the Book of Mormon Art Catalog or see its need?

Jennifer Champoux: Oh, thanks. Yeah. So it just launched this week and first started thinking about this several years ago when I was writing an article on how women are portrayed in LDS biblical art, and this was an article I did that was in BYU Studies in 2018, and I noticed that the patterns were always the same. And I also found it was difficult to get a big picture of all the different art because there wasn't one source to go to to find all of the LDS depictions of a certain topic. I started thinking about it then. And then in 2020, I had some conversations with Joe Spencer, who's a professor here at BYU and Caitlin Connolly, who's a terrific artist. And we were talking about Lehi's dream and the ways that Lehi's dream has been depicted in art and thinking about ways that it might be depicted differently, or approaches that we're missing from the kind of catalog of Lehi's dream art. But again, it was really hard to get a clear, comprehensive picture of what had been done in the art because there wasn't one central source to find it. But I started thinking this needed to happen. And I wanted to specifically focus on Book of Mormon art, to narrow it down a little bit. I wrote up a proposal and sent it over here to Maxwell Institute, to Spencer Fluhman. And I was so thankful that they were able to help me with some funding and get this project going. And, and here we are!

Stuart: Wonderful, and I really liked that you mentioned that there was no sort of central repository, because I have served as a ward librarian and just thinking about the art that's available in different libraries, it's wonderful for broad audiences, but may not fit the need of a specific lesson or a specific need for a particular student who is in the lesson. And so I love that there are so many options available. And so, could you please describe for us, what is in the catalog? What sort of art is in the catalog?

Champoux: Yeah, great question. So we have 2000 images that we've discovered so far, which is so exciting. And a lot of them I think will be unfamiliar to the general audience of church members. So I'm excited. I have a team of research assistants here at BYU, and along with me, they've helped me tag each of the images with a whole variety of data. So things like you know, the artist, or the artist is from, the gender of the artist, the style, where it's been used in church media, exhibition history, where it's shown up in publications or literature, the figures, the Scripture reference, the topic, even animals get listed which animals are in each artwork, you can search by animal. So then we have two main search options on the site. One is just sort of a browse by option. And we have six categories there. So you can click on the Browse by artists, and it'll just show you a list of all the artists and we have 600 unique artists in the catalog. And then you can click on that artist and see all the work by that artist. Another way you can browse is by date, kind of a timeline to see what was done each year. You can also browse by place, where the art comes from. We have, I think, 46 different countries that the art has come from on Book of Mormon, interesting to see where they are coming from. You can also browse by Scripture reference, so which book. If you wanted to look at King Benjamin, you look under Mosiah 2. You can also browse by topic. And this is just a list of 100 topics that we sort of developed organically as we went through the art and saw what was already out there. So if you wanted to look for Alma’s conversion, there's a topic for that. If you wanted to look for the daughters of Ishmael, there's a topic for that. And then the last category is style and technique. So we've looked at style, whether it's abstract, or figurative, whether it's more a folk style, like traditional kind of media or techniques or style there. We also have, I think, installation. And then for technique, those are things like, is it, is it photography, is it painting, is it drawing, is it sculpture, I think that we have a number of techniques there. So you can start to those categories. But there's also an advanced search option, which is really exciting, because it just opens up a whole range of analysis capabilities. So at the multivariable search, it's with these things we've tagged, right? So you can look for, you know, maybe you want to see paintings that are from Argentina, that have camels in them, and I mention that one, because I know you're gonna get 4 Jorge Coco paintings, if you search for that. You can also look like under church media, you can look and see all the artworks that are in the church facilities catalog, or used in church manual, and it tells you also the numbers. So if you wanted to know how many artworks were in, you know, 1890, it'll tell you the number of how many artworks there are in that.

Stuart: Well, that's marvelous. And I'm really hoping that there are (unintelligible audio) in the catalog. But it sounds like this is a lot of work and just knowing how much it takes to be able to bring things together, how did you work with artists, museums, and I'm assuming with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Intellectual Reserve Department to be able to make the art available for everyone.

Champoux: Yeah, so it's certainly been a process. We've gone through a number of sources. We started just looking at the church media online and the gospel art kit. We looked at the church history museum collection, the international art competition, exhibitions that are online, we've looked at a bunch of museums, the BYU Museum of Art, the Springville Museum of Art, Utah Museum of Fine Art, a number of others. I searched through the church history Library Catalog and found some things that way. We talked with curators at the Community of Christ archive and got some a few images from them on the Book of Mormon. Book of Mormon Central, which has a great website does an annual Book of Mormon art contest, and that's a terrific resource, and we got a lot of images from them. We looked at magazines, we went through Ensigns and Liahonas, looked at Desert Book, commercial galleries like Foursquare, Haven light, Heirloom, David Erickson, Anthony's written vision, Kirk Richards Vision of the Arts Auction, I talked to some private collectors to get some images that aren't really available to the public, otherwise. We talked to a lot of artists, we looked at their website, we looked at their social media, we sent emails to artists. I'm happy to say that the artists were really responsive and, and eager to be part of the project, which was great. We also just looked at books and articles that involved the Mormon art, we did Google searches, we just looked at other blogs and databases, and then I will say, Laura Howe at the church history museum has just been a really enthusiastic supporter of the project and allowed us to, she helped us find a number of Book of Mormon images in their collection that really have never been available to the public before, and not just that the image wasn't available, but the fact that the piece even existed, was not documented anywhere else in though I really am grateful to Laura Howe. And then we went through the permissions process to request the, you know, a licensing from church correlation. And again, I'm pleased to say that they were very supportive and as much as they could, it seems like in most cases, they were able to give us permission to host these images. I'll say to you, a number of artists like Annie Poon, and Kathleen Peterson, gave us permission to host images that aren't available anywhere else online, so these will be new for a lot of people. And I'm really grateful to them for allowing us to share them.

Stuart: Yeah certainly. What a gift for artists to be able to share their work with the world and for Latter Day Saints, scholars and anyone else to be able to access. I’d actually like to get a little bit more personal for a second, because you've curated this wonderful collection, but the sort of time and effort that it takes to make something like this. It has to be a work of love. When did you first recognize your love of art? Do you remember the first time recognizing that?

Champoux: Yeah, well, thanks for saying that Joey. I do feel like it has been a labor of love, it's been a lot of work, I'm so thrilled about it, though. I guess when I was a kid, I grew up around a lot of LDS art, my grandfather was a collector and my grandmother's cousin was LeConte Stewart, a wonderful Utah impressionist painter. So I grew up looking at Stewart and Trevor Southey, and (unintelligible) Eaton, Gary Ernest Smith paintings in my grandfather's house, and Dennis Smith sculptures and at BYU, I actually studied political science, but I really wanted to do the art history study abroad because I thought that it would be really fun to go to Europe and study art. So I took a couple art history classes, did that study abroad and just fell in love with it. And then I ended up writing my honors thesis at BYU on an art history topic, and that was when I realized I needed to switch gears, even though I was almost done with my political science degree. And I did graduate in political science, but took more art history classes, and did a master's in art history at Boston University. I've taught as adjunct faculty in art history since 2006, some in the classroom and some online. Yeah, and it's just in the past few years, I've really been interested in doing some more independent research and writing on LDS visual culture. Let me give a shout out to Mormon scholars in the humanities. Because when I first started thinking about Mormon visual culture, I had this idea that I was talking about earlier with the Mary and Martha images, and I started thinking about it and writing about it and I didn't really know what I was going to do with it. And then I saw a call for papers for Mormon scholars in the humanities conference, and I submitted it and they accepted me and I just was so grateful. That was kind of my entry into the Mormon studies world. You know, I'm a kind of an independent scholar at this point and full time mom, and I feel like I've kind of forged my own path a little bit. It can be hard sometimes to find that balance. But I'm really grateful for support of colleagues like you, Joey and others, and people at MSH, who welcomed me into the community, and I'm just really grateful to be part of the conversation and contribute in the ways that I can.

Stuart: Yeah, and I really am glad that you mentioned Mormon scholars in the humanities. I’ve also seen you present at the Mormon History Association. And while these cover the larger umbrella term of Mormonism, rather than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints alone, I found that it's become a really important place for folks to come together, and it was something that the first time I attended a conference that was not on Mormonism, or Latter Day Saints, when I realized most people in the audience don't care nearly as much as they do as conferences related to Mormonism. And it's just a real blessing to be with people who care, not only on an academic level, but also on a personal level. And I'm fascinated by the idea that you grew up in your grandparents home seeing these works of art, is there a first piece of Book of Mormon art that you remember seeing that sticks out in your mind?

Champoux: I don't think that my grandfather had any Book of Mormon pieces. I think probably the first Book of Mormon art I remember from my childhood would be those pictures that were in my little, you know, soft copy of the Book of Mormon. And I think probably the Tom Lovell of Moroni burying the plate is the one that comes to my mind as the one I spent the most time looking at as a child. And you know, he wasn't even a member of the church, he was commissioned by the church to do these images around 1970. But there's probably ways we would visualize it differently today, but there's something I like about it. And maybe as a kid, I saw him in, in the woods there alone, and, and with a real earnestness and intensity that that kind of spoke to me.

Stuart: Yeah, I really like that. I think that one of the powers of art, at least for me is just that art can help us to feel or to process feelings. There are many different colors of skin tone, which is something that's very important, as we are a global church. And as we think about being able to imagine, ourselves as members of the church within sacred narratives, like the Book of Mormon. Race can also be a really sensitive topic. How did you think about race when constructing the art catalog?

Champoux: Yeah, that's a really great question, Joey. You know, the goal of the Book of Mormon art catalog is to index the art that's out there. So we really didn't have any judgment in terms of approach, or style or interpretation. I think there's definitely room for that. And I think this catalog makes that kind of analysis possible, now with a more comprehensive view of the way Book of Mormon art has developed over time, and how figures have been depicted. But again, our goal was really just to get it out there. Most of the art comes from the United States artists, it's 85% of the art comes from the US, there was really no non US or European art on the Book of Mormon that I know of, until the late 1980s or 1990s. And that was really due to the work of Richard Omen at the church history museum, and the international art competition, trying to encourage and solicit works from non US artists, which is really important, and it definitely made a difference. Also, more recently, the Center for Latter Day Saint art has been doing really great work to highlight the diversity of art and artists. But yeah, definitely there's, there's work to be done.

Stuart: So I have a question that maybe gets a little bit philosophical. You're an art historian. Why does art matter, when thinking about the Book of Mormon? How does it help construct ideas about the Book of Mormon and help bring people to be able to read it in a way that matters to them?

Champoux: Well, I really do think that art affects the way we think about scripture and history. And sometimes we don't even realize that it does. But when we see the same images, or the same scenes depicted over and over in the same ways, we tend to think about the images in that way. When maybe there are other possibilities or interpretation or other angles to consider. You know, I mentioned earlier that I've done some work on Mary and Martha and also on Lehi's Dream, and in both those cases, I saw that there were patterns in the visualizations that were established early on, and really had an influence on the future art, art that came after that. And I see that in terms of style, too, I mean, even today, I see there's popular LDS artists, and I see other artists kind of emulating just the style, how they create art. So definitely, I think, you know, it's clear that art that is made, does influence the art that comes after it. But you know, what, if we had a greater variety of interpretations or styles out there, I just always think the more art the better, the more ways to think about it. It is usually in the new that we find inspiration, or even revelation of something that makes us think about it just a little bit differently, and maybe gives us a new insight into it or reconsider things that we thought we knew. On the poster announcing our event today to launch the Book of Mormon catalog, we have an image of Kathleen Peterson's "The Dream" from 1999, which is an image of the tree of life, and somebody asked me why I picked that image to go on there. And, you know, I think it's just a really stunning, visually, very stunning, aesthetically, I like it, But I think she's done something really different. That broke with the tradition of how Lehi's dream had been depicted for 125 years before that, she added Christ as the central figure to Lehi’s dream, and he is in front of the tree of life, with his arms stretched out, almost as if he's on the cross, and it just brought a whole new meaning a level of meaning to the tree as the tree of life, but also the sacrifice that Christ made for his love for us. It just impacted me in a way, and so I think that's a great example of how we can take the same scene and think about it a little differently, and talk about it a little differently.

Stuart: Yeah, that's really marvelous. And along those lines, it sounds like the Peterson piece is one example. But could you share another example of how art has helped you to recognize truth or to feel the Holy Ghost?

Champoux: I think the first religious art piece I saw that I had a really strong reaction to was probably Caravaggio's sacrifice of Isaac in Italy that I saw on the BYU study abroad trip. And it, I mean, you can look at it online. And that's wonderful too, but seeing it in person was really an emotional experience, and brought that scene alive to me with a pathos that I hadn't really understood before. A couple more recent examples from LDS artists, Annie Poon did the series of 50 Book of Mormon prints that are in the catalog, and one of them is called “Whispers”. And it shows Nephi as a skeleton, buried underground, and he's inscribing on the plate. And there's a girl above on the ground, a live girl, and she's listening with your ear to the ground, and I just felt like this, visualize that scripture of whispers from the dust in a way that I hadn't, I mean, I've always thought that was an interesting scripture, but just to see it visualize that way and the like the urgency of the way Nephi is trying to write and whispering and get these words up through the ground, to the people alive today. And the urgency of the girl as she's got her ear pressed to the ground, trying to hear trying to translate what she's hearing and these whispers coming up from underground. I just love it, and Annie Poon is so wonderful. She even sent me a copy of it as a gift because she's fantastic. So now it's in my living room. And then I just have to say one more. Yesterday, I was at the international art competition gallery, up in Salt Lake at the church history museum, and Megan Geilman did a photograph of the Pieta, and I'd seen it online, but gosh, seeing it in person, it's a really large scale, larger than life photograph. And Lee Benyon is in the position of Mary and she's holding a lamb. So kind of a traditional Pieta, Mary holding the dead body of Christ, but she's holding this lamb and the lamb was actually slaughtered right there as they did the photograph. And Lee is holding it on her lap. And there's blood on her hand and blood on the lamb and this piece is one of these examples where I feel like it helped me think about something in a new way, right, so it almost like kind of turned my stomach, seeing it and seeing the blood on her hand. But I think that physical emotional response to the art was really important for how I understood in a different way the sacrifice of Christ and, and of what Mary went through too. Yeah, I just think it's a really stunning piece.

Stuart: Well thank you so much for sharing those experiences with us. Who do you hope will use the catalog? And how do you hope that folks will use the catalog?

Champoux: Yeah, first of all scholars, I hope we'll be able to look at some of these issues that we've talked about and be able to analyze the development of LDS Book of Mormon art in a way that's never been done before. So thinking about questions of race or gender, right? I mean, I can tell you that predominantly, it's men that are making Book of Mormon art, female artists make up about 30 to 40% of the Book of Mormon art, we, we found. Or just, you know, thinking about patterns of how things have been developed, or the way the church has used images in different ways. So yeah, I hope scholars will use it. And then, again, artists, I hope artists will look at what's been done and think about maybe what hasn't been done, what, what, where are the gaps they can fill in? What are different ways to think about familiar scenes, and then just members of the church, I think it might be a really useful resource for Sunday school teachers or seminary teachers, maybe you're a Sunday School teacher teaching about Christ's visit to ancient America, and you want to find an image done by a South American artists and you can find that.

Stuart: Well thank you for sharing that. I'm thinking though, that a lot of folks listening to this may know of art repositories, or may have access to pieces of art that they would like to be on the website. So how can folks get in touch with you if they have something that they'd like to add or like to inquire about, for submitting new pieces of art?

Champoux: Yeah, so we definitely see this as, now that it's out in the world, we want it to be a collaborative project. And we would love for people to submit new pieces, or just if there's additional information, we could add on what's already in there, or things we should change or update, there is on our website, BookofMormonArtCatalog.org, there is a submission form where you can fill out information on new art or changes we need to make, you can even upload an image there, and they'll come to us and we can review it and potentially add it to the catalog. We're on social media, we're on we have a Facebook page, Book of Mormon Art Catalog. And then on Instagram, also @BookofMormonArtCatalog.

Stuart: Yeah. And as a follower of both accounts, I would say it's just a really lovely thing to be able to see in your feed to be able to see these pieces of art and just reflect a little bit. Now, Jenny at the end of every episode, we harken back to Doctrine and Covenants section 88, where the Lord instructs Latter Day Saints to learn out of the best books. So what are three of Jenny Champoux's best books?

Champoux: Well, as a longtime listener to the Maxwell Institute podcast, I was afraid this question was coming, it really is an impossible question. So let me just focus on three books on religious visual culture, if you wanted to learn more about that. So first is David Freeburg, The power of images. And this is a book that talks a lot about how we respond to images and why, including our bodily response, right, our sort of embodied response to art, you know, why do we revere and kiss some images? Why do we burn others? Why do we have these physical reactions to images. And then another one is David Morgan, who wrote the Sacred Gaze, I actually, I love everything, David Morgan, right. But the sacred gaze is really a foundational text for the study of religious visual culture. And he has really compelling examples of how an understanding of visual culture is essential to the study of religion. And then the last one I'll mention is more recent, from 2015. It's Thomas Carter, Building Zion, and he looked at the built environment–you know, this one–he looked at the built environment in early Mormon, Utah, he's not LDS, But he's a fantastic scholar, and really gives a brilliant analysis of how the doctrine influenced the material culture and vice versa. And it's really the kind of meticulous research and careful analysis that I'd like to see more of in LDS visual studies in history.

Stuart: So we've been discussing the Book of Mormon art catalog, which you can find at Bookofmormonartcatalog.org. Jenny Champoux, thanks for joining us on the Maxwell Institute podcast.

Champoux: Thank you so much.

Stuart: Thank you for listening to the Maxwell Institute podcast. Could you please rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening to this podcast? And recommend it to others so that we can fulfill the Maxwell Institute's mission to inspire and fortify Latter Day Saints in their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engage the world of religious ideas. Thank you and have a great week.