Sacred Spaces
Highlights from section 3 of Work and Wonder
Latter-day Saints believe that God is a creator and that humans can emulate the divine through their own acts of creation. Joseph Smith noted that each individual and entity on earth is “the workmanship of [God’s] hands” with a divine design. Therefore, the earth and its inhabitants are sacred in Latter-day Saint thought. This view of the divine landscape and constructed sacred space is manifested in Latter-day Saint visual arts, as well.
Where can the divine be felt? In venues of worship and in temples, but also within personal spaces. Saints have long been encouraged to emulate the act of creation in their temporal environments. Making spaces that reflect belief and foster faith remains an important priority for Latter-day Saints—one in which artmakers participate by producing inspiring imagery and by documenting the practices, relationships, and values inherent in cultivating such environments.
Abu Hassan Conteh (Sierra Leonean, born 1964), Becoming Self Reliant, 1993. Textile, 35 x 38 inches. Church History Museum.
Becoming Self Reliant
Artist Abu Hassan Conteh depicts a group of women engaging in the daily activities of life in West Africa. They feed chickens and bring livestock to pasture. They hoe vegetables and pound fufu, or cassava, with a wooden mortar and pestle. Each woman’s dress is precisely defined with a bright batik resist-dyed pattern, giving each person a distinct presence within the collective group. Conteh produced this work during a period of civil war in Sierra Leone. The people suffered greatly during this conflict, but he instead focuses on the daily struggles for survival: everyday tasks like working the land, feeding the family, and becoming self-reliant in the face of opposition.
LeConte Stewart (American, 1891–1990), Latter-day Saint Meetinghouse, Clearfield, 1935. Oil on panel, 18 x 24 inches. Church History Museum.
Latter-day Saint Meetinghouse, Clearfield
LeConte Stewart spent much of his life as an artist capturing scenes of rural Utah. He found artistic and poetic appeal in the overlooked parts of local scenery. Where passersby may have seen a weathered church building, Stewart found a subject worthy of painting. This meetinghouse in Clearfield, Utah—built along the town’s Main Street from 1908 to 1911—is an example of such forgotten sacred space.
Stewart’s painting shows the interrelatedness of the community’s chapel and the industrial heart of the town. The vertical church spire and geometric patterns on its façade contrast with the strong horizontals and crossing signs of the railroad tracks. Interestingly, though the structure still stands today, it is no longer used as a church building.
J. George Midgley (American, 1882–1979), Homeward, 1950. Bromoil transfer print, 10.25 x 10.25 inches. Church History Museum.
Homeward
In Midgley’s Homeward, a shepherd leads his flock down a dusty road in Manti, Utah, and back to pasture. The temple perched atop the hill symbolizes a disciple’s spiritual journey to God. The hazy effect of the bromoil print process, which allows the artist to manipulate the detail and gradations of light on the image, heightens the spiritual undertones of this landscape scene.
Mabel Frazer (American, 1887–1982), The Furrow, (1929). Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches. Church History Museum.
The Furrow
Those unacquainted with Latter-day Saint history might view this painting as an ordinary farming scene. However, Mabel Frazer’s The Furrow references a well-known episode in the Church’s early western settlement: the miracle of the gulls. Strikingly modern, with its vivid coloration, dynamic brushwork, and spatial experimentation, The Furrow emphasizes the labor involved in both cultivating the land and in making art.
Referencing accounts of seagulls rescuing the pioneers’ second crop from a cricket infestation in the Salt Lake Valley, the painting honors the hard work, fortitude, and faithfulness shown by the early Saints. Frazer, an art professor at the University of Utah, was a devout member of the Church and a rugged individualist. Although she traveled and trained abroad, she preferred to paint the lands of her native Utah over more exotic places and to edify fellow Saints with her art. Indeed, it was said that Frazer cared about only two things: religion and art.
J. Leo Fairbanks (American, 1878–1946), Life Is the Reward of Love and Labor, circa 1920. Oil on canvas, 24 x 48 inches. Church History Museum.
Life Is the Reward of Love and Labor
J. (John) Leo Fairbanks followed in his father John Fairbanks’s footsteps and devoted his artistic talents to producing works that professed his deeply held values. Life Is the Reward of Love and Labor serves as a kind of visual testimony for the artist. In it, he proclaims that the good life is one filled with hard work, companionship, and most importantly, love.
The artist’s setting is Utah’s familiar Wasatch Front in early spring, with its imposing range of snow-capped mountains, rural landscape strewn with native granite stones, and young fruit trees laden with blossoms. In the foreground, a father has ceased his plowing task to welcome a visit from his wife and child. His squatting position and open arms suggest that he is beckoning to the toddler to let go of their mother’s hand and walk toward him—perhaps even to take their first step. The painting, which celebrates the ideals of family relationships and virtuous work, takes compositional inspiration from well-known paintings by 19th-century European artists Jean-François Millet and Vincent Van Gogh.