Jenny Champoux: Hello, and welcome to our final episode of Latter-day Saint Art, a limited series podcast from Wayfare Magazine. I’m your host, Jenny Champoux. Throughout this series, we’ve examined the artistic tradition of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we’ve talked with contributors to the book Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader. The book was published in September by Oxford University Press, with support from the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts. If you’re listening on the podcast, keep in mind that you can find a video, transcript, and images of the artworks at wayfaremagazine.org.

In this episode, we’re looking at some of the broad themes introduced in the book. How has Latter-day Saint history and belief affected art production? And similarly, how has Latter-day Saint art affected faith and culture? We’ll discuss the value of religious art, what makes it worthy of academic study, and what areas of Latter-day Saint art need further scholarship. [00:01:00]

Our guests today are Emily Larsen and Micah Christensen.

Emily Larsen is a Utah-based curator, museum professional, researcher, and collage artist. She currently serves as the executive director at the Springville Museum of Art, where she’s worked in a variety of positions since 2014. Her research and writing focus on Utah artists and the Utah art scene, from 1880 to 1950. She has an M.A. in US History from the University of Utah.

Micah Christensen is a scholar of European, Asian, and American fine art, porcelain and decorative objects. He earned his doctorate in the history of art from University College London, and his master’s in fine art from Sotheby’s Institute. He served on the board of the Springville Museum of Art until last year and is now the director of the new Salt Lake Art Museum opening in 2026. Micah is also a partner at [00:02:00] Anthony’s Fine Art and Antiques. He is a co-author of the Dictionary of Utah Fine Artists and the founder of the Zion Arts Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to showcasing works by professional and emerging Latter-day Saint artists.

Although Emily and Micah were not authors in the book, they are gifted and knowledgeable art historians and curators working in the Utah and Latter-day Saint space. I’m excited to have them join our discussion today, and I think adding their perspectives to this series shows just how much more work on Latter-day Saint art is being done out there and is still left to do. Emily and Micah have been friends of mine and colleagues for several years, and they’re both doing incredible work. I can guarantee that you’ll not only learn something new from them today, but you’ll also be inspired by their enthusiasm and passion for this work.

Emily and Micah, thank you so much for talking with us today.

Micah Christensen: Thank you. It’s great to be here.

Jenny Champoux: Emily, congrats on the annual Spring Salon that is currently at the Springville Museum of Art. I know that’s a huge project. For our listeners who may not be familiar, can you tell us what the Spring Salon is and what role it plays in the Utah art scene?

Emily Larsen: Yeah, so the Spring Salon is one of the longest running and biggest juried art competition shows in Utah. So, it’s an open call show anyone can enter. And we’ve been hosting it in Springville since 1922. So, it’s a huge tradition. And this year we got about a thousand entries. We had jurors who came and drew it down to about 250, and it’s kind of a snapshot of contemporary Utah art, what’s happening in Utah art today.

It leans a little bit more towards representational art and traditional art than some of the other juried shows in the state. And is just a great celebration of Utah art and an opportunity for artists to show some of their best works [00:04:00] and be awarded for it. So, it’s a fun, a fun tradition, and we’d love for everyone to come.

Jenny Champoux: Great. Thank you. Yeah. Is there, have you noticed any trends this year in the show or any themes that you see popping up?

Emily Larsen: You know, actually one thing that I think is really interesting about this show, sometimes we feel the shows are really a commentary on what’s happening in the world, and there’s a lot of, political or social commentary. And this year with everything that’s going on in the world, we maybe expected that more.

But I think the artists are really using the art and art as a respite. Because it feels like it’s really a celebration of art and fine art and is, I guess maybe less about current events than you would expect.

Jenny Champoux: Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Micah, you’re joining us today from what will soon be the new Salt Lake Art Museum opening next year. Tell us about your vision for this new institution and what we can look forward to seeing [00:05:00] there.

Micah Christensen: Boy, I’ve never done this before. I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve never started a museum! Well, the Salt Lake Art Museum will open officially in the spring of 2026 and it’s housed in the historic B’nai Israel Temple, which was a synagogue built in 1890 on land that was given to the Jews in Salt Lake by Brigham Young. And my great-grandfather was a member of that congregation. I’m half Jewish by descent and I’m half Mormon. And well, I’m a mutt. And, it was a, a building that I’d always wanted. And, uh, there’s a lot of construction going on in Salt Lake and the population is growing dramatically. It’s doubled in the past five years in Salt Lake and it’s supposed to double again by 2030. And the, uh, [00:06:00] it’s the first new art museum in Salt Lake since 1983, which, you know what, how we imagine our role is, is we’ll play well with other museums. I was on the board of the Springville Museum of Art for more than 13 years. I’m still on the acquisitions committee for Springville. I see that our role is just to educate about Utah art and artists. And it’s not much more complicated than that.

We’re hoping to have historic and living artists on a regular basis. Competitions here and there. Nothing like the Springville Museum’s competition, but more like, you know, for one, one example is we’re having a small competition that’s more like an invitational of 15 of the country’s best plein air painters, many from Utah, to [00:07:00] focus on the Great Salt Lake and to talk about its preservation. So, things like that that we’re planning on our first, I can announce now, no one really knows this, that our first retrospective next spring we’ll be opening with is James Christensen. And I think it’ll be the first major show to happen since he passed, and we’re working with the Christensen family now.

Jenny Champoux: Oh, great.

Micah Christensen: It’s exciting. It’s total chaos. And half the time it’s really exciting. And the other half of the time you just, what was the quote that I heard the other day? You know you’re on the right path if the path disappears. The path, the path has disappeared.

Jenny Champoux: That sounds really exciting. A lot of possibilities and exciting things coming. So, just so I understand, your museum then is just for artists that lived and worked in Utah or is just to [00:08:00] showcase Utah artists, but from any, any faith tradition or any time period or,

Micah Christensen: Yeah, there’s no origin criteria. It’s whether or not they were connected to Utah in a meaningful way.

Jenny Champoux: Okay.

Micah Christensen: you know, some of the shows we’re looking at doing are maybe one on Emil Kosa, who trained with Alphonse Mucha then worked in California and was the only artist I know who won an Academy Award.

He did all the set design for Cleopatra and he did the 20th century Fox logo with the search lights. He invented that. But he spent about 30% of his time painting in Utah just because he loved the atmosphere. And he worked with a lot of artists that we know, like LeConte Stewart.

I mean, he’s not strictly from Utah, but he painted in Utah a lot. I’m not going to do a lot of those shows. The plan is …

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