Mormon Artist

It looks like the section about Cameron in yesterday's post came a day too early. :)

   

Click here to download:

Cameron_Moll_Colosseo_Second_U.zip (1416 KB)

Okay, for no good reason, I've been sitting on these updates for a little while. Some are a few weeks old, but all are high quality.

Shaun Barrowes

Shaun Barrowes's newest album, "Emotion Constellation", is currently available for pre-order on his blog.

He's currently touring abroad (Mexico last weekend; Italy, Ireland, and the UK later this month) and playing with all kinds of exciting people. So, feel free to give him some love and appreciation on his blog, his Twitter, or his Facebook fan page.

Note: Sorry this one is so late. If you hurry you can still get the three bonus tracks and the personally autographed copy with your order. The timeframe for pre-ordering the album ends tomorrow, March 9th (!).

Cameron Moll

Cameron Moll has finally finished his newest typographic print, "Colosseo" (you know, the follow-up to this masterpiece), and it's even more impressive and beautiful than I had originally thought. Go ahead, grab a copy. Your walls will thank you. :)

Cameron has also redesigned, retooled, and revamped of his own slice of the web (as was necessitated by some pretty severe malware attacks in the past few weeks). He talks about the how, why, and what of it in today's blog post. The new design is smooth, clean, and running on Tumblr's blogging platform.

Scott Jarvie

I don't know where I've been or why I hadn't noticed it yet, but Scott Jarvie has done some wonderful things with his website(s) lately (with help from jR Customization). Feel free to go on over and visit him. Be sure to check out the his "Jarvie Window" shots; they're fun.

Scott is currently in Las Vegas for WPPI and he's seems to be having fun. Go say "hi" to him on Twitter. And don't forget about the photography classes he offers via JarvieU. (I plan to catch one of them soon, when I get around to it. ;) )

Related articles

Photography Editor. The photo editor's main responsibilities will be (a) working with our photographers to get interviewee photos for articles and (b) gathering artwork to accompany articles. They'll need to have a good eye and be somewhat tech-savvy as far as image resolution and formats go.

Assistant Editor. The assistant editor will help our four section editors whenever they need assistance. Typical responsibilities will include (a) editing articles and (b) communicating with interviewers, writers, and other volunteers.

If you're interested, email editor at mormonartist dot net.

Linescratchers recently did an interesting interview with Kirby Heyborne.

Check it out.

Covenant Communications's new CD, Forever Yours, features love songs
from thirteen different LDS artists, and makes for a great Valentine’s
Day purchase. The CD, boasting to “Say 'I love you' fifteen different
ways,” lives up to its claims, offering a little something for
everyone.

With fifteen tracks, Forever Yours features a variety of musical
genres and styles that pay equal attention to love in all its happy
stages. The first six tracks are peppy and carefree, with a “windows
down, summer drive, pure fun” kind of feeling. Tracks seven through
eleven address romance more seriously and intimately. The final four
tracks on the CD round out our romantic evolution with four narrative
songs, many of which allude to love’s “bigger picture.”

Some artists on the CD sound remarkably similar to certain big names
in the music industry, while others have their own unique sounds.
Regardless of sound or style, the talent is undeniable across the
board.

Personal favorites include Debra Fotheringham’s classy “You are
Truth;” Joshua Creek’s genuine “I Saw It All;” and above all, Alex
Boyé’s “Happy Daze”—which alone merits the CD’s purchase.

As with any CD, not all tracks are created equal, but Forever Yours
provides a nice balance, and “whether you are looking for the perfect
Valentine’s Day gift or something to warm a heart,” you’re likely to
find a track on Forever Yours that both suits your personal style and
brings a smile to your face.

For more information visit the Covenant Communications website.

Melted Hearts screened at the 2010 LDS Film Festival on Friday, January 22 to a packed theater and an enthusiastic audience. The film is about a pair of missionaries, Elder Pedro Rodriguez and Elder Brian Lauper, who have trouble getting along at first. Brian is upset at having been released from his calling as an Assistant to the President, and Pedro has a grudge against Brian because he's American. After they go through some trials together and Brian saves Pedro's life when he gets seriously ill, the two become friends and keep in touch after their missions have ended. In the second half of the film, Brian and his family take a vacation to Mexico, where they meet Pedro, who falls in love with Brian's sister, Wendy. Pedro doesn't have the courage to tell Wendy before she goes back home to Provo, but with the encouragement of his family, he takes heart and hitchhikes from Mexico City to Utah to find her and confess his love.

Melted Hearts is a heart-warming story about gaining courage to follow one's dreams--a story inspired by director Jorge Ramirez Rivera's own experience as a young man of setting off to the United States to pursue an education, against all odds. Even with an inspiring story, however, the film has some flaws. There were several times while watching Melted Hearts that I had to suspend my disbelief. Due to budget and casting concerns, the two missionaries had longish hair, and the actor who played the American Elder Brian Lauper was not a native speaker of English. I was also left wondering how Pedro made it across the border into the United States when he didn't have time to arrange a visa. Many of these concerns in addition to others I had (the plot could have been tighter, the production quality wasn't as high as I was hoping, and some of the errors in the subtitles were distracting) were diminished, though, by the sheer enjoyment of seeing an international, fully subtitled Mormon film--and being in an audience of mixed native English and native Spanish speakers who were all able to fully participate as audience members. The film is half in English and half in Spanish, with both parts subtitled. The cast and crew included English speakers, Spanish speakers, and quite a few bilinguals, which provided an interesting challenge for all involved. In the Q&A after the screening, Jorge Ramirez Rivera said that he believed Melted Hearts is the first international Mormon film. He is hoping to distribute the film on DVD and possibly on some Latin websites. There were other films screened at the LDS Film Festival this year that had foreign flair, in particular Dave Boyle's films Big Dreams Little Tokyo and White on Rice, which I hope mark a new trend in LDS cinema. Jorge Ramirez Rivera's offering is an important step forward in that trend.

The following is a review written by Davey Morrison of Mormons and Masons, one of the entries in this year's LDS Film Festival. It was originally posted here.

Mormons and Masons was the first film I saw at the LDS Film Festival, in a special screening Thursday afternoon. It's one of a series of book-DVD combos Covenant Communications has been putting out over the past few years (I worked on a couple earlier ones: Presidents and Prophets and Love Letters of Joseph and Emma)--an idea is pitched, a book is written, and then a documentary is put together in a few weeks (in the case of Mormons and Masons, three) from some interviews with scholars and archival material. Taken on its own terms, Mormons and Masons has a lot of very fascinating and definitely worthwhile information, even if it's not always riveting (it's essentially 60 minutes of five or so talking heads, with an occasional photograph or drawing), and sometimes feels like it's probably a slightly watered-down version of the book, a bid padded out with pop Mormon feelgoodery to appease the Deseret Book crowd (including a wall-to-wall needle-drop score). Still, Covenant is to be commended for taking what have mostly been scholarly issues of Mormon studies and making them more accessible to a fairly conservative Mormon lay-audience.

By its very nature, Mormons and Masons doesn't really get to look at many of the interesting specifics of the titular subject matter--the similarities between Mormonism and Masonry are essentially in their most sacred ceremonies, in temple work for Mormons, and, for Masons, the rituals in the Masonic Lodge, both of which are held sacred, and both of which are rarely discussed in other settings. As a result, much of the discussion here is reduced to vagaries, which is in some senses disappointing on a scholarly level, but also, of course, necessary out of respect for both Mormons and Masons. Still, there's lots that can be talked about on the subject. The film does a lot to put into context Joseph Smith's Masonry--he and a number of other church leaders joined the Masons in Nauvoo, after hundreds of Latter-day Saints had already joined and a Lodge had already been established; he was a Mason "at sight" (i.e., he was given the honor of Master Mason in an abbreviated amount of time). The film also talked about how Joseph Smith became a Mason in between his revelation concerning the temple endowment ceremony and the first actual endowment ceremonies that took place in Nauvoo, suggesting that Smith used his and many of the Saints' Masonic background as a way of organizing the material that would be a part of the endowment ceremony, including similarities in "symbols and tokens" and in ritual clothing. Mormons and Masonsalso points out that Masonry was hardly considered strange in the 19th century--many public figures, including almost all the presidents through the early 20th century--became Masons.

Bottom Line: If you're looking for an interesting Film-with-an-upper-case-F, look elsewhere, but if, like me, you're interested in the issue of Mormonism and Masonry and haven't done a whole lot more than spend a couple hours on the internet looking into it, this is more than worth your time.

You can buy the Mormons and Masons DVD, Exploring the Connection Between Mormons and Masons, the book by Matthew B. Brown that was the basis for the film, or a movie-book combo at Covenant Communications' website.

On Tuesday, graphic designer Cameron Moll announced Colosseo, a follow-up to the typographical, letterpress print of the Salt Lake Temple he released more than a year ago.

This project began 12 months ago when Suzanne and I purchased tickets to Rome. It’s consumed a good portion of my working life since then. This is a sneak preview.

Watch for an interview with Cameron later this year.

Cameron has done web design for LDS.org and the March of Dimes, collaborated on a book on CSS mastery, and currently runs AuthenticJobs.com.

We're helping get the word out about Arx Poetica, a new social network for artists. Here's an introduction from its founder, Robert Hall:

Arx Poetica is a newly-built social networking hub aspiring to help artists get better connected online, along with a few other lofty goals. The endeavor is strictly unaffiliated (read: it's not just for the LDS community), but the founders behind Arx Poetica are primarily LDS and hope to raise the bar for artists and art appreciators by the very nature of the enterprise. From the website:

"We want to shine a little light on the world. Arx Poetica believes in the strange notions that everyone has a story to tell — in song, dance, word, or play — that the human soul is the most sublime creative factory, and that art and creativity constitute the bulwark of the goodness of humanity."

The website (http://arxpoetica.com) outlines more of the founders' aspirations — which isn't immediately obvious to navigate, as one needs to click the main image on the home page to find out a little bit more — but it is apparent from the design that art is the dominant virtue of the enterprise. While the site has been online for over half a year, the founders feel sufficiently satisfied with its "beta" status to kick into a grassroots-style marketing effort, including a call for help (see the site's blog).

While Arx Poetica promises to deliver on some not-yet-available features, it is clear from the outset that many tools are immediately available, and, if anything, networking with other artists online toward a good cause is not only viable, but viable now.