James Swensen

Professor Reflection: On Capitol Reef

Years ago my grandfather, a former professor at BYU, said that there was no greater blessing than working with the youth of the Church. I believe that he was exactly right. In a classroom setting, however, you only see your students from one angle. Spending five or so days in Southern Utah with eighteen or so BYU students was an incredible experience. I was fortunate to see their creativity, their eagerness to try new things, and their kindness. I was able to see them come to love many of the places that I love dearly. I was able to see them not merely as students but as friends. In the end I would have rather been with them than with any group i the world.

Artist Reflection: On Memories

My favorite recollections (among many) were our beautiful morning at the Temples of the Sun and Moon, having Sally, my six-year-old daughter, start saying to me "Dad, lets stop I need to sketch," and seeing everyone's faces at Calf Creek Falls.

Bryan Hutchison

Artist Reflection: On Capitol Reef

"Don't tell the hipsters." It was a pact: The places we roamed were vast, engulfing, and largely hidden. I thought a lot about it's isolated nature, it's inaccessibility made accessible and what this place might have carried or fulfilled for people that lived there. I talked to a local. She told me her story--she had refused to leave, not for any more than a few years to go to school anyhow. Yet she said the place, as grand, beautiful, and powerful as it was was incapable of providing all there (children) a home--there weren't enough jobs for her children to earn a living as she had. I was told that earlier settlers faced a similar dilemma, that the land could not uphold more than ten families. It's life resources were too limited. It was also a land inhabited by a much earlier people--the 'Fremont Indians', a mysterious people with advanced skills and knowledge that disappeared without indication of their downfall save their sudden absence. Wandering the land with newfound friends in a sort of mystical and powerful place filled me with a sense of longing. Our visit too was limited, and I was aware of its close fast approaching. I'm sure everyone did tell their friends of this place, hipster or not. Our pact perhaps wasn't so much a pact as much as an acknowledgement that we had experienced a land protected by isolation, and perhaps made sacred being guarded from mass exposure. We had seen, felt, and wandered Utah's best secret.

Artist Reflection: On Cathedral Valley

Early in the morning we drove up to Cathedral Valley and all wandered off separately. Two large (very huge) rocks were sitting before us on a gently sloped plain encompassed by cliffs. The grass radiated a soft blue green color in the early light that precedes the sun. It was still, and quiet, the sort of quiet you would expect in a secluded cemetery or a holy place where even the wind won't dare to speak. At least it wasn't an aural speaking. Despite the quiet stillness, it almost seemed to manifest its life and it's comings and goings. Later that day while driving through the vast canyon, we saw strips of black rock that streaked through it's landscape. There was a gaping hole the size of something you would expect from Dune, a mountain of crystal gypsum, fence-less fences made up of only posts, and perfectly shaped knolls. I almost felt at though traveling through a carnival of sorts, but made of dirt and rock, and it was captivating.