expert excerpt: “who did I leave out and should have included?”
The History and Influence of the International Art Competitions at the Church History Museum
by Laura Paulsen Howe
This excerpt is a brief look into Laura’s chapter contributed to the Center’s seminal volume, Latter-day Saint Art: a Critical Reader.
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A quilt by Carol Johnson hung in the twelfth International Art Competition exhibition (2022) at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City. Titled Pew Shoes, this piece is the artist's response to the competition's theme, "All Are Alike unto God." To create this work, Johnson sketched the feet of those sitting in pews in front of her in Latter-day Saint church meetings. Johnson's quilt depicts shoes that symbolize different members of her congregation, including sandals, work boots, and high heels. Some shoes have been removed. One pair adorns feet pushing organ pedals. A barefoot baby sleeps among the shoes, and a small pink pair rests next to a discarded face mask, referencing the 2020-2021 mask mandates in Latter-day Saint meetinghouses during the worldwide pandemic. "I wanted the finished piece to reflect the wonderful diversity of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I have met around the world and God's love for all of them," Johnson mused. Her reflections caused her to ask several questions: "Who has two left feet? No shoes? Do you see the deacons?" And finally, "Who did I leave out and should have included?"
That final question —"Who did I leave out and should have included?" —is analogous to the questions that drive museum curators. A curator acquires objects that fill gaps in an institution's collection based on that institution's collecting priorities. The Church History Museum has been part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Church History Department since it opened in 19846. Therefore, its collection has always existed to help fulfill the divine mandate to the church historian and recorder– to “let there be a record kept among you." In this context, the Church History Museum art collection serves as an archive of objects of "enduring historical value [that] document the history of the Church." It is therefore important that the art curator of the Church History Museum, when looking at the existing collection of objects that document the history of the church, ask what has been left out and what should be included.
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Continue reading Laura Paulsen Howe’s chapter in Latter-day Saint Art: a Critical Reader
the author
Laura Paulsen Howe is the art curator over global acquisitions at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah. She curated the 12th International Art Competition: All Are Alike unto God (2022) and With This Covenant in My Heart: The Art and Faith of Minerva Teichert (2023). Her research has focused on places of display, analyzing how the meaning of a work changes when shown in different environments.
