Artists

LAURA LEE STAY, born in 1958, lives in Provo, Utah, where she is currently working on an M.F.A. at Brigham Young University. She has exhibited in Utah and California and has major collections in the Utah Arts Council, Springville Art Museum, and the LDS Church Museum of History and Art. Old Town Gallery, Park City, Utah, and Garden Gallery, Los Olivos, California, represent her work.

ROMA POOLE ALLEN was born in .Whitney, Idaho, in 1923 and lives now in Logan, Utah, where she received both a B.S. and an M.F.A. from Utah State University. She has taught throughout Utah, has won numerous awards, and has exhibited at many local galleries and museums.

LOUISE GARFF HUBBARD lives in Logan, Utah, where she earned both a B.S. and an M.F.A. from Utah State University. She has taught art classses at Utah State University and for the Utah Arts Council. Her work has been included in numerous state and regional art exhibits.

How I came to be artist is still a bit of a mystery. Park City, the colorful Utah community where 1 was born and grew up, was quietly fading into oblivion, not so much because the rich silver ore had spent itself but because times were simply different. Although our family never owned a car or enjoyed the luxury of hot run￾ning water, I was blessed to have an inspired mother, a devoted step-father, wonderful friends and teachers who deeply believed in me. My university years were bittersweet – sweet because I discovered my potential – bitter because my choices at the time were considered and judged “politically incorrect.” Refusing to bow to several of my professors’ emphasis on style over substance, I was punished by being denied the right to complete the final quarter toward my master’s degree. This had been an important goal for which I had worked a night shift at a steel mill for over five years. Recognition from my peers at the National Sculpture Society, National Academy of Design, and National Academy of Western Art soon redeemed me from my stubborn resolve to add something of my own to six thousand years of traditional sculpture. This summer’s retrospective exhibition of my work at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa confirmed that my youthful dreams could be fulfilled.

The photography of Elfie Huntington typically “focuses on people in real￾life situations,” says curator Cary Stevens Jones in her exhibit catalog, A Woman’s View: The Photography of Elfie Huntington (1868′ 1949), sponsored by the Utah Women’s History Association and toured by the Utah Arts Council from 1988-93. Three important elements, “geography or sense of place, autobiography, and metaphor,” converge in Huntington’s work “to form a powerful, personal vision,” says Jones. Huntington “photographed community rituals, picnics, parades, men going to war, July Fourth celebra￾tions, sleigh riding, and harvesting. She also portrayed [Springville, Utah’s] darker side-drunks collapsed in the streets, fights breaking out, and preach￾ers rolling into town in boxcars to warn sinners of impending doom.” Although she was deaf because of meningitis, Huntington refused to be con￾sidered handicapped. “She was a complex woman with the capability and courage to confront defects in society and in herself… who in her intensity to describe the fringe of society gave us many unsettling visual experiences. She intended to go beyond surface appearances, to expose the illusions of youth, of harmony, of well-being, of innocence by looking straight ahead with the camera.” Jones says Huntington’s work is separated from “the pure￾ly historical or geographical photographs that dominate nineteenth-century photography” because of its deliberate use of metaphor. “She saw Springville as a stage,” says Jones, “from which to make larger comments about life.. .In her driving quest to evoke, suggest, and communicate com￾plex thoughts and feelings, she established herself as one of the most cre￾ative and innovative photographers of her time.” Dialogue is pleased to present the work of Elfie Huntington in this issue and expresses gratitude to Cary Stevens Jones, Director of Hippodrome Galleries at FHP Healthcare in Salt Lake City, Utah, for her efforts in pre￾serving and promoting the work of this exceptional artist and for giving Dialogue permission to reproduce these images and statements from her cata￾log. (See original work in Huntington- Bagley Collection, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.)

Brad Aldridge describes his work as iconographic landscape. “For me, aspects of the landscape often take on a personal spiritual symbolism. For example, clouds or the moon in my paintings often alludes to the metaphys￾ical aspect of life, whereas trees may refer to the more tangible or physical. My art is often about a dialogue between the two. Occasionally, I use figures to further emphasize the spiritual narrative. Triptych, arch, and tabernacle altarpiece formats give the viewer visual clues to the underlying spiritual content of my work. Large gold frames also contribute to the iconographic feel of my art. “My paintings are, for the most part, oil on masonite. The surfaces are usually quite textured. These textures are caused by sanding, scraping, and scratching the gesso. My plein-air landscape paintings are occasionally done on canvas which seems to accept the paint more readily as I paint quickly to capture a specific scene at a particular time of day. “My work often deals with opposites such as light and darkness, day and night, life and death, water or gardens in the desert, to name a few. On a for￾mal level, my work contains areas of sharp contrast, further pursuing the theme of opposites. This is evident in the lights and darks of the paintings as well as the gold frames which often have dark areas as a contrasting element. “My ultimate goal in art is to create objects of beauty which nourish the viewer on a spiritual level.”