Artists

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.”

The illustration on the front and back covers is from a steel engrav￾ing made from a drawing by William Henry Bartlett (1809-54). The engraving first appeared in William Beattie’s The Waldenses, or Protestant Valleys of Piedmont, Dauphiny, and the Ban de la Roche (London: G. Virtue, 1838), and in subsequent translations published in French (1838) and German (1840). Bartlett was a prominent nineteenth-century artist who collaborated with Beattie (1793-1875) on other projects including: Switzerland (1834); Scotland (1838); Caledonia (1838); The Castles and Abbeys of England (1842); The Ports, Harbours, Watering-Places, and Coast Scenery of Great Britain (1842); and The Danube (1844). Bartlett was also the author of books which contained his drawings including: Niagara Falls (1837-38); Engravings (1839); Walks around the City and Environs of Jerusalem (1844); Forty Days in the Desert (1848); Nile Boat (1849); Scripture Sites and Scenes (1850); A Pilgrimage through the Holy Land (1851); Footsteps of Lord and His Apostles (1852); The Pilgrim Fathers (1853); The History of the United States of America (1853); and Pictures from Sicily (1853). Following Bartlett’s death Beattie published his Brief Memoir of the late William Henry Bartlett (London: M.S. Rickerby, 1855). The town pictured in Bartlett’s drawing is Torre Pellice or La Tour in French – the language preferred by its inhabitants.Torre Pellice was the headquarters of the Waldensian church and the location in Piedmont which Lorenzo Snow selected in 1850 as the starting point for his Italian mission. The drawing includes the river Angrogna where initial Mormon converts were baptized in 1851. It also shows two mountains (Casteluzzo and Vandalino) which Snow climbed and renamed “The Rock of Prophecy” and “Mount Brigham” when he organized the Italian Mission. Franklin D. Richards also ascended “The Rock of Prophecy” when he vis￾ited Torre Pellice in 1855, and Ezra Taft Benson rededicated the Italian Mission in 1966 from this same location.

David Linn was born in Palo Alto, California, and grew up in the hills of the South Bay peninsula. He began painting shortly after birth and has only occasionally paused to pursue other interests such as music composition, mountain climbing, writing poetry, and designing objects that fly (sometimes). He recently received an MFA in painting from Brigham Young University, and currently resides at the foot of a mountain in Elk Ridge, Utah. He cites influences as divergent as Baroque masters and American Luminists to contemporary Conceptual Site and Earthwork artists. David’s work has been exhibited widely and may be found in various museum, corporate, and private collections throughout the country. “My work is born out of a need to articulate for myself alternate worlds and states of being – a spiritual existence forming deep currents that flow beneath the observable world. These created internal worlds seem at times more real than my physical environment because they are evidence to me of what is felt more acutely. My work has evolved into a meditation on themes of searching, passage, and purification through these internal wilderness places – a landscape where events and objects take on a multi-layered symbolism and actions become ceremonial in nature.”

Ella Gillmer Smyth Peacock is known for painting old buildings and landscapes in Sanpete County, Utah where she lived for nearly thirty years.  A regional impressionist who painted in a 1920s signature style in the late 20th century, Peacock lived in a small artists’ community in Spring City, Utah.

Peacock was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to George Albert Smyth and Adelaide Short Munhall Smyth.  She was educated at the private Germantown Friends School and High School through her sophomore year and later attended the public Germantown High School.

After enrolling in the Peabody Conservatory to study music, Peacock changed her mind and enrolled in the Maryland Institute College of Art for one semester.  Gillmer, as she called herself from 1924 to 1970, enrolled in the Philadelphia School of Design for Women-now called the Moore College of Art-on a scholarship.  Gillmer was awarded her degree in Illustration and received the Sam Murray Sculpture Prize from the Philadelphia School of Design for Women.  She was most influenced by instructors Sam Murray, George Harding, and Paula Balano.

Peacock supported herself throughout the Depression in a variety of design-related work, focusing on the decorative arts.  She made and burnished frames with gold leaf; she painted flowers on lampshades; drew designs for new settings for antique jewelry; she collected and sold antique furniture; she designed and built “themed” recreation rooms and remodeled and decorated apartments, the latter with her good friend Frances (Monty) Montgomery.  Peacock drove across the country to see the West at least three times on road trips with women friends and once with her mother, camping and painting the land of New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and California. During these trips she established a love for the desert and the western landscape.

Peacock married William F. Peacock in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Bill called her “Rollo.” Encouraged by the US government’s call for draftsmen, she completed a drafting course at Mastbaum Vocational High School in Philadelphia.

Peacock worked as a detailing draftsman in Philadelphia and Lansdale, Pennsylvania.  She also worked in Philadelphia, New York City; Scranton and Honesdale, Pennsylvania drafting wiring diagrams for the Voice of America, as a supervisor and chief draftsman.  For one year during this time (1954) she taught drafting through the International Correspondence School, as E. Peacock to conceal her gender.

The Peacocks moved to Spring City, Utah, where she finally retired and began painting the Sanpete County landscape in earnest.  After Bill died in 1979, she continued living in Spring City supporting herself with her landscape art for thirteen years.  In 1997 she moved back East to live with her son and his wife, as her health began to fail.

Blanche Wilson was born in 1922 in Salt Lake City and grew up in Portland Oregon. She took art classes all through her school years including Maryhurst College in Portland, Brigham Young University, Weber State University, and the University of Utah. During World War II, she was a draftsman for the Navy. After her marriage to D. Jay Wilson and while raising six children, she taught at the Utah School for the Blind. In 1972 she earned a Master’s degree from BYU in painting and sculpture. She began printmaking in the early 1970s after many years of paint￾ing in oils and watercolor. Over the years her woodcuts developed from small linocuts for Christmas cards to larger black and white images to multi-colored wood block prints, which have won many awards. The prints are in state, university, corporate, and private collections. Being a realist, she finds subject matter everywhere. Both sketches and pho￾tographs are useful in her work with woodcuts. Her output is not large. She may produce four or five new woodcuts in a year. The editions are limited to fifty. All are hand-printed on traditional Japanese printing paper, and she does them as needed.

Edward D. Maryon, one of the west’s finest watercolorists, was a professor, chair of the Department of Art, and, subsequently, Dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Utah. His work appeared the first time in Dialogue in the spring issue of 1984 (Vol. 17, No. 1

Brad Teare was raised in Manhattan, Kansas. After graduation from high school, he built a log cabin in the foothills of Moscow Mountain. He stayed there a year, sketching and painting in watercolors. In 1977, he went on a mission to Argentina. Returning to the United States, he enrolled at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, to study fine art. After two years he transferred to Utah State University in Logan where he studied illustration for three years. His studies completed, Teare moved to New York to pursue a career in illustration. His clients include the New York Times, Fortune magazine, and Random House where he completed book cover illustra￾tions for authors such as James Michener, Ann Tyler, and Rafael Yglesias. In 1997 Teare published his graphic novel Cypher with Peregrine Smith Books. He has also illustrated six children’s books, two with Deseret Books, Dance Pioneer Dance and Will You Still Love Me (both by Rick Walton). Teare’s paintings and prints are on display at The Southam Gallery in Salt Lake City and at Visions of the West Gallery in Logan, Utah. Teare currently lives in Providence, Utah, with his wife and daughter.