Artists

JACKIE LEISHMAN grew up in Georgia, moving to the Los Angeles area after completing her Masters of Fine Arts degree from the Academy of Art in San Francisco. Originally trained as a photographer, she now works in collage. Using both traditional and non-traditional materials, including fragments of old projects, Leishman explores the dichotomies she witnesses. It is the push and pull between two ideas that intrigues her most, the animating tensions between destruction and creation, expansion and contraction, explosion and implosion She has shown her work nationally, won awards, and taught fine art at universities in Utah and California. Her work is beloved by designers such as Leanne Ford and Emily Henderson. She recently exhibited in Downtown LA and currently has a solo show at Granary Arts, titled “Heaving into Mountains.” She continues to participate in the ever-evolving art collaboration, The Fourth Artist, which focuses on women’s issues and the lives of women artists. She recently began a collaboration with evolutionary biologist Steven Peck on a body of work investigating the loss we will continue to experience with climate change.

KENT CHRISTENSEN was born in Los Angeles in 1957 and grew up in the orange, lemon, and avocado groves of Southern California, where he gained a fondness for orange crate labels, popular culture, and local fast food. Graduating from Art Center College of Design in 1986, he embarked upon a successful career as an illustrator in New York, where he lived for many years. His clients included TIME, BusinessWeek, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, and many others. More recently his work has been seen in gallery and museum shows in the US and internationally, with representation since 2006 by London’s gallery Eleven. Since 2014 he has collaborated with London shoe designer Camilla Elphick. He now lives primarily at Sundance in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. He teaches at both the University of Utah and Utah Valley University.

DOUG HIMES {[email protected]} is an associate professor of art at Southern Virginia University. He previously taught printmaking at Brigham Young University and was a member of the Print Studies Workshop there. He came to Southern Virginia University from Missouri State, where he taught drawing and design. Himes’s paintings have been exhibited widely in the West and Midwest.

MICHELLE FRANZONI THORLEY {[email protected]} creates art that focuses on the ancestral power to heal. She is a self-taught artist who has claimed power through embracing her Mexican-American heritage and her experiences as an LDS woman artist. Her work has been displayed at the Writ and Vision gallery, LDS Church History Museum, and the Springville Museum of Art. She spoke at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts in New York City in June 2019 about diversity in LDS art. She is passionate about plants, family his￾tory, and the stories of women. Her work and words can be found on Instagram at @flora_familiar. She lives in Utah with her spouse and three young children.

HEIDI SOMSEN {www.heidimollersomsen.com} was born in Saskatchewan, and raised on the coast of British Columbia. She received a BFA in ceramics from Brigham Young University (1995) and an MFA in studio art from the University of Utah (2011). She is a two time Utah Artist grant recipient and has been included in three publications: 500 Figures in Clay, Volume 2; Utah Art Utah Artists: 150 Year Survey; and Utah Painting and Sculpture. Currently, Heidi teaches at the University of Utah and the Visual Art Institute. “From a young age I have always had a playful interaction with material, creating art out of whatever I could find: drift wood, rocks, moss, and a nice coating of Elmer’s glue as glaze. My school report cards often stated that I daydreamed too much—I’m afraid this is still the case.”

HANNAH MASON is an artist studying at Brigham Young University. Her work explores her relationship with people, places, and events through a system of marks and patterns.

CAMILLA STARK is an artist, designer, storyteller, and occasional desert prophet. She is intensely curious and is interested in natural history, religion, and folklore. She lives in Provo, Utah and is a founding member of the ARCH-HIVE.

NAMON BILLS received a BFA from Brigham Young University and an MFA from Utah State University. He works primarily in collage and mixed media. In addition to exhibiting his own work in solo and juried shows, Namon has curated several large group exhibitions. He lives in Santaquin, Utah with his wife and two children.

KATHLEEN PETERSON was born the third child of a third child to school￾teacher parents in Provo, Utah. Having been raised with the idea that the best education is travel she has lived in the Virgin Islands, Malaysia, and Hawaii and traveled throughout southeast Asia and Central and South America. As an artist she is continually learning painting with oils and watercolors, illustrating books, making batiks, and building clay figures. She and her husband have four grown children and live on a farm in Spring City in Sanpete Valley, Utah, with two mules, eight free-range chickens, and Maggie the Dog. She paints landscapes, architecture, and people, using oils, watercolors, pastels, and batik. Kathy also enjoys illustrating books and publications. Books include A World of Faith by Peggy Fletcher Stack, featuring twenty-eight world religions; The Stones of the Temple by J. Frederic Voros, about the building of the Salt Lake Temple; seven books of fables by Carol Lynn Pearson including The Lesson, What Love Is, Will You Still Be My Daughter?, A Strong Man, Girlfriend!, The Gift, and A Sister; Koa’s Seed, a Hawaiian legend by Carolyn Han; Moon Mangoes by Lindy Shapiro; and Girls Who Choose God: Stories of Courageous Women from the Bible by Bethany Brady Spalding and McArthur Krishna.

MARLENA WILDING holds a BA in visual arts from Brigham Young University. She began depicting her Black heritage as a student and finds herself asking profound questions about race and gender with her visual matter. She currently lives in Seattle, Washington with her loving husband and two toddlers.