The College of Fine Arts and Communications celebrates the graduating class of 2021 with student speakers and performers through virtual convocation

Greg Smith from Pampa, Texas will graduate in April with a BA in piano performance. Smith has his own personal motto: “I place the Eternal before me.” #CFACgrad

The road to graduation looks different for every student. This truth especially hits home for senior Alyssa Aramaki, who will represent the Department of Theatre and Media Arts for spring 2021 convocation. #CFACgrad

BYU sophomore’s years of musical preparation began at the age of four

Josie Larsen is one of two students chosen to represent the School of Music for the 2021 convocation. She will record a vocal performance of “Spring Waters” by Rachmaninoff, with senior Greg Smith on piano.

Meet Olivia Morrow from Farmington, New Mexico, who will graduate with a BA in communications this April and will be speaking in this year's convocation. #CFACgrad

Chloe Hague is graduating with a major in Media Art Studies from @byutma.

Sara Lynne Lindsay’s dresses represent themes of mothers and history as she connects generations through her artIn room 3125 of the Jesse Knight Building, homemade dresses hang on every wall. A shelf holds jars of flowers and a green rocking chair sits in one corner — “My daughter’s chair,” said Master of Fine Arts student Sara Lynne Lindsay. As a wife and mother of six children, the green chair is just one of the room’s symbols of how much her family intersects with Lindsay’s work as an artist. “When my husband and I were both working towards our undergraduate art degrees at Utah State University, there were often days when we had to take our first-born baby to class. My husband would be rocking our son with his foot while using his hands on a project,” said Lindsay.Mother and Daughter ThemesThe dresses Lindsay makes are often a reflection of the relationships between mothers and daughters. Several of her dresses were recently displayed at Granary Arts in Ephraim.“Eventually the daughter grows to be a mother and there’s this long chain of history of our mothers passing down things like the creation power. There is something really powerful about the sacrifice and nurturing of mothers,” said Lindsay.One of Lindsay’s recent passion projects has been taking journal entries from her own ancestors and writing the words out onto her dresses.“I have an entire journal from one ancestor and I feel like I understand her. My great-grandmother I don’t know as well — but she has shaped who I am through her choices just as much as someone I know more about,” she said. “Her experiences, though many of them are lost, are still a part of me.”All of the dresses are dyed different colors using unusual materials like Kool-Aid, wax, rust and even hibiscus flowers. “Like the dyed dresses, experiences change you and you can never go back, but sometimes they make you stronger,” Lindsay said.“A really difficult experience can be really beautiful in the end.” Sara Lindsay’s “Tied” is a symbol of connecting generationsBeauty and Pain Through ArtLindsay is planning a performance piece utilizing one of her dresses for an upcoming show in New York. “Taken Away” is a project of Art in Odd Places 2021: NORMAL curated by Furusho Von Puttkammer, with curatorial assistants Yasmeen Abdallah, Lorelle Pais and Natalie Ortiz. The dress Lindsay will be using for the show is inscribed with the names of Spanish Flu victims from the Manhattan neighborhoods surrounding the gallery space. These names are written in wax and will be revealed by Lindsay’s methodical staining of the fabric around them. She plans to carry the dress through the streets, laying it down and “dyeing” the fabric with leaves and dirt from Manhattan’s green spaces. “It will look like a cross-section of a tree with the names and voices of those who died in the last pandemic. We haven’t talked about how many people were lost during the 1918 flu, but it was tragic and the pain they went through is similar to what we are seeing right now,” said Lindsay. “There is a lot of hope but there needs to be some mourning offered to those that died.”Besides her performance in New York and the show in Granary Arts, Lindsay has also interviewed for the magazine Exponent II, had her video work exhibited as a part of the College Art Association’s annual conference, and participated in an exhibition at the College of Sequoias in California. According to Lindsay, art can truly transform the world.“We might walk away with a different interpretation than the artist was intending or even than the person next to us, but there is something beautiful about how art speaks to everyone personally,” said Lindsay. “You may not like what it says, but if you spend time with art, you can find some communication that can touch you in a way that words can’t.”A Family EffortBefore moving to Provo to work on her MFA, Lindsay and her family of eight lived in Texas where her husband taught art at Texas Tech University. Lindsay has always considered herself a “full-time mom and a part-time artist,” but now that she is back in school, it’s a full family effort.“I have always had a hard time with school. I discovered this year that I’m dyslexic,” she said. “So I find that I have to read assignments to my husband to talk about and better understand them. My daughter edits my papers and I have children who come with me to collect flowers. It’s so great that my family has been here to support me. It’s like we are in school together.”Lindsay will finish her Master of Fine Arts program at BYU this spring 2021, and she is grateful for the time and space the program has offered her to expand her art.“I don’t usually want to show people my work. I like making it, but being in the program at BYU has put me in a situation to be vulnerable and to receive criticism and help. It has helped me to mature as an artist.”View more of Lindsay’s work at saralynnelindsay.com.

Savanna Jarvis is graduating with a major in Dance from @byudance #CFACgrad

Associate Dean Rory Scanlon provided additional information on the acoustics of the new building

Ashley Jorgensen is graduating with a major in Digital Journalism from the School of Communications. She shared one of her favorite memories with us. #CFACgrad