Artist Paige Crosland Anderson Makes Space for Abstract Art in the Church’s Visual Canon
The abstract artwork of Paige Crosland Anderson (BFA ’11) blends the sensibilities of her grandparents: a theatre professor, a math professor and a quilter. In sixth grade Anderson began painting on an easel from the old BYU Academy that one of her grandfathers gave her. Her metaphor-making arrived soon after, influenced by her grandmother’s quilting style, as well as Anderson’s exploration of family-history themes of inheritance and succession. Like quilts, “families are just patterns,” says Anderson. “My imagery is now more about daily living, discipleship, and the grind of being a human and a mother.”
“We don’t see much abstract art in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ visual canon,” notes Anderson. “But abstract art has served me spiritually. I feel I need to make a place for it in our religious art. It speaks to my experience with prayer and testimony—repetitive, a daily routine like most of life, but building to something, with breakthroughs. It’s meditative in its nature. Abstraction gives people plenty of room to play with and do their own personal connecting.”
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