Life, faith captured in LDS art

My wife and I never think of ourselves as "stuck" in Salt Lake City —

with a morning to kill before a meeting in Provo that night, we had a

chance to walk around town and see things.Like what's emerging from the wreckage of the old ZCMI and Crossroads malls.

And the Brigham Young gardens just east of the Church Office Building.

And the graves of Brigham Young and some of his family members,

along with the plaques commemorating the writers of "O My Father" and

"Come, Come, Ye Saints."

And, of course, a quick walk up Canyon Road to see where my family

lived when I was 4 years old. Much has been beautified and the parks

have expanded, but alas, nobody was taking care of the beauty of the

city when builders tore down so many grand old houses and replaced them

with cigar-box apartment buildings with fake mansard roofs.

Putting a mansard roof façade on a building is like wearing a cheap Beatles wig to your wedding.

The whole time, we were planning that the climax of our little

walking tour would be the LDS Church's Museum of Church History and Art

just west of Temple Square.

Imagine our surprise when we discovered that it was now exclusively a museum of history.

Nothing against history — we love history; love of history runs in our family — but this disappointed us greatly.

We remembered well the excitement in the LDS art community when the

museum first opened, and it made us sad to see the official art museum

reduced to a few prints and postcards and books in the history museum's

shop.

And when the art museum opened, I saw so many of my friends —