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Guest Post by Matthew Loveland, MOA Marketing & PR Intern One of the most interesting paintings on display at the BYU Museum of Art is

Guest post by Kirsten Titus, Marketing & PR Intern

Happy Halloween Week!

The breathtaking and monumental stick sculpture that has graced the largest gallery of the MOA is nearly at the end of its life span. Patrick Dougherty's Windswept, which has been on display at the MOA since December 2018, is in its final weeks as it closes after October 19, 2019.

Believers across many faiths feel that there are circumstances, both privately and globally, when the Divine engages with humankind or individuals are brought into an awareness of a higher power. This exhibition explores artistic interpretations of such moments, particularly in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Guest post by Ashlee Whitaker, Curator of Religious Art

Guest Post by Abbie Daniels, MOA Marketing and PR Intern

Guest post by Alyssa Weyland, MOA Marketing and PR Intern

Prior to the railroads coming to the Western United States, the Utah Territory was a vast, inhospitable desert, difficult to travel to, and with limited ability to receive information and good from the rest of the country. However, when the Union and Central Pacific lined joined in 1869, cities, and towns in Utah developed more quickly and more people were able to work on the railroads. In fact, entire families moved and traveled with the construction of the railroads, often living in boxcars and living a nomadic lifestyle to follow the work.

Guest post by Abbie Daniels, MOA Marketing & PR Intern

Guest post by Alyssa Weyland, Marketing and PR Intern

The story of America is one of complexity. While the ideas behind America are those of equality and freedom, in action and in societal values those ideas have often been left behind. The stars and stripes have been riddled with technicalities and contradictions from the very beginning. It is easy to focus on the great “Americana” fables of Johnny Appleseed and George Washington chopping down a cherry tree but beneath these fictions are the tales of the masses.

Guest post by Kitsa Behringer, MOA Educator

At the entrance to the new exhibition Becoming America, a large painting welcomes you inside. The image itself is one of welcoming, showing a group of 20th-century immigrants arriving in New York City by boat.

The new exhibition Becoming America is organized by theme, showcasing works of art of various mediums all in conversation with one another about the same theme. The first theme presented in the exhibition is 'American Landscape' and is comprised of paintings, photographs, and lithographs of the ever-changing landscapes of America throughout the centuries. America's dramatic and majestic landscape has long excited the imaginations of artists, poets, and politicians. Since the earliest days of colonization, the country's varied natural character, from Niagara Falls to the Grand Canyon, and from the southwestern desert to the towering redwoods, has been a source of national pride, creative inspiration, and economic success. But this national treasure of the land is much more than the backdrop against which Americans live their lives. Rather, the land is itself a central player in the cultivation and expansion of the American story. The artworks in this section of Becoming America do not represent the totality of America's sublime physical splendor, but rather tell specific stories about the ways that the landscape has participated in America's becoming; in our potential and our evolution as a nation and as a people.