“Selected Photography, Art, and Poetry: Portraits of Ourselves,” New Era, Aug. 1987, 20–29
Selected Photography, Art, and Poetry:
Portraits of Ourselves
We called for self-portraits, and you gave us a gallery full, enough to fill a dozen wings, a thousand corridors. The portraits came in many forms—in pen and ink and oil and watercolor and poetry and prose and music and photographic prints and transparencies. They were portraits not of your faces or figures but of your thoughts and feelings and perceptions. There were moody interior landscapes and sun-washed impressionistic gardens filled with laughter. Never have we seen such a rich variety of technique and medium.
Photography sketched your insight in the form of a white egret amidst green spears of grass, children drinking magic from a water fountain, a pale moon hung in the arch of a yellow church.
Art captured your love of beauty in the guise of a pensive ballerina, a proud athlete, a sleek sailboat, an exquisite silver pendant.
Fiction revealed your spiritual depths in crystal tears reflecting the healing gift of repentance.
The winning article mirrored your compassion in the sweet waters of unselfish giving.
Poetry caught your sensitivity in a prayer clipped word-thin by the south wind, a dark-born morning, the pulse in an old man’s hand.
The winning hymn portrayed your gratitude for the gift of the Atonement.
The winning song painted a bright picture of your love for missionary work.
It is with great pride that we invite you to enter one small wing of this great gallery of self-portraits. We wish there were room for more. We hope that you enjoy these portraits of yourselves. You will see that they portray not only you, their creators, but also Him from whom we inherit the impulse to create—and in whose image we all were created.
Photography by Stacy Anderson