Whitney and I met in the Netherlands, and she has been a constant supporter of my art and photography since. Specifically, she’s expressed love for my Emerald Collection and subsequently asked to be a part of it. To this I said yes, and so she flew to Hawaii and voilà.

Kei Riggins took me under her wing a number of years ago when I first moved to Hawaii. We sang together, swam in the midnight ocean together, and even got stranded one night and ended up trekking through the Hawaiian jungle to make it home. She and her husband came back to visit the island last week, and naturally we had to add her to the Emerald Collection. If Waimea Valley is the Garden of Eden, then Kei is Eve.

I had seen pictures of Michelangelo’s Pietà several times throughout my study of art history, and it always struck me as being impressive and interesting. However, I had never payed close attention to certain details of the figures. Upon my tenth or so time reviewing it, my eye caught the right hand of Christ and I was struck so sweetly and so deeply by it. That was the first time I truly connected to the sculpture. The Italian word “pietà” means “pity” or “compassion”, intended to portray the pain and love that Mary has for her crucified son. Yet for me, I felt the depth of compassion when I saw Christ’s hand gripping the cloth of his mother’s skirt. He is comforting her, as it were, despite his temporal mortal death.

It reminds me of this scripture from the book of Romans:

“Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

-Romans 8:39

The depth of death cannot separate us from Christ’s love and pietà.

This piece is an embodiment of each amendment of the United States Bill of Rights, portrayed powerfully by one woman characterizing several different time periods in American history. Some embodiments are more literal, some abstract and deeply symbolic. I’ll be explaining and then highlighting one figure each day via my Instagram story, so stay tuned for those descriptions. Finally, I owe most of the genius behind this conceptual rendition to my big sister, Haeli Allen (@haeliallenmusic). She is a woman who loves her country and her heritage, and who beautifully exudes that with a graceful patriotism.

It was in the city of Ghent, Belgium that I had the largest faith crisis of my life. Whilst passionately falling in love with the people, their language and culture, I simultaneously struggled with basic religious beliefs even though I was a full time missionary. Miraculously, Belgium also turned out to be a sacred and hallowed ground as I was later able to become truly converted to my faith because of my crisis. Ghent taught me about God and opened my eyes to the reverent beauty of hardship.

I want to learn so much more about how to utilize themes of Christian humanism, renaissance, and cultural expression. Most importantly, I hope to use the direction and time as a student to continue to realize a providence of religious works that propel others to have Christ-centered conversations and motivate gospel research for the individual.

Since living in, loving, and enduring trials in Belgium, it’s important to me to incorporate visual themes from that history of art and culture whilst also introducing the color, depth, and vividness of my palette and testimony of Christ. 

“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.”

3 Nephi 14.16-18

Luke Chapter 7:

37 And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment,

38 And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.

Mark Chapter 14:

8 She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.

9 Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that ashe hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.

What I love most about the writings of Isaiah is how vivid his imagery is. Rich in symbolism, his words command a scholarship and an open mind of me in order to understand.This particular, ennobling verse strikes me initially as a plea for us to use the power of our own choices to break free or rise above challenges :

“ Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.”

-Isaiah 52.2

It reminds me that the Lord loves effort. And it encourages me to ask for strength to grow and overcome things myself, and not to ask to have challenges removed from me. This also helps me realize that there are things in life that, although they make look beautiful, can hold me captive and distracted. A lot of the time, I have the ultimate power over these things and the power to avoid them. The prophet Nephi teaches us something similar:

“… give me strength that I may burst these bands with which I am bound.

And it came to pass that when I had said these words, behold, the bands were loosed from off my hands and feet …”

-1 Nephi 7.17-18

Corbin Morgan, an Industrial Design senior at BYU, uses a recipe handed down from his Welsh great grandmother to make a glazed lemon pound cake. He presents it on a handmade cutting board made by his father, marked with his name and with the family’s trademark ranch brand on top.

As an artist, baker, and industrial designer, Morgan relayed that, “From early on, kitchens became synonymous with the people that gather there.”

In addition, Morgan recently completed a team project of designing rustic and refined kitchen barstools. He has a deep appreciation for family, art, and working with his hands.

All in all, baking has been a manner through which Morgan connects to his European culture and shares it with others.

With Mother’s Day coming up, my thoughts have been turned to Eve. It is my personal belief that she very knowingly and courageously made a difficult choice to fulfill a higher commandment. I used to wonder why God would seemingly set Adam and Eve up for “failure” by giving them contradictory instructions: multiply and replenish the earth, but don’t partake of the fruit of The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I’ve learned, however, that it wouldn’t be in a Father’s best interest to command us to do something (i.e. partaking of the fruit, which would introduce sin and mortality) that could bring us ultimate spiritual death. It was an immense wisdom with which Eve partook of the fruit, seeing that God - in His wisdom -constructed a path that would enable her and all of us to use a transgression as a step to get get closer to Him. And so, here’s Mother Eve, pedestaled by her courageous choice to partake, offering and encouraging us to make our own difficult decisions to come closer to God.

She waits for Palm Sunday like those who waited to greet Christ as he rode into Jerusalem. Palm leaves symbolize goodness, victory, and peace. In addition, a face-up palm of the hand represents honesty and openness.

Often when I have a concept I’m working to realize into an artistic photograph, it can take hours, days, or weeks to research and figure out exactly how I’ll create it. Yet I’ve noticed that whenever I’m making something Christ-centered, the process is quick and crystal clear. Not only does HIs first miracle of turning water into wine at a wedding demonstrate his power to literally change the physical elements from one state to another, but it attests to His role as the Creator. He’s creative, and that’s just one of the beautiful attributes He has that I admire.

Wishing all a very pleasant St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow! Stay golden.

I love people who love art, and I especially love when those people let me make art of them. This was an impromptu shoot, and I loved bathing in Mel’s confidence as she bathed in this colorful tub of flowers and milk.

Believe it or not, Valentine’s Day is my favorite holiday. There are so many sides to and faces of love, whether that be the romantic kind or not. So since it’s the first of February, here’s just one expression of an experience we can have with ever so wonderful and painful love.

“Cupid is a knavish lad, Thus to make poor females mad.”

-Shakespear

Last year for Valentine’s Day, I brought in a round, brown hat box that I filled with the chocolate dipped strawberries I made fro my coworkers. One of the newer employees, with whom I wasn’t yet well acquainted, just started calling me “Strawberry” from then on. I quite liked it.

If I were audacious enough to dream of acquiring some sort of patron sainthood in some other time and reality, I would probably apply to be ‘St. Strawberry’ since apparently strawberries symbolize righteousness and love. Oh, and they’re just so sweet and nice.

One of the most complex characters I’ve come across in literature is Tom Hamilton from ‘East of Eden’ by John Steinbeck. He’s passionate and poetic, and equal parts too hard and too easy on himself.

“Go and see my Tom. He’ll help you. He’d plant the world with roses, poor man, if he could.”

I, myself, got genuinely emotional when shooting this conceptual self portrait - just thinking about the real struggles and pains and intensities people deal with. And how beautiful and heart wrenching that is. Reading about Tom made me understand some of my dearest friends in my life even better.

“Tom felt his darkness. His father was beautiful and clever, his mother was short and mathematically sure. Each of his brothers and sisters had looks or gifts or fortune. Tom loved all of them passionately, but he felt heavy and earth-bound. He climbed ecstatic mountains and floundered in the rocky darkness between the peaks. He had spurts of bravery but they were bracketed in battens of cowardice.” -John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Although the Dutch word ‘gezellig’ means so very much more than ‘cozy’, I wanted to show a piece of my love for The Netherlands and the heart-warming Dutch language. Since I’m too far to make a quick visit (and since COVID won’t permit that), I figured I would put on a leaker warm sweater dress and reminisce about my time there and the lovely, lovely people I met - who can’t be separated from me by something as measly as time itself.