meeting Kirk Richards

BYU's Museum of Art has always been one of my favorite places. To meditate, to enjoy great artists, to have stimulating conversations with tour guides, to sing, to play the piano, to eat...

The first exhibit that I attended repeatedly and even obsessively was entitled Beholding Salvation. The ten minute changing period between classes in the H-FAC would give me at least five minutes in the MOA. That is when I first encountered Kirk Richards. His painting Gethsemane captured and held my attention so much--perhaps that is why I had to return so often. But even upon returning, I'd spend a bulk of my time in front of that painting.

So many pictures of the atonement show Christ suffering at a tree, but rarely do I feel his pain and see the blood he shed. Layers of red, brown, gold, and sin slapped onto the canvas screamed of His emotion. His suffering. and the saving angel rising up in white sang of such comfort. The exhibit also carried his Baptism of Christ, another favorite of the exhibit.

Lisa, my good friend and tour guide had invited me to the opening gala and mentioned that Kirk Richards had been there, but alas, I had not had the good fortune of meeting him there.

well, several years later, he came back to BYU for campus education week. I of course bought an affordable (for a starving musician) little Gethsemane print (the texturing of the oil is of course lost, but it will always remind me of the original) as well as several postcards of his work, and shook his hand. What an honor! He took the time to to ask me about myself, my life and dreams and accepted my compliments congenially and graciously.

While looking at the few originals and prints in the Bookstore, an older woman started a conversation with me. She took such interest in my connections to BYU Singers, to music, to Palo Alto, to Wisconsin, to Paris, to redheads... and then asked, 'have you eaten yet?' well no... 'how about I treat you to dinner!' Of course she wouldn't accept a 'no' for a drink or fries but invited her husband and oldest son to come join us the the cougar eat and talk with me.

However unexpected the encounter was, and however moving the art was, my education week finished with me thinking how there are so many wonderful people in the world.