“There is a spirit of Nauvoo which anyone who lives here knows exists,” said Michael Bedard, a figure, landscape, and historical artist who moved his wife and five of seven children to Nauvoo , Illinois , two and a half years ago. “The historic atmosphere is awesome.” On the other hand, “I've been so busy since I've moved here trying to build our home, this gallery, and trying to make it.” Nauvoo is a small community with few employment possibilities. “If you're not self-employed or retired,” Michael said, “this wouldn't be the best place to live financially right now. ”
Passion to Paint the Restoration
Michael moved from Salt Lake City to Nauvoo “mostly to paint the Restoration.” Other historic sites— Palmyra , Kirtland, Far West , Adam-ondi-Ahman—are relatively close as well. “I need to be there to paint. I like to see things the way they looked to be more accurate.” Michael prefers to paint with oil on panel because he “can scrape, sand, and beat it. Oil paint is very permanent . . . “I'm working one to three months on a painting. I need the ability to manipulate the paint once it's dried.”
Michael is painting a depiction of laying the cornerstone of the Nauvoo Temple in 1841.
All images are click to Enlarge.
This past year t he owners of Zion 's Mercantile provided property for Michael to build his log cabin studio-gallery near the Nauvoo Temple grounds. “My gallery is as close to the temple as any gallery has ever been,” Michael explained. An added bonus is the statue of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, which stands outside his studio. Michael greets the Prophet and his brother every day before he goes inside to paint.
“Ever since I joined the church 33 years ago while I was serving in the navy, I desired to put my brushes to work painting the Book of Mormon and the Restoration.” But “I felt I did not have the skills to do it though I have been doing art of some kind since I was six years old.” Michael's desire continued to grow—and so did his painting ability. For many years, he painted 20 to 30 hours a week in addition to working at a full-time job in Utah .
Sweetwater Rescue Scenes
When Lee Groberg filmed the television documentary Sweetwater Rescue: The Willie and Martin Handcart Story in Wyoming, he invited LDS artists to accompany him and take photos for paintings they might contribute to a book by the same name. Michael eagerly accepted this opportunity, and he traveled from his comfortable home in the Salt Lake Valley to the rugged outdoors of central Wyoming .
From June through January, Michael witnessed the reenactment of the 1856 Willie and Martin Handcart rescue. He photographed actors, scenes, landscapes, and drama—and he faced Wyoming wind and frigid weather with all of his senses. Only those who have lived in Wyoming during the winter know what that experience is like. Even members of the Riverton Wyoming Stake, who knew Wyoming winters, became some of the extras for this documentary. A decade earlier, they had performed temple work for many of these handcart pioneers and had become their friends. [See Meridian article on “The Second Rescue” here:]
As Michael photographed scenes from the documentary, he wore several layers of clothes to keep warm. After all, how could one take still pictures with shaking arms and hands? Michael watched men, women, and children trudge across the Sweetwater River with desperate faces and frozen expressions. He saw the little girl in his painting “Waiting to Cross the Sweetwater” dance up and down on the snow, waiting to be carried across. But, unlike the original handcart pioneers, these modern-day actors had dry clothes to put on and food to eat after the scene ended. When Michael returned home to Utah , he used his photo scraps and personal experiences to paint “Ascending Rocky Ridge,” which was published in the Sweetwater Rescue book with his other painting entitled “Some Must Push and Some Must Pull.”
Imprints to the Mind and Eye
After the Bedard family settled in Nauvoo, Michael painted additional handcart rescue scenes using his photo scraps and memories, historical research, and journal entries of handcart survivors like Patience Loader and John Chislett. For example, Patience Loader described her feelings of hunger: "You felt as if you could almost eat a rusty nail or gnaw a file. You were ten times as hungry as a hunter . . . all the long day, and every time you woke up in the night.” John Chislett remembered, "Instead of getting up in the morning strong, refreshed vigorous and prepared for the hardships of another day of toil, the poor Saints were to be seen crawling out from their tents looking haggard, benumbed, and showing an utter lack of that vitality so necessary to our success. . . . I have seen some pull their carts in the morning, give out during the day, and die before next morning.”
Title is “The Coldest Hour of the Twenty Four.”
Such writings and experiences were firmly imprinted on Michael's mind, and he wanted others to feel similar impressions. “When I read the journal entry, I feel things,” Michael said. “When I'm in the process of doing the painting, I feel a certain way.” The Martin and Willie handcart pioneers “were rescued, and we went and rescued them by doing their temple work. They're rescuing us by strengthening us as we read their stories. That's why I'm doing these paintings. I'm rescuing myself. I'm helping to rescue others” with his poignant paintings of “The Coldest Hour of the Twenty Four,” “Brother's Keeper, 1856,” “Waiting to Cross the Sweetwater,” “Brigham's Call to Rescue,” and “Advance Express Riders.”
First Vision Ponderings and Paintings
Michael has painted other scenes from the Restoration, a number of which have been commissioned. Two of his most recent paintings are “The First Vision of the Restoration” and “A Glorious Light.” Michael had never been to Palmyra , New York , or the Sacred Grove, and he “wanted to paint the First Vision as accurately as I could. Therefore, I felt I needed to go to the Sacred Grove itself before I could begin such a painting. In my mind I tried to visualize it many times, the same as I do when I ponder the scriptures.”
During the last week of April 2007, Michael's family made a trip to the Sacred Grove, where they walked where Joseph walked and prayed. Michael took photographs, studied the landscape, and experienced spring in this sacred spot. He also considered the historical materials he had read about the First Vision. “But my work was still cut out for me. I had never attempted to paint a work of art dealing with light of a spiritual nature. How do you create something you have never seen but really happened? Being a convert, I also wanted to paint Joseph's experience a personal one. I felt prayer was a two-way conversation. . . . Joseph had very personal questions, and God had personal answers for him.”
Michael wondered which direction Joseph should be facing in his paintings. “As I walked through the Sacred Grove and tried to visualize this, it came to me that he might be kneeling looking east . . . to warm himself on a cold bright beautiful morning. He would not be in the shadows of the leafless trees but remain in the brightness [of the] early morning sun.”
As Michael worked on his First Vision paintings, he struggled with the aspect of light. “Speaking of the light of that beautiful morning in April, Joseph states that the light was brighter than at noon day. How do you separate the two so you can visually distinguish them? What I came up with is the natural sunlight falling on the leaves of the forest floor would be warm in temperature, and the spiritual light that saved Joseph from as he described it a ‘thick darkness' . . . would have to be a white light, an unearthly light, something on a higher plane if it were possible and yet real! So that is what I tried to convey.
“Traditionally, the First Vision has been painted as if everything were green and in full bloom. But having been there myself at about the same time of year Joseph had the First Vision and having asked the residents of Palmyra if they had seen the foliage in full bloom in April ever, I have come to the conclusion to paint the First Vision as I saw when I visited. However, I did see a little green coming through the fall leaves” and “a few cherry trees putting forth blossoms.”
This is Michael Bedard's photo of the Sacred Grove in April 2007.
Masterpieces of Visual Beauty and Truth
Although Michael Bedard received Bachelor and Master of Fine Art degrees from Brigham Young University and Washington State University , he believes “the greatest teacher for me has been the labor of doing art itself to observe the actual world I see and translate it into terms of visual beauty and truth.” He has “always acknowledged the fact that if someone is inspired by my paintings, it comes from Him and not from me.”
Michael Bedard is living in and loving his painting environment of Nauvoo. His goal is to paint six pictures a year on the Restoration. “A painting was a painting until I joined the church and started doing this.” Now Michael is fulfilling his dream of “using my art to encourage and spread the doctrine of the restored church.” With each painting “I aim for a masterpiece.”
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You can learn more about Michael Bedard's paintings by e-mailing him at bedardfineart@hotmail.com.
