ESTHER HI'ILANI CANDARI
Global Art for a Global Church
We need religious art resources that reflect our communities and our theology.
About the series:
I was raised in a family full of boy scouts and immigrants and I learned from a young age that you should always leave things better than you found them and that solutions to problems were out there if you were willing to reach for them.
A problem I have noticed and have worked to educate others about for years is the dearth of racially, culturally, and aesthetically diverse and inclusive religious art in Latter-day Saint communities. One of the challenges to addressing this problem that I have both personally encountered and has been brought to me by multiple people is the lack of comprehensive and affordable resources that provide individuals with images they can use in their family and classroom settings. Thanks to the resounding support of so many people, By Common Consent Press and I have been able to begin what we hope will be an ongoing project: the ARTbook Series.
These Art Resource Treasury Books are are full color spiral bound books containing a broad array of images from a diverse group of artists. These images will be curated to provide inclusive images for teaching the beautiful and eternally meaningful concepts and stories found in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and church history. Each volume of the ARTbook will be designed to match a course of the Come Follow Me curriculum. The long term goal is to publish a new volume every year for as long as the project is sustainable.
submit your work for consideration!
If you are an artist
What you can do about it.
The purpose of this book is to provide a platform for all the artists out there who are doing the work of creating holy imagery that captures the breadth and diversity of our Heavenly Parents' children and their cultures. We are now taking submissions for the Doctrine & Covenants and Church History ARTbook Vol. 1. Set for release in December 2024. For this volume we are looking for images that:
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Depict a scene from or doctrinal concept (i.e. faith, repentance, baptism etc.) that is relevant to the Doctrine & Covenants or church history
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Depict non-American based stories of early church history and pioneers
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Depict early saints of color
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Are aesthetically and/or racially and culturally diverse and inclusive
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Are appropriate for elementary age audiences (i.e. little to no blood, gore, and nudity)
Work in any medium or style from artists of all ages and backgrounds is welcome. Video, performance, and installation work may be hard to adequately present in this format but artists are still welcome to submit stills of such work.
For each work that is selected for inclusion, the artist will be compensated. See submission form for more details on compensation.
Submissions will be open November 26, 2023 through April 16, 2024
Final selections will be announced by May 1, 2024.
If you are a supporter
pre-order and donate to make this even bigger and better
What you can do about it.
Because this project is independently funded, orders of the currently published Book of Mormon Vol. 1 and pre-orders of D&C and Church History Vol. 1 are crucial to the success and longevity of this project.
