He swept his arm through the air, crossing over the yards of
canvas stretched before us. “Welcome to The Garden,” he said, with his
signature smile lighting the space, easing the introduction for people whose
admiration of him made them nervous to meet him. With all good graces he
greeted my aging mother, then handed her a paintbrush and a palette.
“Would you
like to sign my guest bush?”
The long slender paintbrush was passed from hand to
hand.
Today, in the Garden Room of the
Nauvoo LDS temple, there are leaves that speak the names of my mother, my sister,
my husband and myself, and others who were fortunate enough to visit that
sacred creative space. James C, the
painter of fantasy and hump-backed Everymen, who also knew how to handle
serious matters in ink and oil, was masterful at his art. But mostly, he was masterful with people.
A rare combination of ingredients made the recipe of James C
Christensen deliciously unique: the kind of fare that worked in exotic places
with outrageous prices and also hometown diners. He fit everywhere. Everywhere! And we who knew him in his bare
feet understood that the fact that he made us feel like his best friends was
simply the way he treated everyone. He
had just enough ego and success to build his confidence and to drive his pursuit of excellence, and just enough
humility to understand from Whom his confidence sprang.
James was James partly because Carole was Carole. Every James Christensen-type-person needs a
Carole Christensen to balance him. She is the green to his red, the yang to his
yin. He’d tell you this himself. Part of
the beauty of their love story is their mutual understanding of their self-designed
roles. She knows him, probably better
than he knows himself. And he trusts her,
thank goodness, because she has saved him from his own candor more than anyone
can say.
I know no other human being who fills the category that
James filled. Witty, wise, stalwart
without being judgmental. He was a
dreamer who made his dreams come to life, and who encouraged other talented
dreamers to do the same. I first met him around a conference table at BYU, two
decades ago. I was newly appointed to
the board of directors of the Mormon Arts Foundation, and was assigned to
direct the three-day Mormon Arts Festival at BYU the coming year. We had chairpersons over varying artistic
disciplines from film to music, literature, dance, theatre and visual art. James oversaw the visual art group. He was
massively large; not in the physical sense. It’s just that he completely filled every space he entered, and bits of
him flowed out through the doorways and into other spaces, the way his buddy Pat
Debenham’s laughter does. He was a
storyteller, not just through his art. He was a master of words and ideas, and he knew the ebb and flow of
human emotion and could play it like a pro in any public or private
setting. Oh the stories that have danced across his dinner table, across the large round picnic table on his back porch,
across the podium as he led us through the last two decades of a small annual artistic
retreat we worked together on. James,
with the aid of Carole, was Chairman of the Board of the Mormon Arts
Foundation. For the last few years, since the retirement of our founding father
Doug Stewart, I have served as president of the foundation. We read each other pretty well, James and I.
He knew what I could do, and I knew he could do everything I did and more. No one has ever led a discussion with more
ease, skill and good humor than James. In
the same paragraph he could have us rolling on the floor with stories about how
his son-in-law Dan Barney re-sewed his Costco jeans into skinny jeans, and then in the next sentence he would make the goose
bumps rise on our arms with his tender testimony of the goodness of God.
When James and Carole first married, James says, there was a
moment in time when they had to make a decision about what career path they
would take. At the time he was actually
making waves as a musician. His band was gigging nationally, making money, and moving up the ladder of musical success. James tells how he and Carole prayed, and
pondered, and came to the decision that they would take the fork in the road
that led to his incomparable painting career. Imagine our world without a
humpback, or a magical fish floating through a mystical ocean. Imagine!
Back when we were painting on his guest bush on the canvases
of the Nauvoo Temple, I remember him taking us into the room where Gary Smith and Chris Young were painting the magnificent scenes depicting the creation of the world. (Disclaimer- I'm not really remembering with much accuracy who painted what at the time. Forgive me.)
"Guess what is under this amazing ocean of water?" James said. He gave us that coy sideways flickering glance, and told the story. In the middle of the night, after everyone
had left, James and Robert Marshall snuck into their room and painted fantasy fish in the ocean
water. Of course the fish are painted over. They had complete reverence for their subject matter and it looks just divine when the paint is dry. But I like to think that the under layer on that canvas of paint brings the Lord some measure of delight. The antics between James and his fellow painters were part of the joy of working
with him. Ask any of them who were fortunate enough to work with him. He was like glitter-glue: Everything and everyone became bound together, and it was obvious James had been there.
James battled cancer with the strength and grace of the
Pilates moves he practiced regularly with Carole and his friends. It was a roller coaster ride for him, his
flight with cancer, and I’m afraid he suffered more than he ever let on. The level of hope he carried the last number
of years…that we all carried with him…was a testament to his trust in God’s
purposes. Not that he felt entitled to
tell God what to do. But he did find
great purpose in the consecration of his art. Last year, while he was
undergoing cancer treatment, he began his days at the Provo City Center temple
with “the boys”. You know the classic scene of retired buddies meeting for breakfast
at their favorite diner? These “boys”
met daily in the empty rooms of the re-purposed Provo Tabernacle, in the process of becoming the Provo City Center LDS temple. The rooms then echoed with their conversation and smelled of oil and paint. James and Robert and
Gary, with David Linn and Doug Fryer as the youngsters assigned to handle the
painting of the ceiling, devoted each day to painting the murals that grace the walls of that temple forevermore. Eventually the boys were aided by two of Jim’s
daughters, Cassie Barney and Emily McPhie, and Downey Doxey-Marshall, Robert’s
daughter-in-law, among a few others. All
in all, about ten artists gave their gifts to the Lord in that project. When it ended there was a sense of
melancholy. Robert passed away not long
after the temple opened. It broke James’ heart. James and Carole could not shake
the worry that without such divine purpose, James may lose his earthly footing.
Two months ago James and I sat beside each other on our friend Sam
Cardon’s couch. We had just finished
breaking bread together at the breakfast table. As usual, James oversaw our
board meeting for the Mormon Arts Foundation.
“Before we start," James said, "I need to tell you something.”
Hearts throbbed and tears flowed as he told
us that the medical trial for which he was the first patient, had not done
the trick. The cancer was reeling its
head, and though there was hope for a new trial, I sensed the spirit whispered that this
might not be his destiny.
That was the last time I saw Jim. Between then and now the
power that was James Christensen belonged to his truest loves.
When word came tonight that James had left us for holier
spaces, it was unfathomable. Like,
shouldn’t the world stop spinning?
Shouldn’t it at least pause on its axis out of respect?
On our living room wall we are blessed to have one of
James’ last paintings. It depicts an
artist standing before a blank page. James thought perhaps it was a representation of painter’s block. For me it is writer’s block. I suppose, tonight, I am thinking that that
blank canvas is all that lies ahead for my friend. A blank page, waiting for
his imagination. Perhaps, looking at it more closely, that white page is actually the entryway to the hereafter. He told me he wasn't completely certain what that page represented anyway.
On our living room table there sits a large book of scripture and an equally large book called Men & Angels with a painfully beautiful sentiment from Jim written inside. As our friend Kirk Richards said tonight, when the news of James' passing wafted over to him and he blew it my way, “If there is a winged angel in this
universe, I hope it carries James home.”