On January 3rd, 2024, the sleepy bois gathered at The Springville Museum of Art to View the Annual Spiritual and Religious Art of Utah Show. We jumped at the opportunity to engage with a sometimes complex and challenging subject and explore our reactions and thoughts around what we consider religious and spiritual.

After spending roughly an hour separately exploring and taking in the art, we met as a group to discuss our thoughts, reactions, and lessons from the show. Hannah Barret, former art curator for the museum and friend of the Sleepy Bois Club, shared her expertise about the history of the museum and this art show specifically to help us better appreciate how it ended up where it is now.

The Springville Museum of Art states that the show “…invites all Utah artists to enter this exhibition which celebrates the diversity of religious experience and belief in our community. Using different media to express these ideas, artists create works to engage and inspire viewers to contemplate and reflect on the vibrant spiritual traditions we share.”

This is one of the larger art shows in Utah, which might not be surprising given the subject matter and Utah’s religious roots. But there was a surprisingly diverse set of beliefs on display, in part due to the jurors (one, a professor of art history who focuses on Buddhism; the other, a local contemporary artist) coming together to select works that feature much more abstract ideas of spirituality than many might expect from an art museum in the Utah Valley, which has been historically homogeneous religiously speaking.

The show is ultimately about what spirituality and religion have meant to each particular artist (which can vary between even artists of the same religious affiliation) and how they express something so personal and powerful through their chosen medium. The result is a massive (if not slightly overwhelming) art show with many exciting and impressive pieces that carry an obvious personal significance to the artists. Further more, the immense size and personal nature of the show constructs a conversation between the artists as you move through and observe the differing and sometimes competing portrayals of what spirituality, religion, and its symbols and imagery mean to each artist.

I was initially hesitant about the exhibit as I worried it would be full of simple paintings of angels and Jesus, which I have come to expect from the religious art I find hung on the walls of the homes and buildings in Utah County. But I was assured by our friend Hannah that this show was not the sales floor of a Desert Book like my cynical brain was painting it out to be. And I’m glad I listened.

Many works stopped me in my tracks and pulled me in immediately. Many artists were struggling with their complex interactions with religion in the area that reflected my own—a constant draw to the divine but fear of the control and structure of institutionalized religion. Others beautifully expressed their freedom from the religious institutions. In contrast, some embraced the beauty and joy they found in those same institutions. And even more refreshing were those who expressed their own spiritual identity, separate from the shadow of any organization or creed.

While I was worried about how the conflict of ideas would drain me, I left the show energized. The creativity and passion on display pushed me to examine my complex relationship with religion and how I would like to express that better and how I would like to engage with my passions and creatively show them to the world. I saw just how personal a religion can be. Two artists from a shared congregation can have hugely different views and expressions of a similar spiritual idea, showing me that while people may share a church or creed, the spiritual journey will always be personal.

Finally, in the group conversation about the exhibit, we highlighted how those competing ideas also brought up competing feelings in others: different interpretations of the message of various artworks. However, the discussion highlighted how impressive this year’s show was as the exhibit has historically lacked diversity. It also provided an outlet for many in the community to explore their own stories and what religion means to them. It was fascinating to see what art pieces spoke to different sleepy bois and for what reasons, and it opened up conversations to better get to know friends we already thought we knew.