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July 28-29, 2017 — Brian and Faith Kershisnik

Miller Eccles Study Group Texas is thrilled to welcome artists Brian and Faith Kershisnik as our July 2017 speakers.

In a recent blog entry, Brian wrote: “I make art because I am searching for things. I do not approach my easel with an overriding objective to change anything or anyone. Rather I am looking for something. Looking teaches me, and teases thinking out of me, and precipitates internal and external conversation that I believe do me good. My job of course is to paint, and to paint very well, but I have observed that art often accomplishes something quite independently of any artist’s intentions. It is understandably difficult to accomplish things beyond your own intentions and so my way is to walk forward into the work looking for something and being open to finding something else altogether.”

We hope you’ll join us as Brian and Faith discuss how their artistic searching has improved their discipleship.

DATES AND LOCATIONS:

Friday, July 28, 7 pm (McKinney)
110 E. Davis Street
McKinney, Texas 75070

Saturday, July 29, 7 pm (Arlington)
3804 Indian Springs Trail
Arlington, Texas 76016

THE TOPIC:

CREATIVE DISCIPLESHIP

Too often creativity is mistakenly relegated to so-called creative people or professions.  Brian and Faith believe that following Jesus has always demanded courageous and unusual thinking, novel solutions to unanticipated circumstances, and the need to proceed even when our plans have broken down.  It sounds very much like a day in the studio.  They will talk about how discipleship has informed their art–and art their discipleship–as well as how the scriptures suggest a brilliantly inventive God working with brave and innovative children.

Detail of “Temptation of Adam and Eve after Masolino da Panicali” by Brian Kershisnik.

THE SPEAKERS:

Brian Kershisnik is the youngest of a happy and widely traveled family of sons. His father’s work as a petroleum geologist took them to various continents across the globe where his mother unfailingly set up a home filled with music, great food and active conversation, furnished with treasures and artifacts from their travels and hosting frequent parties and exotic slide shows of their globetrotting family life.

After serving as a missionary in Northern Europe he determined to study ceramics at Brigham Young University and then architecture at the University of Utah. During his first year in ceramics he met Joe and Lee Bennion and arranged to spend the summer working in Joe’s pottery. After some months it became apparent that Brian was no potter and Lee suggested he try something with her paint box. Painting changed everything. Gallery owner Dolores Chase noticed his exhibitions and offered to begin his professional career.

While many of his contemporaries looked elsewhere to establish their art careers, Brian focused on his Utah home. Though he now shows elsewhere and his works are in collections around the world, his home base of local collectors remains his most satisfying audience and his openings at David Ericson Fine Art in Salt Lake City and Meyer Gallery in Park City have an air of reunion and camaraderie. He now lives in the town of Provo.

Faith Kershisnik is a Texan transplant who has taken happily to her desert home in Provo, Utah.  She grew up in a large family, surrounded most closely by her brothers, who helped raise her amongst the wild woodpaths of Texas.  In school and church, Faith continued to discover an inquisitive mind that listened best while sketching out imagery from her imagination on whatever scraps of paper were convenient to the circumstance. She began college with a long-established plan to pursue a pre-med college major that would transform in her junior year to the pursuit of a BA in psychology.  She then went on to study marriage and family therapy at BYU to earn a Master’s degree and begin her career as a systems therapist.  Her journey in this field has been defined by her draw to Jungian depth psychology, emotionally focused couples therapy, and Buddhist psychology.  She has worked with a diverse range of clients at BYU and LDS Family Services, and currently works with patrons of the Healing Group, a clinic that services the population of the Wasatch Front with a unique feminism-informed approach to therapy.  Just as Faith’s therapeutic career began to feel established, she felt the disquieting call of the arts and course-corrected to allow for more time in the studio, drawing, painting, and writing.  She has enjoyed the discovery and expansion of her creative self, and her work has been featured in both university and gallery exhibitions in Texas and Utah.