Fidalis Buehler Archives - BYU College of Fine Arts and Communications

Art Students Initiate Collaborative Project Unifying Students Remotely

admin — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 15:57:40 +0000

During an unusual semester, art students Jeffery Hampshire and Amelia O’Neill seek a sense of community by simulating Open Studios online At the end of every typical semester, the BYU Art Department holds an Open Studios event for its students. Friends, family, and members of the larger community are all invited to walk through art students’ personal workspaces to view their current work and works-in-progress. But this is not a typical semester. This is the second semester that routines and rituals have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. After an abrupt end to in-person learning and gathering in March, winter semester closed with a sense of disappointment for art students who had been looking forward to participating in Open Studios. This time around, BFA student Jeffery Hampshire and MFA student Amelia O’Neill hope to contribute to a sense of normalcy and community by creating a virtual platform for Open Studios to take place. The Origin of Online Open Studios Early in November, O’Neill read in a text for her business practices class about the advantages of Open Studios, including exposure to influential members of the art community. Discouraged by the prospect of missing out on yet another Open Studios opportunity, she texted Hampshire about her idea to move the event online. Hampshire, who is in the process of developing a separate online exhibition space for university art students in Utah, was immediately on board. After garnering the support of the department, Hampshire and O’Neill approached visiting artist and instructor Madeline Rupard, who helped organize an online show for COVID-19 relief in May of this year. Using the open source site artsteps.com, Hampshire, O’Neill and Rupard are building an online space that will simulate student studios as accurately as possible. This space will be the site of the semi-annual reception for faculty and students, and the exhibition will also be made available to the public. After viewing each submitted work, faculty members will award grant money for selected BA, BFA and MFA students. Between O’Neill’s first text message to Rupard about artsteps on November 11 and the date of the Open Studios reception on December 10, the team had less than one month to build a virtual exhibition. “We’re coming down to just a few weeks away,” said Hampshire before Thanksgiving, “but why not push for it? I don’t think we should wait until next year to have everything figured out. I think this is the first version of something that might turn into something even better.” Read the full story written by Abby Weidmer at art.byu.edu.

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Faith + Works Speaker Fidalis Buehler Finds Meaning, Inspiration in His Past

Martha Duzett — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 00:02:54 +0000

Buehler encouraged students to explore and embrace their personal histories For art professor Fidalis Buehler, the experiences and interactions of his childhood are more than memories — they are a permanent and deeply influential part of his identity. In his Dec. 5 Faith + Works lecture, Buehler shared stories and lessons learned from his past, inviting students in the College of Fine Arts and Communications to explore their own personal histories — an undertaking which can at times, he acknowledged, be difficult or even frightening. “I was always afraid of experiencing my culture when I was growing up,” said Buehler. “You have to learn to accept the side of you that’s just you and embrace that. When we go home at night, we put on a different hat, but why can’t the person who dances in front of a mirror also dance in public? What is that fear? Why am I afraid to let that fear get confronted?” Part of Buehler’s initial hesitancy to explore and accept his own identity stemmed from a feeling of being stranded between two seemingly conflicting worlds, particularly in the liminal space between his Euro-American and Pacific Island heritage and between his Catholic upbringing and his baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1999. “With one foot in Christianity and the other in my Pacific Island upbringing, it was no wonder that life would be peculiar,” said Buehler. “The decision to be baptized marked the turning point in my life as I tried to make sense of my new faith. I had the false idea that my entire life up until that point needed to be suppressed or forgotten, and this became my way of life for the next five years. But it came back — it came back in the words of my mom, in the words of my brothers, in the words of people that I served my mission with. It was clear that I needed to look back at my past.” Once he began “mining memories” and recognizing the wide range of influences in his life, Buehler’s past became inseparable from his career as an artist. During his lecture, he shared pieces from his body of work and the stories that inspired them — from his brother playing football to his mother frantically working to counter what she believed to be black magic. Today, Buehler continues to preserve his past and heritage as he works to connect his children to the stories of their ancestors and build up their personal banks of memories through family traditions and collaborative art projects. “My children get involved in making my work; they make marks that maybe I wouldn’t make, so a reinvention happens through them,” said Buehler. “When I make art, I oftentimes think of those who are with us and ways to make a more collaborative experience.” While Buehler tries to stay present and aware of the unique perspectives and abilities of the people around him, he also often finds himself drawn to those who are no longer with us. “When I paint, I put myself into a method of creative process where I try to embody the character that I’m thinking about,” said Buehler. “In some ways, this is to pay homage to the past, to give a voice to people who haven’t had the chance to share. Sometimes they act as spectators — they’re watching us, looking in. Sometimes they act as messengers to provide information and teach us.” This strengthened connection with the people, experiences and beliefs that make up Buehler’s personal history has brought additional meaning to his work and purpose to his life. “Our past isn’t our weakness — it’s a strength,” said Buehler. “My mother has a saying. She says, ‘I hear you in my bones, for written on the bones are the words.’ Like words etched on our bones, we cannot divorce ourselves from our personal histories. We can try, but eventually the words rise to the surface. They can awaken at any time, triggered by a sound, a smell, a color, a dream, a smile, a cloud, a pattern, a taste.”

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Fidalis Buehler Will Explain the Relationship Between His Faith and Practice as Part of the 2019-2020 Faith + Works Lecture Series

Alexis Carver — Wed, 13 Nov 2019 22:01:57 +0000

Buehler will present the importance of collecting personal histories in his upcoming lecture BYU Art professor Fidalis Buehler will present “I Hear You in My Bones,” on Thursday, December 5 at 11 a.m. in the Madsen Recital Hall discussing the importance of collecting personal histories as part of the 2019-2020 Faith + Works Lecture Series. Buehler has presented his work in various art exhibits from the regional level to shows across the U.S. and throughout the world. A few notable experiences include his participation in Gallery Protocol in Gainesville, Florida, New Mystics at the CUAC, Auckland’s NorthArt Center and a publication with New American Paintings. The diversity within Buehler’s childhood home established a stimulating place to guide and shape his creative process. Influenced by a blend of two cultures — Euro-American and Pacific Islander — Buehler’s art reflects his biracial upbringing. “My work represents identity seen through the complexity of American culture and South Pacific traditions — calling attention to confrontation and conflicting realities; straddling the line between levity and earnest devotion,” said Buehler. “Image making becomes an act of playful conjuring — reassembling personal histories that embody fear, anxiety, mythology, dreams, revelations, magic, mysticism and ritual.” Buehler has taught painting and drawing for the Department of Art since 2008. He currently resides in Mapleton with his wife and five children.

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