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“I’ve had a lifelong love affair with Shakespeare’s works. Of all the artists —and certainly of all the playwrights and poets — who have ever lived, Shakespeare comes closest to my ideal” says James C. Christensen. “If I took all my best artistic qualities and exaggerated them to become some sort of creative superhero, I like to think I’d be a lot like Shakespeare.
“This painting was commissioned by the Utah Shakespearean Festival. People ask me, ‘Why do you only have some of his plays represented here?’ My answer is always the same: ‘The other plays are on the back of the island, just go around!’ Seriously, a few of the references are tough, so you may need to revisit your Shakespeare to get them all.
“The Bard had such a deep and intimate understanding of the human condition, so much so that his plays, which were written nearly a half-millennium ago, are still being performed. Why? Because the messages, trials and joys of his characters are universal and because they are beautifully expressed. The pleasure of reading Shakespeare’s sonnets or attending a performance of one of his plays is in his finely crafted language. He says things the way I wish I could say them.”
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Inspired by the world’s myths, fables and tales of imagination, James C.
Christensen’s work adds up to more than a beautiful - if sometimes “curious”
looking work of art. Having taught art professionally for over 20 years, he
thought of the world as his classroom. His hope is that through whatever he
creates -- be it a porcelain, fine art print or book -- he can convey a message,
inspiration or a simple laugh. He believes that teaching people to use their
imagination helps us find solutions to sooth the stresses of everyday life-or
get a little lift to help us keep going. In short: all things are possible when
you share Christensen’s philosophy that “Believing is Seeing.”
Christensen was born in 1942 and raised in Culver City, California. He studied
painting at Brigham Young University and, for a while, the University of
California at Los Angeles before finishing his formal education at BYU. Since
then, he has had one-man shows in the West and the Northeast and his work is
prized in collections throughout the U.S. and Europe.
Christensen has also won all the professional art honors the World Science
Fiction and Fantasy Convention can bestow, as well as multiple Chesley Awards
from the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists. Christensen has
been designated as a “Utah Art Treasure,” one of Utah’s Top 100 Artists by the
Springville Museum of Art and received the Governor’s Award for Art awarded by
the Utah Arts Council recognizing the significance of Christensen’s artwork to
Utah’s cultural communities. He was inducted into the U.S. Art magazine’s Hall
of Fame and is an Honored Alumnus at Brigham Young University for his
contributions to fine art and education. James and his wife Carole were co-
chairs on the Mormon Arts Foundation. He was a frequent guest lecturer at
Brigham Young University, and has also given workshops to large companies and
organizations on the subject of creative thinking, including the California Art
Educator’s Association, Hallmark and Intermountain Health Care.
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