I noticed that popular LDS artist Greg Olsen's website and Facebook page are completely "generic Christian" with nothing specifically LDS. In addition, I see that his Wikipedia article was completely de-Mormonized in April of this year. Has Mr. Olsen left the church, or is he just trying to peddle his wares to a larger Christian audience, including those who might be averse to Mormonism?

I'm guessing the wider audience angle. I like to think of him as filling the vacuum Thomas Kinkade left behind only with Jesus pictures. Jesus Kinkade.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2015 03:53PM by Devoted Exmo.

Would Jesus Kinkade be a doubting Thomas? LOL! Love what you did.

Indeed he would be. LOL!

He may have come to the same understanding many of us have.

Greg grew up near my childhood home, and we share many of the same Facebook friends. I also have the privilege of being his and his wife's friend on Facebook.

That being said, I will share that one of his many likes on his FB page is for none other than John Dehlin.

I hope I'm not giving privileged info away, but that is his public profile.

I love the Olsen family. They are truly humble servants of the Most High. If Greg has also parted ways with the "only true church," he has only my deepest respect and sympathy.

He may have come to see the larger picture himself than the one that was narrowly tailored for us as children.

amyjo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> He may have come to see the larger picture himself
> than the one that was narrowly tailored for us as
> children.

Jesus might be really, really, really, small in that one.

He's made his entire livelihood doing Jesus' drawings.

He's still very much into creating Christian art.

I doubt he threw the baby out with the bathwater, unlike many of the atheists here on RfM.

He could do any kind of artwork he wanted to and still be as successful. He does what he does out of love for the subject matter.

His specialties include Christian Art, Childhood Art, Western Art, and Landscape Art. It's correct he no longer identifies as LDS on his Facebook page, but he doesn't deny his being Christian.

We grew up in the same school district, and close in age. I moved away by high school. My classmates know him better than I did.

We lived in different rural towns, within the same school district. By high school all the rural villages converged in one high school.

He is as talented as Thomas Kincaid. But Kincaid was an alcoholic, and had some serious personal problems at the time he died young at age 54.

Greg is still coming into his prime at about the same age he is now that Kincaid was when he died too young from his boozing. It was reported following autopsy that Thomas Kincaid died of "acute intoxication" from alcohol and Valium.

He's got the whole world in his hands.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/18/e9/38/18e93847121a46a4f6b7475877674206.jpg

Must still be Mormon with such a glaring anarchism.

Next painting: "Jesus Hears You". (Painting of Jesus with iPhone 6--or better yet, a brick phone).

You all love him, but this kitsch is hard not to get punchy over.

Treacle is the word that comes to mind.

Apparently, Jesus can't be in modern buildings but as the top exec in charge he can have a finely crafted world globe fit for any executive office suite.

You said it. Have you ever priced those globes? They're not cheap

I bet that's one of those mini-bar globes. He's just trying to figure out how to open it and get at the bottles of hooch!

I looked everywhere in the bath water and there was no baby.

Religious beliefs aside, I love his art work. I am a fan of bright and cheerful paintings.

This isn't cheery.

https://www.gregolsen.com/product-category/limited-cast-your-net-on-the-right-side-le

Be the fisher of men and roast them.

Move it over a little to the right.

Yo, apostles!! You are doing it wrong.

Lol!

amyjo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> He's made his entire livelihood doing Jesus'
> drawings.
>
> He's still very much into creating Christian art.
>
>
> I doubt he threw the baby out with the bathwater,
> unlike many of the atheists here on RfM.
>
> He could do any kind of artwork he wanted to and
> still be as successful. He does what he does out
> of love for the subject matter.
>
> His specialties include Christian Art, Childhood
> Art, Western Art, and Landscape Art. It's correct
> he no longer identifies as LDS on his Facebook
> page, but he doesn't deny his being Christian.
>
> We grew up in the same school district, and close
> in age. I moved away by high school. My
> classmates know him better than I did.
>
> We lived in different rural towns, within the same
> school district. By high school all the rural
> villages converged in one high school.
>
> He is as talented as Thomas Kincaid. But Kincaid
> was an alcoholic, and had some serious personal
> problems at the time he died young at age 54.
>
> Greg is still coming into his prime at about the
> same age he is now that Kincaid was when he died
> too young from his boozing. It was reported
> following autopsy that Thomas Kincaid died of
> "acute intoxication" from alcohol and Valium.


Sorry, Kinkade is a joke among the world of Art. A guy with talent that prostituted it for dollars and kitsch rather than pursuing fine art. He even stole 'painter of light' from a real artist with top talent.

Olson is pushing his jesus shtick for the dollars, nothing more.

Did you see his banner on his FB page. It's teeny, tiny Jesus.

That kinda creeped me out.

https://www.facebook.com/gregolsenfan/?fref=ts

I thought what would Oaks look like doing that?

A frightening thought!

Hey, I could see his page, I could even post on his feed, and apparently I could even make a purchase from his page/feed, but how does one become his friend, like amyjo?

I'm friends with his wife. I was friends with Greg for several years when I first came to Facebook in 2008, but since then he's gone so viral he just went to his page for likes now and followers. I discovered that tonight when I went to check out his page online for this thread.

We weren't classmates in high school, but many of the same kids I grew up with were his classmates after I moved away. His family is as sweet as apple pie, he, his wife, and their five children. I finished high school in Palo Alto, California.

We grew up in the same Idaho countryside. We both had similar memories of our childhoods in Idaho. I haven't been on Facebook as much lately either. Greg makes his livelihood off selling his paintings, and Facebook is where he advertises.

I wonder what his take is on the recent drawings of what the real Jesus may have looked it based on DNA evidence of the inhabitants of Nazareth and area from 2000 years ago. Not much resemblance to Mr. Olsen's vision of JC.
We have no religious art in our home. My Catholic wife has one crucifix on the kitchen wall and some angel sculptures outside...I can live with that.

RB

Mormonism's relationship to DNA is about as bad a relationship they have with reality.

Greg has traveled to Israel and Jerusalem and has done paintings of Jewish/Israeli scenes that are as good as any talented Israeli's art. Of course the Israeli artists are naturally jealous of Greg's natural talent. He's among the best there is for landscapes and scenery.

I hadn't looked at his stuff in a long time. Yes, I absolutely think he's purposely trying to downplay that there's a mormon connection and going for some liberal Christian audiences.

Evangelicals don't seem to like this kind of stuff, though. I had a boss in Alabama who always let me know that God was not our grandfather who took us on picnics. And remember they think more in terms of Jesus as God in the Flesh. They take "fear God" literally and God's love doesn't mean he sits down on the park bench with us, it means he saves us from our sins and rebukes the sinners. They prefer Jesus on the Cross types of pics.

But I do like the way he did the angel thing without the controversy that would surely ensue with LDS if he gave them wings. Just give them a long sheer cape that is blowing in the wind. Pretty ingenious.

Flightless angels. Mormonism clipped their wings.

I worked in the gift industry and was charged with sourcing art for many of our product lines. He was a very popular artist for our Christian lines. It used to be that I couldn't help but stumble upon some of his mormon art when reviewing his online portfolio, but now...nada.

Hmmm...

Whatever the Olsens believe or not, they are salt of the earth, and all around good people.

Their beliefs are most certainly a private and deeply personal matter to them, I should think. The fact he's a public figure invites a degree of speculation, but they relish their privacy nonetheless.

Based on what I've observed they continue to be devoutly Christian. Whatever vestiges of their LDS religion they still adhere to is probably not something they're going to make public anytime soon. His audience is both LDS and Christian for his Christian artwork that is. He gives free downloads for church programs, and they don't have to be LDS to use them. I've seen many of his fine artwork on LDS pamphlets from when I used to attend. I didn't even know they were Olsen's paintings until now. But there they are online - available for church use.

He has nearly 500,000 likes on his Facebook page. That has grown by leaps and bounds in the short time it's been on there. Of course he was a prominent artist before the advent of FB, it's just he has a large network following that provides him far more publicity than he'd enjoyed before then.

I think there's a difference between being an excellent artist and having a polished set of artistic skills. I think Olsen falls in the second group. Mostly, he's a sentimentality merchant who has figured out all the right buttons to push.

Stray Mutt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mostly, he's a sentimentality merchant who
> has figured out all the right buttons to push.

Mormonism is a great fit.

Not much substance to his art but a whole lot of artsell©.

I think you're absolutely correct.

Well, crap! I thought he was something special! But I'm not surprised that it has come to this... just a feeling I had that it was all too good to be twooooooo.

But there really is a difference between having artistic talent and being a talented artist, as Stray Mutt explained.

I'll give you an example from my time working in a gallery:

Maija is a technically talented artist, but her work is appropriated Swedish Indian fantasy crap art, and people LOVE her work, especially those blonde people descended from Cherokee princesses.

It may look pretty and sell well, but artsell is an appropriate term here.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2015 07:11PM by Itzpapalotl.

I agree. He has a highly developed skill set, but employs it in creating art that is very sentimental and has wide commercial appeal. There is nothing wrong with that, but it's not high art.

I love his work. Always have. Thanks, amyjo, for sticking up for him in this lions den of critics :)

Hey, me too, Claire. It isn't even because we grew up in the same Idaho mountains, countryside and went to the same school district (until I moved away.)

The guy is immensely talented! I feel so lucky to be acquainted with him and his lovely family. Also, I believe we both had the same art teacher in 8th grade. I'll have to ask my art teacher, now retired, if that's correct.

He's on my FB page too. :)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2015 10:16AM by amyjo.

So does that mean that church bookstores will now snub him?

Mr. Olsen gave my FIL a piece of art, signed-with-a-personal-message, the one of Jesus overlooking Jerusalem and the Be Attitudes.

My FIL, a lifelong Christian Pastor/Minister, is rather well known among LDS intellectuals like Paul Toscano, who have come to him for 35 years seeking answers to Biblical and doctrinal questions.

Since Greg gave that piece to my FIL many years ago, it's safe to say he got the answers he was looking for.

FIL is bedridden now at 95, but his days are still full of LDS Visiting Seekers, from all over Utah. (Our little pun, get it?)

It's fair to say he was the listener of Mormon's stories before John Dehlin finished high school.