Driving down a lonely desert highway, artist R. Todd Stilson (BFA ’94) was struck by the guidance expressed on the road. “These signs really are benevolent things,” he says, because they provide safety and direction.
Stilson’s Failing Your Test(behind the artist here), recently displayed in the Harold B. Lee Library, uses these signs to explore a test of faith. The white line along the top represents pausing to contemplate a decision, while the arrow indicates a deviation from the strait and narrow path.
Overcoming mistakes through repentance brings us closer to Jesus Christ, Stilson says. “There’s . . . a beauty in the rawness [of mortality], which is exemplified in the beauty of the exhibit.”
