#Tumblrstake

[bornofgoodlyparentsandalsotrans]

My sister works at an assisted living facility in Utah and told me that the memory care residents spent a lot of time yesterday arguing over whose fault it was that it was raining, because

“I know SOMEONE prayed for this moisture, and it wasn’t me!”

[brothermouse]

I want to make weird church art. Any suggestion on where to start?

Here's my three step guide to getting started with weird church art:

Step one: there's a little guy in your head who keeps telling you that nobody wants your weird Mormon art. That nobody outside the church cares and nobody inside the church wants that. It's a niche within a niche and there's only, like, three people in the whole world who will know what you're going for. Find the little guy in your head who says that

AND MURDER HIM.🔪🔪🔪💅🔪

Embrace the idea that you're making this art for yourself. Do what you love because you love it.

Step Two: Find inspiration. I got into weird Mormon art by way of a random interest in Vaporwave a few years back. As I poked around Vaporwave subreddit and online communities, I also kept an eye out for any Mormon connections (because that's just a weird thing I do all the time) and I came across LazerOS, who was making some very weird, very Mormon Vaporwave art. It blew my little mind. We can do that? We can make blatantly Mormon art? We can not only talk about, but also embrace the weirdness of Mormonism and NOT apologize for it? Mind. Blown.

Once I knew that there was a least one weird Mormon artist, I started looking for more to see what kind of stuff they were getting away with: Camila Stark's witchy eco-goth approach, Matt Page's Pop art, and any others. The ARCH-HIVE is a great place to find artists making good stuff. Taking in their stuff sort of gave me permission to make my own stuff.

Also make sure to look at more traditional, mainstream Mormon art, C. C. A. Christensen, Minerva Teichert, Jorge Cocco Santángelo, and others. Find what you like to see and absorb it into your artistic being like some kind of cosmic jello horror.

Step Three: Do NOT recreate the Art & Belief movement! You're gonna want to. You might even already want to. I think most Mormon artists go through an Art & Belief movement phase. Don't. It's been tried, it was good, but it failed. Basically the Art & Belief movement was an attempt by LDS artists in the 60s and 70s to make world class Mormon art. The phrase I've heard connected to it was "to make Salt Lake like the Vatican, where people have to find quiet corners to weep for the beauty of the art".

That's a noble goal, and the Art & Belief movement produced some beautiful stuff, but ultimately it failed because of the simple face that Salt Lake is not the Vatican. Mormon art will never be Catholic art. Not should it be. Nearly every force involved in the Art & Belief movement from the artists themselves to church leadership wanted Mormon art to be something it wasn't. The artists wanted it to be something that connected emotionally to the world and church leadership wanted it to be instructive and traditional. Both were disappointed because that's not what Mormon art is.

Frankly we don't yet know what Mormon art is. That's kinda what the goal of weird Mormon art is, throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.

Ultimately the TL;DR version is this: Make your art for you. Learn what you like and do that. Let it be what it is and learn to love it.

[personal-progress-dropout]

“Well, it would confuse the kids if trans people were teachers.”

You know what else is confusing? Being told my entire life that I would be exclusively attracted to men when in fact I am a raging queer. And you’re not giving kids enough credit, if they can handle topics like ‘you have a set of earthly parents and a set of Heavenly Parents and both are real parents to you’ then they should understand the concept of being trans.

Also, I’m not sure if they’ll care. God knows me and my friends were only in primary for the songs and the fruit snacks.

[gay-mormon-wizard]

I am a TRADITIONAL MORMON and I follow TRADITIONAL MORMON VALUES

I am a COMMUNIST

I believe in PRISON ABOLITION

when I see someone being HOMOSEXUAL or TRANSSEXUAL, I mind my OWN DAMN BUSINESS

I support ROBUST URBAN PLANNING

I think all young women should learn INTEGRATED PEST CONTROL

I like my women how I like my men: VOTING IN EVERY ELECTION and BECOMING DOCTORS

I believe people are INHERENTLY GOOD and need to be ENCOURAGED WITH COMPASSION, not CONTROLLED WITH AUTHORITARIANISM

I think HANDCARTS are the BEST WAY TO TRAVEL

I practice WITCHCRAFT, MAGIC, DIVINATION, and ASTROLOGY

FOLLOW MY BLOG FOR MORE TRADITIONAL MORMON BELIEFS

[hiseyeisonthesparrow]

[through gritted teeth, with fists clenched]

When upon life's billows you are tempest-tossed, when you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, COUNT YOUR MANY BLESSINGS, NAME THEM ONE BY ONE, AND IT WILL SURPRISE YOU WHAT THE LORD HAS DONE-

[shrubseph]

I do not "struggle with same-sex attraction", I struggle with heteronormativity and internalized homophobia.

[aviesnapkindoodles]

put this in the tumblrstake community but wanted to share here: lo and behold, one of my favorite aspects of Mormon culture and an apron I desperately want

[heathersdesk]

There are a lot of adults going to church today who are going to be Pikachu-face surprised when they get to judgment and are handed a millstone to place around their necks because of how unsafe they've made this world for children.

[jibberwockk]

felt awkward about wearing the same dress to church two weeks in a row then remembered that every single young man wears their single signature jacket/sweater every week without fail and hasn’t changed it in years

[churchsideblog]

seeing people discussing the concept of hell and how cruel the idea of eternal punishment is like, wow! i know this belief system you would love if not for your knee-jerk reaction against its name

[j-the-latter-gay-saint]

thinking about Her (elizabeth bennett's daydream of standing up and throwing a hymnal at mr collins in the middle of his sacrament meeting talk and clocking him dead in the face in the 2003 mormon movie adaptation of pride and prejudice)

[nerdygaymormon]

[secret-sageent]

You guys don’t even know. You don’t even know about my Book of Mormon playing cards

EDIT: my sincerest apologies; it seems there is a high demand to see said cards and I neglected to include them lol

Behold <3

[eve-ate-the-right-fruit]

Things that did NOT make me consider leaving the church:

coming out as queer

every time I find out another cool thing about Quakerism

Things that did make me consider leaving the church:

seeing 2 (TWO!) cybertrucks in the temple parking lot

[gay-mormon-wizard]

I've gotten past the point of being able to give a deep answer when people ask me why/how I stay in the church as a queer person. "Why do you stay?" because fuck the people who want me out, this is my home and I'm not leaving. "How do you stay?" by repeating the mental litany of "fuck you" to everything that tries to drive me out. "How do you reconcile your identity with your faith?" I reconcile it by fuck you. I choose the life I want to lead and nothing will prevent me from it.