Larry Macfarlane: Mormon Artist
Larry D. Macfarlane is an adjunct communications instructor at Brigham Young University and an accomplished painter, who calls himself a family history artist or a “painter of memories.”
Macfarlane’s parents nurtured his love of drawing as a child and when he was a teenager, he painted illustrated signs for merchants and designed and painted billboards. He received an art scholarship to BYU, but after noticing people struggling to make a living as artists, he changed his major. He served as a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which he is a member, and then transferred to Utah State University where he majored in sociology and minored in marketing. Upon graduation, he worked as a copywriter for an advertising agency. Most of his career was spent in corporate communications. He has worked in the consumer products and telecommunications industries, and has served clients in fields ranging from petroleum to education to government. He also earned a master's degree in sociology from BYU.
Many years later, on a trip to the art galleries in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, he admired the work of E. Kimbal Warren. When he found out Warren lived in Mapleton, Utah, Macfarlane called him and asked for lessons. For nine months he studied oil painting from him.
Macfarlane created Family History in Art when friends and neighbors started asking him to paint a treasured memory. He has created paintings of old barns, childhood schools, favorite vehicles, ancestral homes, and vacation spots. His website reveals, “The memories people want to recall and secure for permanent display are the places, events, and possessions that define current family members or their ancestors.”[1]
Macfarlane’s work can be found in numerous private collections, museum and library collections, and with charities.
