About A Motley Vision:

A Motley Vision is a group blog devoted to exploring the world of Mormon arts and culture. Or to be more specific: Mormon literature, criticism, publishing and marketing — plus film, theater, art, music, and pop and folk culture. Founded by William Morris, AMV was launched June 2, 2004, as a solo Blogger blog. It has since moved to its own domain, added 10 contributors, and continues to be the leading blogosphere destination for Mormon arts and culture commentary, discussion and news.

A Motley Vision received the 2005 Award for Criticism from the Association for Mormon Letters.

About the name:

A Motley Vision takes its name from “Love and the Light: An Idyll of the Westland” a rather didactic verse epic written by Orson F. Whitney. Published in 1918, the work was intended to combat the secularism and “Higher Criticism” which Whitney felt was creeping into Utah society. At one point the hero of the poem, a Harvard man who converts to the LDS Church, visits the Grand Canyon while traveling by train to Utah. Whitney launches into an extended description of the Canyon, drawing upon vivid imagery and wild Classical- and Christian-inspired metaphors to present a complex portrait of its sublime beauty. It’s the best passage in the entire work.

Several stanzas into the passage, the hero describes the Canyon at sunset:

Glorious and grotesque presentment,
Good and ill, a motley vision,
Half-alluring, half repelling;
Rainbow-hued, yet shorn of radiance,
Like to Lucifer the Fallen;
Beautiful, though sadly brilliant,
Blazing with satanic splendor
In the sunset’s dying glory;
All the hues of hell and heaven
In one blare of lurid blazoning,
In one master stroke commingled.

Image credits:
Left – “Lonesome Journey” by Maynard Dixon; middle — photo of woman at Grand Canyon by Merle E. Morris Sr.; right — photo of Grand Canyon courtesy of National Park Service.

Disclosures

Like most book bloggers and pretty much all newspaper reviewers, A Motley Vision bloggers occasionally accept printed or electronic review copies of books. Starting in Dec. 2009, we will mention when that is the case. Print copies will be kept by the reviewer for his/her personal library, or passed on to other interested parties, or given away to AMV readers.

In addition, AMV sometimes links to Amazon using an Amazon Associates code, which means that AMV will receive a small percentage (the exact percentage varies) of anything bought from Amazon.com during the session initiated by that link as a referral fee. Starting in 2010, Amazon links will be indicated like so: (Amazon)

We also sell t-shirts for a commission at the AMV Spreadshirt Store. A portion of the commission on each t-shirt sold (commissions range from $3-5) goes to the designer (with the exception of the shirts that William Morris designs himself — for sales of those shirts the entire commission goes to AMV) and the rest goes to support AMV.

Funds generated by Amazon Associates referral fees and Spreadshirt commissions go to pay for the web hosting costs and domain name registration renewals for the blog itself. Should we reach a point where the money coming in exceeds the web hosting costs, AMV bloggers will receive Amazon gift cards or cash to be used in buying products that support Mormon arts (and that will then be blogged about so that the readers of AMV also benefit).

Finally, here is an all-purpose conflict of interest disclosure: William Morris and other AMV bloggers have ties to many of the players in the Mormon arts community. Some of what we blog about may or may not benefit people we like (or dislike). Some of these people may at times be our submitters, editors, advisers, advisees, critics, readers and/or collaborators.