Presidential Candidate of Joseph Smith Jr. June 27,1884 Annivery

Presidential Candidate 

 Joseph Smith Jr. 

  “We should be ‘anxiously engaged’ in good causes and leave the world a better place for having lived in it .” 

Joseph Smith Presidential Candidate 1844
Artist Michael Bedard



I used this same flag first in the painting below  of the Laying of the Nauvoo Temple.

Joseph Smith martyred on June 27, 1844, at the Carthage Jail, ending his brief presidential campaign. Although he did not gain redress for the wrongs suffered by the Saints in Missouri, his campaign had brought much favorable public attention to the Church. Many years later, President Ezra Taft Benson said, Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign had sought to make the United States a better place, not only for the Latter-day Saints, but for all Americans. http://josephsmithsr.com/

also if you would like to purchase a print of this go to my web sight store/Patriotic 

www.bedardfineart.com

Nauvoo Temple Corner Stone Ceremony 1841   

artist Michael Bedard

 The sixth of April , 1841, was a memorable day in the history of Nauvoo. That day the corner stones of the great  temple which God had commanded his people to build were laid. Early that morning the sisters presented to Joseph  Smith and the Nauvoo Legion a silk flag with 27 stars representing each state in the union at that time. This flag was saluted with canon fire and than accompanied the Nauvoo legion as it made its solemn sacred march up mauholland street  to the laying ceremony. 

General Joseph Smith 

Where an answer to prayer began !

Joseph's Home in Palmire New York
taken 2007 last day of April

This some of my family: starting left; Lis,John, Abe and my sweetheart of thirty years Pamela. We are missing Sarah, Alma, Ben, and Adam in this picture.

So this is where it all began! Wow I could not believe I was here, the sacred grove where every prayer on the lips of many christian and non christian alive today was answered .They were pray to find out the purpose of life? This question has been asked in many way sizes and color but really it boils down to the essence of; the purpose, origin and nature of man. When Joseph went into the grove he went into find out which if any of the current sect of religions were true. But he came out with much more.

The First Vision Of the Restoration  Early spring of 1820 

     The personal appearance of Jesus Christ and God the Father to Joseph Smith in the early spring of 1820 marks the most glorious event since the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

“After I had retired into the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God.

 I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me and had such astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction. 

     But exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction, not to an imaginary ruin but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world who had such a marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being. Just at this moment of great alarm I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.

      It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound.  When the light rested upon me I saw two personages (whose brightness and glory defy all description) standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me calling me by name and said (pointing to the other) ‘This is my beloved Son, Hear him. 

I desired to paint  “ The First Vision of the Restoration “, in such a way that others might know Joseph’s experience in every detail as if they had been there. I shot the background  to be used for this painting in Manchester New York. April, 2007 on Joseph Smith’s Sr. Farm where it took place.

     When Joseph went into the woods  that early spring to find out what sect of faith he should join he not only received an answer to this question, but for me a revelation of even greater import was revealed. God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ were separate, distinct, Tangible beings whom he  communicated  in a personal way face to face. Joseph Smith Jr.’s experience in 1820 revealed God as in times past desires to guide his children as they humbly seek him for answers. 

Michael Bedard

Thank goodness his noble parents did not say You need to be WHAT WE ARE!  and do what we say, but instead they encouraged him to search and find out for himself. Free will!!! Something the Founding Fathers of this country new and cherished. We Hold These Truths to be "SELF EVIDENT THAT ALL MEN ARE EQUAL ...TO PURSUE HAPPINESS...". 

Heart of Zion ~ Artist Michael Bedard

Heart of Zion Artist Michael Bedard

This beautiful painting comes from Zion's park near Weeping Rock. It seemed to me when I saw this her cliff, I could see the very heart of zion beating figuratively of course! I love it. It was an easy painting to do. However it still took thirty days from start to finish

Heart of Zion
Framed
 Original oil on Canvas
24 x 36 inches
price  $4,950.00

Limited & Open Ed. Giclee canvas Prints are also available at my web store.

purchase at WWW.bedardfineart.com or call 801-803-3415

Joseph Smith Sr. & Lucy Mack Smith Noble Parents

Joseph Smith Sr. & Lucy Mack Smith
Noble  Parents

Their are not to many good portraits the sweet couple who gave so much to the world. This painting is a way to honer them and  remember them.  

I painted these Noble Parents while living in Nauvoo Illinois.

I used some very good friends of mine use would give the shirt of their back to someone in need.

As always I believe what you are on the inside shows up on the outside when doing portraits. So I picked the Andersons who live in Nauvoo.  

Noble Parents 

Joseph Smith Sr. 

                     These nobel parents, Joseph smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith  raised the young boy Joseph Smith. Jr. , who become the instraument in the Lord’s hand to retore the, “ The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints”. 

      Joseph Smith Jr. wrote concerning his father: “He was a great and a good man. The envy of knaves and fools was heaped upon him. . . . He was of noble stature and possessed a high, and holy, and exalted, and virtuous mind. . . . I love my father and his memory; and the memory of his noble deeds rests with ponderous weight upon my mind, and many of his kind and parental words to me are written on the tablet of my heart.”

      In a revelation given through Joseph Smith four months after the death of his father, the Lord refers to “my aged servant Joseph Smith, Sen., who sitteth with Abraham at his right hand, and blessed and holy is he, for he is mine” (D&C 124:19).

 Lucy Mack Smith

      After six years of marriage, Lucy Mack became very ill, was diagnosed with “confirmed consumption,” Lucy did not feel prepared for death ...  She spent the night pleading with the Lord to spare her life so she could bring up her children  and “be a comfort” to her husband. She vowed that, if her life was spared, she would serve God with all her heart, whereupon she heard a voice advising her, “Seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you. Let your heart be comforted; ye believe in God, believe also in me.” From that point on, Lucy began a long search for a religion that would teach her the way of salvation. 

Jacobs Ladder

Jacob's Ladder

Jacob's Ladder

I would love to do the full version of this some day when I get a commission I will. Their are a few points on this I would like to share. The ladder is a humble ladder held together with the threads of Abrahams Faith, passion for priesthood blessing of the ancient prophets.

The Lord desires all of his children. equal blessings of eternal marriage and family as I mentioned below. The second is the rungs start out a little crooked but straighten as we learn to obey His will and not our own. and the third is the ladder gets more narrow not because we are narrow minded who  follow Christ  but because we have more light and are less prone to wander into darkness and misery.

Dawn in Snow Canyon by Michael Bedard

Dawn In Snow Canyon 

This view is on your way as you go to Johnson's Arch. A simple painting with a delicate touch both in color and edges. A combination of palette and brush work. This little peace went to the Levitt family

Michael Bedard

The Promises of Abraham Saint George Temple 2015

The Promises of Abraham  Saint George Temple

Artist  Michael Bedard ©

 Genesis 15:1,2,5 & 6

 1 After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying,

    Fear not, Abram: I am thy  shield, and thy exceeding great reward.

 2 And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless... ?

 5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars,

    if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.

 6 And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

Artist’s Thoughts

      On the left of this painting, I depict the Lord’s great promise to Abraham of a posterity as 

numerous as the stars in the sky.  The Saint George temple at night, is a beautiful white, reminding us to be pure in thought, always honest and of pure intent.

     Those who enter the temple make sacred covenants to keep the Lords commandments. In return, 

they are promised that the Lord will bless them with eternal marriage and family relationships. 

Michael Bedard working on Commissioned Painting
Promises of Abraham 

This painting was completed about Christmas time 2015. Limited and open edition prints will in the store and webstore starting Monday.  I had such fun working on This Painting I think it makes a great companion to " A Miraculous Request to Pres. Wilford Woodruff 1877" I completed in 2011.

A Miraculous Request to  Pres.Wilford Woodruff