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PrintAn old church, converted
A British-born artist brings her special creativity to resurrecting a Tetonia landmark
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Natalie Clark is delightfully English. Even though she’s held American citizenship since the mid-1980s (and has lived in Chicago, Jackson, and Washington, D.C.), she still speaks proudly in that quintessential, enthusiastic, and polite accent of someone raised in Hertfordshire, just north of London. Furthermore, she positively basks in the aura of being a successful international artist.
Topic of the day: the old Mormon church in Tetonia, the northernmost of the trio of incorporated cities that make up Teton Valley. She converted this building into a lovely artist’s workshop, showroom, and living space.
It was a classic prairie-style church that started life in 1913, just three years after the dedication of Tetonia as a town. The church’s construction was entirely a volunteer effort on the part of its members, and Clark is convinced that it was only the care, craftsmanship, and pride of the builders that enabled her to save the structure from an almost certain fate of demolition.
From the beginning, Clark wished to keep whole as much of the integrity, and original look and feel, of the church as she envisaged its renovation.
In 1987, on a visit from Chicago to create sculptures for a garden in Teton Village, Clark was touring Teton Valley and came across the old church. The artist in her mind said: “I want it.” Its state of dilapidation led her to believe that it might be available.
“When I first came across it, it was an absolute disaster,” Clark said. “There was a large hole in the roof. Sawdust had been used for insulation. Not one of the Gothic arched windows stood whole, and it had become the domain of feral cats.”
The simplicity of the design (a large rectangle with a single ridgeline and a 6:12 pitch roof), the solidity of the foundation, and the heaviness of all structural timbers are still testament to the stoutly built original structure.
