If Jesus Christ who loved little children - is all loving and kind why did he so often look "foreboding, frightening, angry (and) maybe disappointed somehow?"

Years later, those memories serve as "the catalyst that drives me to have faces of the Savior be loving. His eyes have to be kind, the faces not frightening," Swindle said at a recent Repartee Gallery signing event.

Swindle was in Repartee's Midvale branch - one of the gallery's five locations - to promote three of her latest works: "Son of Man: King of Kings," the final segment in a trilogy chronicling the Savior's life; "Silent Night," a canvas of Joseph, Mary and the Christ child; and "Worth of a Soul," the result of a recent life-altering trip to Zambia. (Proceeds from the sale of "Worth of a Soul" benefit the charitable organization Mothers without Borders.)

One of the biggest names in the growing LDS art market, Liz Lemon Swindle has sold $1 million of art in the past fiscal year, earning her the distinction of being the top female LDS artist, according to son Steevun Lemon [grandson of prominent Utah County gallery owner and promoter Sharon Swindle] and Repartee Gallery's managing director, who left a lucrative corporate job to market his mother's art.

And while Africa might be the last place you'd expect to find this Utah County mother of five, Swindle recently traveled abroad to work on a new painting.

Mothers Without Borders founder Kathy Headlee-Miner, whose group provides aid to thousands of the estimated one million AIDS orphans in Zambia, described Swindle's daunting task: "[These children] know the Savior. We wanted to produce a piece of art [so they'd] know the Savior knows them."

As usual, Swindle began by setting up the scenario for her photographer (she sometimes uses videographers as well) to capture still shots to paint from back at her American Fork studio.

Even before brush hits canvas, she has prepared for the work by reading voraciously from various sources, including the scriptures and scholars Alfred Edersheim, Frederick Farrar and the late Neal A. Maxwell, among others.

Prayer is also part of her preparation.

But nothing prepared her for what was to come. Philip Miner, who was the model for Christ on the trip, was greeted not with giggles, hugs and kisses from the crowd for orphaned kids ages 3 to 16, but awestruck silence, then "emotional wailing the likes of which you've never seen in any funeral or movie," Miner said. The children - many had suffered rape, neglect, hunger and watched their parents die - felt sure the Savior had come again. Miner felt he'd "ruined the photo shoot."

Swindle felt frustrated and discouraged. "It just feels wrong for me to be there. I'm not connecting with Africa, I can't get over the poverty part, and I'm whining about everything," she said.

Meanwhile, a 3-year-old village boy named Kennedy climbed into Miner's arms.

"At the moment [Kennedy] looked right at me," Swindle said. "I'm actually saying a prayer, 'What is it you want me to do here?'"

Just then, as Miner impulsively kissed the back of Kennedy's head, the artist said, "this light went on: You can't fix what's going on here till [Africans] learn who the Savior is and understand the atonement . . . That was Africa for me."

Headlee-Miner, who has distributed hundreds of miniature "Worth of a Soul" paintings to Zambians, said the project home.

"People have just wept openly, clapping, grabbing my hands, [saying] 'He knows us. He loves us. This is our Jesus!' "

Meanwhile, an emotionally exhausted Swindle returned home and began work on "Silent Night" despite being slated to paint another project.

"I needed a piece that was just peaceful, so it was the Nativity," she said.

But Christ has not always been the lofty subject of her works. Once a set designer and renowned wildlife artist, Swindle began work documenting the Savior's life in the ambitious Son of Man book series eight years ago.

"I can feasibly see myself painting the Savior until I retire, I just enjoy it so much," she said. "I hope what people get from my paintings is, they stop seeing a picture of Jesus and start seeing a human being (who) lived and breathed and did everything the scriptures said he did and more."