J. Gordon Anderson - Contemporary Art

My wife and I had dinner at a swanky yacht club recently with some parishioners, and there was a gorgeous painting by A.E. Backus in the dining room. Backus is a legend on the Treasure Coast of Florida, and is credited with teaching the original artists of the " Highwayman " school of painters - a group that I refer to as "Florida's version of the Hudson River School ". The beautiful painting - which I didn't get a picture of - made me lament not painting landscapes myself. I started off doing landscape, and used to do it exclusively (in the Bob Ross style), but once I began my formal art education I switched to other subject matter. But there is something infinitely satisfying and appealing about landscape art. The natural world speaks to all people. One of the few such paintings I have done recently is pictured. Landscape is actually much harder for me to do than other subjects - I think because it is already very abstract. It's easier for me to tak

A friend with whom I have collaborated on some art projects before is going to be having a show at a Washington, DC gallery, and was told that the works we collaborated on could not be shown as "religion" is not permitted in the show. When he informed me of this I responded as follows: "I am not surprised that work with religious themes is being banned by these facists. I was asked (twice) to participate in shows down here, but there was a similar ban, so I boycotted them. So much for "open minded" people. And there is usually no rhyme nor reason for such censorship. I could see, if you were doing a show in the West Bank or something why there might be certain stipulations like these, but to encounter this in the USA (and especially in DC), where churches, and synagogues, mosques, etc. are on every corner, and an established part of everyday life, is really quite strange. Such bans actually display a great deal of cultural ignorance and stupidity, especially w