J. Gordon Anderson - Contemporary Art

Anyone who wants to see what most art schools are like, and what most art school students are like needs to watch the movie " Art School Confidential ". It was on my "to watch" list for a couple years, and I finally got around to watching it a couple of nights ago. It's quite comical, though you might have had to go through an art program to understand some of the jokes. I can personally say that it is very accurate: it captures all of the different types of folk in art programs, the deep-sounding but meaningless philosophical lingo, the PC crap, etc. Check it out if you are interested.

Today (my day off) I am going to clean up one of the rooms here at church so I can hopefully do some painting in there. An artist has to have a studio. I haven't painted anything for a month and a half and am anxious to start back again....

Why do all of the revisionist churches have arts ministries, and not churches that adhere to the Catholic faith? I am going to start a gallery at St. Francis, God willing!

This is one of the best things a church could do: http://www.zenit.org/article-23524?l=english I have been too busy lately with my new parish. Too busy to paint. Too busy to post. When I get settled and into a groove I will probably start doing some landscape paintings of the beautiful SW Virginia landscape.

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...

Finally, an art-religion related story that is worth reading! Maybe we Anglicans need some images like this in our parishes. Check out the story here .