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thoughts on christian art

Hello and good morning but it's dark so it must be night so good night
hi.

Thoughts:

Labels will never ever ever ever ever go away.  We're talking about more
than a cultural habit, I think.  Sure, we do it within the context of a
culture, so our labels are necessarily cultural, but our impulse to label
isn't cultural.  It's human.  Now, the boy ain't no psycho-olo-gisto, so
disregard his opinion if you will.  But that was it.  So, the opinions
that follow from the first are:

1) Labeling is actually an act of human creativity, sometimes enacted on
a mass level.  Defining a category can lead to new kinds of creativity,
eg "postmodern" and "alternative" have been productive categories in the
last 10 or 15 years.

2)  Fairly often, creative categories go stale.  E.g., "postmodern" and
"alternative" in the last 10 or 15 years.  When they do that we should
not hesitate to trash 'em.  

3)  The reason I cringe over the term "Christian Art" is that it has been
attached so firmly to CRAP over the years, especially in the age of mass
produced and mass mediated art.  I just don't wanna put Christian
lamb-and-lion lala art in the same camp as a Flannery O'Connor or Bill
Malonee or Michael Knott or CS Lewis or JRR Tolkien.  Pretty clearly, to
me, these are Christians doing great art, as opposed to other Christians
who, however well-intentioned or useful their product may (or may not)
be, are producing what I will judiciously call not-great-art.

4)  So I'll suggest these two creative categorizations: well done art and
poorly done art.  And extrapolate from there, so I can say, if I want,
this is a Christian doing art well or this is a Christian doing art
poorly or this is an anarchist doing art well or poorly.  Does it matter
whether I modify the art by revealing the belief system of its creator? 
Not necessarily.  But I really believe that t he history of a piece adds
to its meaning, and if the creator's character is known, that becomes
part of the piece's history and meaning.  So why not reveal it?  As a
Christian, I like to know when I am listening to or viewing a Christian
doing art simply for the depth that adds to my experience of the piece in
question.  

This is tapped out.  I can feel it.  Must stop talking about.

Must sleep.

Fred

np: my big box fan making lots of noise but still blowing hot air