Happy Birthday Black Jesus!

For Christmas I would like to share some of my recent artwork dealing with Jesus Christ.

Happy birthday Jesus!!!

I pray that you will be with the poor, the lonely, the humble, 

and the weak on this beautiful day.

I also pray that people will be willing to help those in need,

just a Jesus of the oppressed would (and did) do.

Amen!

A Black Jesus

This poster, with an image of a Black Jesus, is designed to represent James Cone's theology in my Make it Plain art exhibition.  James Cone was a theologian who made the idea of a black Jesus famous.  Cone was responding to the images of a white Jesus and a white God that supported the oppression, murder, enslavement, and oppression of blacks. James Cone responded with the idea that Jesus represents the oppressed peoples, and Jesus therefore was seen as black.

Cone combined the ideas of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.  He took Malcolm's ideas of self love and a added them to Kings philosophy of loving others.  Cone  used MLK Jr's Black Christian theology.  James Cone is known as the founder of Black Liberation Theology (which still had some grit if you read his actual sermons).

The church responded to Cone with the idea "God is not black; God is race-less."  Keep in mind before Cone, God was seen as white often with blonde hair and blue eyes....sorry, God is not European (don't worry I know Jesus was not biologically African either).

For Christmas I would like to wish Jesus a happy birthday and thank him for teaching us to love those our society sees as bad, evil, poor and untouchable. 

European Jesus from Sodahead.com

People who have heard of James Cone in response to the anti Obama campaigns, have heard incredibly distorted views of what black Liberation Theology actually is saying.  These same people seem to forget the circumstances that men like James Cone and Malcolm X were responding to and living with on a daily basis.

Visit my art blog to see more art work from this Make it Plain

Click here to listen to James Cone on NPR.

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Update: I don't believe the BLT is 100% perfect, anything that is "Jesus +" is not the true Gospel. Nor do I believe that Jesus was actually black. This poster was a component of a larger art exhibition.

Complete Window

Well here is the final window.

Click here to see more about the individual sections.

UPDATE: Body Piercing

See the old poster
See the poster series Grace is A Bit Queer

Kingdom of God

Last month my pastor asked me to create a background for a Power Point.  People responded quite well, so I am creating another one.  This sermon series will be titled the Kingdom of God and my design will be based on stained glass windows with some of the stories from Matthew 5.  The window will also consist of some typical stained glass imagery. 

This image is the logo for the whole series.  It will reappear in the last roundel as well.

This series will come from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 - 7)

I will post some of the other images in the following weeks.

Black superheros

Here is a chance for you to see my true nerdy-ness.  I love comics and superhero video games.  My favorite game is Justice league and my favorite comic is probably Arkham Asylum.  I would like to show you some superheros that are not as well known.

Some of my favorite back superheroes include Onyx, Green Lantern, Storm and Black Panther.  I like Onyx because she is an assassin and Elektra is also one of my favorites.  Storm is pretty famous, and Hal Jordan is the Green Lantern that I play as in Justice League.


Anyways enjoy some characters you may not be familiar with.


over 60

20 more

Vol 3

not just female


Alicia Keys - Superwoman

Why Christian Music Sucks!!!

People in one of my classes seem to hate Christian music.  They also don't like Christians or anything to do with them.  They didn’t know that a band they listen to, Underoath, was a Christian band.  When they found out they decided to mock Christian music instead of admitting that Christians were capable of producing valid work.  Their reasons for why Christian music sucks are below along with my somewhat frustrated responses.

1. “If you have a crappy band, just start calling yourselves a Christian Band and you will have no problem getting fans.*”

Yes, there are bad Christian bands the same as there are bad secular bands, but when we consider that Christian record labels are fairly small in comparison to others it seems a little less likely that they would become famous.   If a band found out they stink and then switched to a Christian record label it would typically mean that they switched to a smaller label.  I think that bands have to be decent based on fans, their music samples, and playing small gigs before they can get signed (I could be wrong).

It could be assumed that there are Christians who like music simply because it is Christian (I am not sure why it is bad to like something simply because you want to support the group or cause) Maybe they like the lyrics, stage presence, like the beat or another specific quality.  All of these are valid reasons to like a band.  Many people like hip hop music for the beats, even if they believe that the chauvinistic lyrics are wrong and unintelligent.  Even if these are people's reasons for liking music, these are valid reasons to like a band and indicate that the music is good, not bad.

2. An example of a bad concept (in a graphic design class) could be “all those Christian Band Cd covers where its just people staring, like morons. Maybe they are staring at God.*”

Well most small startup bands have this problem with their CD covers. They don’t have the money to get a great CD cover, however, if you look at Invisible Creature (a Christian Design firm in Seattle) or Demon Hunter, a Christian band that has great design, you will see that not all Christian CD covers have terrible design.

Christian music often has extremely deep lyrics and concepts in their music.  These concepts often lead to great package design.


Quote 1 and 2 = debunked, I guess Christian music isn't the worst thing ever.


**Remember that these quotes (reasons for why Christian music sucks) come from some boys who just found out one of their favorite bands was a pretty famous Christian band.

Here are my favorite 13 Christian heavy bands and here are 13 more.  See for yourself.

GRACE

Grace is Queer

This poster is hard for me because I chose to use topics that I am against and raise fairly strong emotional responses.  For example my biological father was murdered by a member of the KKK and in high school my dad's (adoptive/ real) car was bombed in our driveway.  The poster is telling the viewer that "we are called to forgive everyone," even the people that have done this things to me. 

I know that the call to action for this poster is not nearly as as easy to do as it is to say.  I know that forgiveness is a difficult everyday decision that we can actively make.

God, please help us to forgive 

those who sin against us.  

Lead us not into temptation 

but deliver us from evil...

Amen!

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Don't Blame the Dark for Being Dark

I am not saying that people shouldn't or wont be held responsible for their actions.  There are consequences; however, we should not be blaming the victim.  

This is a call to Christians to reach out to others and show the gospel of love instead of preaching and expecting people to understand.

Check out more posters at Grace is a Bit Queer.

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What if?

I have a couple classes where people bash Christians on a daily basis.  It gets annoying because most of these people don't know much about Christianity.  It is also frustrating because our society no longer sees the many great projects that Christians do.  They associate Christian with bigot and ignorant, not graceful and loving.  

What if things were different? 

Check out my website to see some ways that we can make things differenet.

Grace is a Bit Queer

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The Righteous don’t need a Savior

Grace is Queer

The healthy don't need a doctor

More about this poster.

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Hey Fred, God Loves Gays

Read more about this poster and others at my site titles "Grace is a Bit Queer."

If Jesus loved the murderer on the cross next to him, I would be willing to bet that he loves gays as well.  God loves the glutton and the lustful (both of which are addressed in the Bible more than homosexuality.  There is not a person on this earth that has fallen short of the glory of God and there is not a person that God doesn't or can't love. 

It is hard to grasp but God even loves Fred Phelps.
Even though I do believe his hate makes God soooooo Sad.

It is easy to think "God doesn't like that person, or this person because...."  I would argue that God may not like someone's actions, but there is no way that I would argue or could be convinced that there is a person whom God doesn't love.

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Grace is A Bit Queer

The idea for this poster came from my life drawing class.  During a critique the class discussed how the model looks like Jesus.  It was interesting because the model was a friend who happened to be gay.

The text in this poster is jumbled and confusing to represent the contrast between grace and our culture.  Our culture tells us that we should get what we deserve.  If we do good in school we should get good grades, good grades will get us a good job and a good job will get us lots of money.  We earn what we get and nothing is free.

Grace, however, offers a different message.  It is free and we can not earn it.  It is different from most every aspect of our culture.

Grace is queer.

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