*Christian Artist Association*
Welcome to the *Christian Artist Association*. These are the letters from the desk of the Chairman of the Board of the association. My name is Brian Meade and I would like to personally invite you to regularly visit this news blog for the latest progress and personal thoughts about this association, the latest events, and how our mission is being accomplished. If you are a Christian music artist, business, individual, or church and would like information on joining the association, visit our website at www.christianartistassociation.com
Enjoy the reading and welcome aboard.
Brian Meade
Chairman of the Board
*Christian Artist Association*
1130 8th Avenue South
Nashville TN 37203
Enjoy the reading and welcome aboard.
Brian Meade
Chairman of the Board
*Christian Artist Association*
1130 8th Avenue South
Nashville TN 37203
posted by Brian Meade at 5:00 PM
1 Comments:
Dear Brian:
You call your group the Christian Artist Association. Yet, it seems to me that your primary focus, and possibly your only focus, is on Christian music.
I have nothing against Christian music. I'm a Christian musician myself, and I have been a huge fan of contemporary Christian music for roughly 35 years. But it seems to me that in spite of the prominent role the visual arts have historically played in the church, the church in the 20th and 21st century has had a shameful habit of neglecting visual art and other art forms, relative to its overemphasis on the art form of music.
If you don't believe me, search for the phrase "Christian artist" on the web. I predict that a vastly disproportionate number of your search results will pertain to music, and you'll find relatively little information about other art forms.
Why is that? Is it because the modern church is mostly uninterested in art unless it's an art form which lends itself easily to overt propagandistic verbal proclamations of Christian truth? Sadly, I think that that's the best explanation of the phenomenon.
H.R. Rookmaaker, a well-known Christian writer, has written about the subject of Christianity and the arts. He says that art "needs no justification". In other words, art can have intrinsic value for a Christian even if it does not directly proclaim the gospel.
There's nothing wrong with a Christian painter creating a beautiful image of a bowl of fruit or a mountain landscape (which, after all, is God's creation), without feeling that it is incomplete unless it's accompanied by a Bible verse.
There's nothing wrong with a Christian musician choosing to play a piece of instrumental music (as J.S. Bach often did) or singing a song talking about love between a man and woman (as the Song of Solomon did in the Bible).
Even when a work of art doesn't directly proclaim the gospel, it can often open doors for evangelism. For example, a painter may choose to share his or her faith in the context of a magazine article about that artist, or in the context of an "artist's profile" or "bio" page on that artist's web site.
Once one opens one's mind to the idea that the definition of "Christian art" can be broader than the propagandistic definition, one begins to see that all art forms have a place of value in God's kingdom.
If you are going to claim to be a ministry for and about Christian artists, then I would encourage you to broaden your definition of the word "artist", and to offer things of value pertaining to all artistically talented Christians, instead of just being limited to music.
For several years, I've been working on plans to start a ministry called the Christian Artists' Resource Center. (With that in mind, I've registered www.artisticchristians.com as a domain name, although the actual web site has not been created as of this date, other than an extremely rudimentary home page.)
The Christian Artists' Resource Center (and its related website) will be a ministry for and about all artistically talented Christians, including but by no means limited to musicians.
If you have Adobe Acrobat Reader, be sure to check out the PDF file consisting of my preliminary proposal pertaining to the Christian Artists' Resource Center. I'll be updating that proposal in the future, but the version currently online should give you a good idea of what I would like to create in terms of a Christian arts ministry.
Of course, things will have to be done one step at a time, in stages. I have faith, but I'm also a realist.
A related "To Do" list (which is also in need of a substantial update, as well as a bit of organization) can be found at this address.
I'm going to be interested in networking with other Christian arts organizations, including the Christian Artist Association, so feel free to e-mail me to share any thoughts or ideas you may have on the subject.
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