RubySoho
Winston
So How Come Everyone Is An Expert On Art All Of A Sudden?
July 8th 2008 04:06
Piss Christ. Not 'real' art of course.
You have to hand it to us Aussies. We are a nation of instant experts. No-one here gave a hoot about tennis until Lleyton Hewitt won Wimbledon as a plucky 20 year old, and then suddenly poof! Magically we were transformed into a nation of racket-wielding, hard-serving tennis aficionados. Tennis Australia couldn't give away tickets to the Aussie Open and then magically overnight; record breaking crowds.
Same goes for soccer. Yeah, traditionally the sport of 'wogs', not real football, only played by greasy Italians, Greeks and Lebo’s etc etc. But that was before we made it the World Cup and gave the original greasy Italians a run for their money. So from that day on suddenly every Bruce, Steve and Sharon pretended they knew the difference between an offside and a penalty kick.
And now the Art world is getting its heightened share of the action. Not because our artists have won anything but because they have dared to continue what they have been doing for many years. But now, in this age of unparalleled hysteria and fear of paedophiles lurking on every street corner, suddenly everyone has to put in their two cents worth. I could handle it if the public at large was always even remotely interested in the plight of our artists but the fact that pretty much every single photo that is currently causing a furore has been around for years, only highlights to me that no-one who is dissing them has the faintest inkling what the hell they are talking about.
Six years ago, these photos get exhibited and no one bats an eyelash. Now, suddenly they are the height of moral depravity and the artists who took them deserve to be lynched and strung up by their breasts and testicles. I’ll admit, the photo of the six year old girl on the cover of Art Monthly leaves me feeling a little queasy, not because the girl is naked but because of all the make-up she is wearing and the decidedly adult pose she is assuming. But having seen the original photograph and the blacked out version offered up by the Daily Telegraph, I can honestly say that I found the Telegraph’s version to be far more disturbing. Blacking out the naked body of a child does not protect children, it only serves to reinforce the ridiculous assertion that children’s bodies are sexual and should be covered up at all costs. When are we going to realise that the problem is not in the nakedness of our children, but in how we choose to interpret that nakedness? The minute you black out their bodies, that is when you are sexualising them, that is when you are saying that anyone who looks at the body of a naked kid, for whatever reason, is a sick disgusting pervert.
But that’s not what amuses me the most. No, that level of amusement is reserved for the way everyone is now suddenly offering up their solutions and verdicts that must be handed down to the entire art community. “Cut funding to Art Monthly!” they are screaming from the pulpits and even “Cut funding to ALL the arts”.
Why?
“Well because it’s not real art!”
Not real art? Well what do you mean?
“Real art is meant to be genuine, it’s not meant to be shocking or offensive”.
Really? Says who?
“Says me!”
Says you? And who the hell are you to tell the artists what their art should be?
Here’s some food for though for you- Picasso had his fair share of detractors who thought that Cubism was not “real” art. Yeah, probably the most famous artist in the history of the world was derided as a hack. Jackson Pollack? You know, the creator of Blue Poles. The guy who featured on the cover of Life with the headline “Is this the greatest American artist of the 20th Century? “Just throwing paint on the canvas willy-nilly” they claimed. “Get rid of him”. And my personal favourite: a 1959 Reynolds News headline, "This is not art — it's a joke in bad taste.
*Sigh*.
Tell you what, when you have lived the life of an artist, when you have struggled through three or more years of art school, when you have forgone food and clothing and spent your rent money on canvas or film stock, when you have made the decision to dedicate your life to an art and a world that may see you live to the age of 80 without a single moment of recognition, then you can come back to me and tell me what “art” is. Or failing that, get your arse to an art gallery or a photographer’s studio. Real artists don’t sit around waiting for permission from the general public. They have a reason for doing what they do. They are so far ahead of you they are getting sick of waiting for you to catch up. Even the first Impressionists were considered shocking for their style of painting whereby they represented their subjects by way of the impression that the subject left on them, as opposed to the traditional 'paint it like a photograph approach'. Yes, once upon a time even the Impressionists were considered shocking.
And today artists such as Andres Serrano (creator of the notorious Piss Christ), have been slammed by many for their “shock value” and predictably had the same old “not real art” accusation thrown at them. Well Serrano studied at the Brooklyn Museum and Art School. His work has exhibited at the Episcopal Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City and a retrospective at the Barbican Arts Centre in London (2001) and in the Collection Lambert Avignon France (2006). He is a Roman Catholic whose work reflects his religious upbringing and what he thinks religion has been reduced to today.
But yeah, he’s not a real artist.
If you don’t like a piece of art for whatever reason, fine. You don’t have to. But don’t presume that you somehow have the monopoly on deciding what art it and demanding the removal of government funding just because you have come across an art work that rattles you so badly you feel the need to lash out at the artist who created it.
And here's the thing- some people like art to be confrontational. They like art that induces a visceral reaction in them and forces them to question their own responses, to think about their own hates and fears and motivates them to perhaps rethink think way in which they view the world. "Why does this painting make me angry? What is it telling me about myself? Is it the painting or myself that I should be questioning?"
As a filmmaker I can tell you that the worst reaction an audience can give you is no reaction. I would absolutely prefer it if an audience hated my film, hated it with a burning passion rather than simply shrug, look at their watches and think about what to have for dinner. Because if a piece of art can get you thinking, then it has more than fulfilled its purpose, even if the thought is an overwhelming urge to punch the artist that made it. It has aroused a reaction in you. It has made you question the world you live in.
That's what these photographs of the nude children are doing. it is making us question the way in which we relate to our children. the way in which we dress them, feed them, entertain them and educate them. And that is not a bad thing.
That is what art does best. It's called progress.
-Ruby
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Comment by Morgan Bell
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looking forward to the post on Tennis.
batten down the hatches.............
Comment by Steven Barrett's OpEd Blog
I don't think you'd mock the execution of a person unjustly put to death today and no matter how gruesome some of our methods are today, they don't come close to what Christ suffered on the Cross or what many of his followers endured in His name.
Well, there are those martyred Christians, most notably the Anglicans and Catholics who died at the hands of Idi Amin in Uganda. Would anyone even think of mocking their deaths? Course not.
Giving that "artist" any tax funding and the kind of notoriety he sought and received is an insult not only to Jesus Christ, but to all victims of capital punishment, especially those who were unjustly convicted.
Just my two cents worth.
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Comment by RubySoho
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Here is the thing, that piece of art may be offensive to you but it isn't to me or to many other people. To restrict the works of artists just because they say something that offends your religious beliefs is censorship. And that is something that not only artists cannot abide.
As an atheist, I think art work is a vital tool in putting forward the viewpoint that religion should not be off limits just because people have to believe in it. I don't even know that the artist is an atheist. I think he has just had enough of all the images of the cruxifiction that abound.
Personally speaking, I don't care for the art work itself. but it is still art. The artist has a right to create it and I have a right to re-produce it. That's just part of living in a secular society.
Comment by KylieW
Celebrity Obsession
Comment by alt_ed
alt_ed opinion
My niece and nephew run around naked all the time, should the neighbors feel ashamed should they inadvertently catch a glimpse of a 5yr olds naked bottom?
It's a sad fact of life that for all the technological advancements within our society we still favor a barbaric which hunt! --'Look, over there!, it's a father bathing his naked child...', 'Quick, lets burn him at the stake, if he survives, hes a Pedophile, if not well he'll go to heaven', Yeah Its the lords work "Burn'him, Burn'him"...
Comment by Morgan Bell
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it is interesting the info you gave about Serrano, you really cant ever take art at face value
Picasso and Pollock . . . dont even get me started!
Comment by Norm
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So spot on it's not funny.
Comment by Morgan Bell
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Ruby, you are one of the few people i have seen write on the topic that really understands what art is all about!
It was timely that you brought up Sinead O'Connor in your Losing Our Religion post because i was reading about her and the outrage she caused when she sang about child abuse and tore up a picture of the Pope on live TV . . . she was so ahead of her time that people thought she was being rude and blasphemous but the anger she created pushed the spotlight onto the issue and in the words of Lewis Carroll "smoked the monster out" . . . if there is no controversy the average person is too lazy (or busy) to bother examining their own world, we need to nuture artists because they are the people who are brave enough to speak out regardless of taboos
People think pedophilia is a new thing but really its not . . . domestic violence, incest, and child sex abuse have been around since the dawn of time and people have just buried their heads in the sand and accepted it . . . these artists have been examining this subject for decades, poking around in that creepy dark corner that we all know is there but choose to ignore . . . only when artists push the boundaries does the light flood into they murky grey area, all our insecurities bubble to the surface, and we are forced to address a problem despite how uncomfortable it makes us feel
i hope everyone reads this and realises they should resist the urge to shoot the messenger
Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
Having said that, I do not agree with the 'adultising' of children, for example, all those awful fashion parades and advertising.
Children should be represented as they are, children.
However, one issue I must take on here, (as I have already dealt with this child art image argument at exhaustive length on Damo's post on the matter) is; the image of the "Piss Christ".
Someone above commented negatively about the image, probably because of their fears that such an image assaults, and insults, their beliefs.
I say the intention of the artwork is ambiguous, in order to make more people dwell deeper upon the image and what it represents, and what represents it in today's world.
Of course, all art is open to the observer to make up their own mind and their own interpretation.
However, if one thinks about it a little, urine is sterile, so it contains no harmful bacteria, in essence therefore, it is pure and a symbol of purity, and it may save your life, should you be stuck in the desert without water, (for forty days...).
Christ, it is said, was impaled in the abdomen by a soldier guard, while hanging on the cross, and it was noted that no blood issued forth, but water.
Of course, should this have been an accurate record of events, the 'water', would have been his urine.
This image then, can be interpreted as reminding us of how Christ was sacrificed, tortured and died, how he returned his 'salt' to the earth, via his stream of vented urine; urine is also a cure for many skin allegies and infections, and it contains elements beneficial for growth of plants and has many health benefits if imbibed.
So this venting of urine could be seen as a symbolic 'gift' to us earth bound entities, a representation of a positive from an ultimate sacrifice, and a symbol of the purity of love.
Instead of looking for the ugliest interpretation of anything, allowing the shallowest mindless reaction to whatever it is, and simply being led by the nose in present public popular opinion, which has all the hallmarks of a cleverly contrived Pavlov experiment, we should be trying to find the higher intellectual, spiritual and moral ground, one that those of the great philosophers of the past and the great leaders of religion, would have chosen themselves.
Something for the rabid right wing christian promoters of hate to contemplate; Jesus would have flung you all out of the Temple!
cheers and may we all find real peace within, so we may radiate it to the world.
fog
Comment by Morgan Bell
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well at least nobody will be ignorant enough to tell you to stop being so long-winded on this post, rather than bothering to actually read and think about what you have said
that was a really really insightful interpretation of the Piss Christ . . . i havent heard anybody analyze the symbolism of urine like that before . . . im glad i did bother to read what you wrote because it has put the work in a whole new light for me!
thankyou!
i think we do see ourselves in art, so negative defensive people get offended rather than attempting to understand that the art isnt in the object itself, the art is in the reference, the suggestion, the ambiguity, the stimulation of thought . . .
Comment by ChrisC
The Dissector
I'm very interested in the topic you write about, but I could not read past the third par.
I'm assuming you want people to think you know what you're talking about, with lines like,
"only highlights to me that no-one who is dissing them has the faintest inkling what the hell they are talking about."
So, if you want to take this line of argument, please, oh please, do and consider the following...
- Spell names correctly. You have smashed poor Little's name beyond recognition.
- Little did not win Wimbledon at the age of 16.
- Immediately prior to Little, Australia had two male tennis players who managed to draw the occasional headline and pull a fair crowd to tennis matches here in Australia. Their names are Pat Rafter and Mark Philippoussis. Look them up.
- While you may not have heard of soccer before the most recent World Cup, many Australians were aware. You should have tried walking into a pub during a game while a World Cup match was being played four years before Australia qualified. Almost impossible.
And so the only instant expert here seems to be you. How about you stop writing in stereotype, stop shooting for an instant hit on Australian culture, and do a bit of research so you can write an opinion that is worth reading.
Too harsh? Sorry!
Comment by RubySoho
Music Zone
Thought Zone
However, you have managed to completely miss the point of my post. Quite frankly Chris, I don't much care if you find my blog worth reading or not. There is really no need to be so rude to someone right off the bat. Had you told me of your concerns in a more conciliatory manner to start with, then i would gladly have discussed my shortcomings. but since you want to split hairs over irrelevancies, then really, I could care less.
yes, I know who Mark and Pat are, I witnessed the former achieve his historic victory over Pete Sampras during the 1996 Australian Open and I still remember the latter's amazing victory at the 1998 US Open. But really that is neither here nor there. My point is that people generally don't pay much attention to things until the media chooses to bring it to their attention.
Oh yeah, I played soccer as a teenager. I was one of those greasy wogs.
Don't presume anything Chris.
Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
...and for that statement, my dearest Morgan, psychologists (who are not also hiding an agenda themselves!) would applaud you heartily!!
And thank you for bothering to read my comment, and handing me such a nice compliment, I am flattered.
By the way, through all our tongue in cheek (I think that is what it was...in my cheek...sigh.. hehe..) jibing at each other about Boganism, I must say, on general observation, I see you as a good soul of great depth, and the world is in desperate need of souls like yours!
..and you are a bogan...
...and I have noted your unrelenting pride in this fact and I forgive you for being so intractable!
In fact, I am presently emulating the bogan existance, to some degree, as a small token of homage!
(TOAST: Charge your borrowed cracked glasses, fill to brim with stolen bourban and flat coke contaminated by cigarette ash)
AVE MORGAN!!!!
GOOD QUEEN OF BOGAN-VILE
Long may she blog, and all who blog in her!
HEAR!! HEAR!!
cheers
fog
Comment by RubySoho
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Abso-fucking-lutely Kylie.
Hi alt_ed, the situation is getting so ridiculous that men are now afraid to even talk to young kids in the street.
Thanks Norm, . honestly the images in the paper made me sick, that little girls body was nothing to be ashamed of until they stuck a big black square over it as if it was something disgusting.
Comment by Morgan Bell
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you are my fairy godmother!
thankyou for acknowledging my bogan ancestory and thankyou for the continued tongue in cheek jibing
HOWEVER
did you just suggest people blog IN me?????
hahahaha
it is your audacity i admire the most my dear!
Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
did you just suggest people blog IN me?????
Why Morgan, yes, of course I did!!
But only metaphorically speaking dear Morgan... I still have a scintilla of taste left... albeit tinctured by a jaded personality and the remnants of a once rapier wit, once whetted, now dulled by the enmity of experience and all the traitorous memories of future success.
So yes, only metaphorically, as it has been only metaphorical, imaginary and an emotionally solitary existence for me the last 15 to 20 years...sigh..
In some peculiar and abstracted way, we here are all in an electronic 'intercourse' with each other; falling in platonic love, and out again, having favourites, both of enemies and friends alike, each day; a fragmental flickering of relationships, we sit before the screen like some forlorn forgotten friend, at the dock in a heavy mist, waiting for a high tide, to carry us through the veil of social detachment, to land upon the welcoming shores of cyberland friendships... a coquettish emotional playground with all the expected societal rules and none of them, all the expectations and disappointments, of interactions peppered with praise and insult, ignorance and ostracision, that one expects to find in a lifetime of living, in the wild sprawling concrete jungle cities.
...then we turn the pooter off...snap back to reality; some to the throng of family, others to a quieter, lonelier existence, the company of memories being their only callers.
enough of my drivel
By the way, I must correct you on one thing; more correctly, emotionally and physically, I should be known as...
your fairy godblubber!!
cheers
fog
Comment by Josie
Waxing Political
Unique Parent
I went to school for music- I'm certainly not against art. (as with everything I believe- as long as noone gets severely damaged by it like the children in that other post)
I am against art funding because, like I said before, it is the best grant writers who get the money- not the best artists. The two are very rarely, if ever, the same thing. In the USA, philanthropic giving to the arts exceeds government giving by leaps and bounds. There is no need for federal funding. People who are really good already find the money from those who believe in their work.
Comment by Winston
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Comment by Steven Barrett's OpEd Blog
That was an excellent point you brought up about grant writing and producing good art worthy of either public or private funding. Looks like Serrano, Mapplethorpe and Ensler were much better at grant writing than they are at anything else when one considers what mediocrities the two men were and Ensler still is.
Now that you brought that point up, I can only imagine the nasty in-fighting and politiking going on under the radar. Must be the equivalent to academic food-fights, or department meetings, which Henry Kissinger said were far worse than anything he experienced in the Nixon-Ford administrations he served -- and all because the dept. meetings (at Harvard, no less) were over "little things."
This Serrano "Piss Christ" issue is, I'll confess, something that always hits a sore spot in me because I hand carve crucifixes now and then when I'm in my workshop -- and inasmuch as I know my work is better than what Serrano ripped the taxpayers off for, there's no way I'd ever subject my work for a grant because I don't feel like I've "earned enough stripes" so-to-speak to justify such a grant. But this guy did and succeeded. And I know there's a lot of other crafters and artists who are much better and probably didn't get funding.
You sure got my head thinking!
Comment by Norm
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I'd wear it everywhere.
Comment by RubySoho
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Thank you Morgan. I wish more people could view art as you do.
And fog, thanks for that interpretation of Piss Christ. I honestly never looked at it that way at all.
Ah Winston, you did the inverted commas "art" thing. Ahhhh. Oh well, like I said it doesn't have to be liked by everyone. In fact if it is liked by everyone then its probably boring as bat shit. I don't know why some people seem to have this idea that art is just about painting pretty pictures.
Comment by RubySoho
Music Zone
Thought Zone
But having said that i do disagree with you on the subject of government for the arts. You may think it is just the good grant writers who get the funding, but really that is just akin to telling those who choose the funding recipients that they have no idea about art. It's not just what the artist writes on the grant that gets them the green light, the assessors also look at the past work of the artist, the training (if any), the artist has and the value that the proposed art work would have to the community.
As a filmmaker in Australia, my llivelihood is dependent largely on government funding. i have two short scripts and one feature length script that I am in the process of submitting to various government agencies for funding. If my applications are not successful, the I really don't see how I will be able to get those films made. Now i work, I pay my taxes, I contribute to society. I don't think its so much to ask that my government uses some of the taxes that i pay and put it back into the arts. Even if none of my applications is successful, it still pleases me to know that other struggling filmmakers will be given the opportunity to realise their projects. And it'll be back to the drawing board for me.
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Sorry . . . thought a little flippant relief was needed.
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C'mon!
Comment by RubySoho
Music Zone
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Hi Jeff, I'm glad you agree with Morgan, I would expect nothing less from the members of the Mutual Admiration Society...
Hi Clint, I'm totally with you on that one. What detractors of the artwork seem to neglect is the fact that it is not a crucifix in a jar of urine- it is a photograph of a crucifix in a jar of urine. Look at the way the light is hitting the figure of the christ and tell me that doesn't require artistic skill...
Comment by RubySoho
Music Zone
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So in other words Steven, you are just jealous?
Comment by Nathan 1
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Comment by Kleonaptra
Kalikapsychosis
Im rushin to work and I dont have time to absorb all this properly.....But.....
*swoon* Did I mention I love you?
Art is SUPPOSED to be shocking, for those reasons! I thought SOME of the pics leaned towards pornography, some didnt, but all expressed vulnerability as the artist intended. Your take on it is brilliant.
(anyone remember that auzzie artist...Think it was Brett Whitely? Did an installation that screamed at people? That guy drank turps while he was working...)
As for Piss Christ, The Effect is stunning, no one can deny you cant get that effect with any other medium. The light refracted through it and the glow, it wouldnt have been possible with another liquid. Oh, the metaphor, the parody! It has so many levels! Art at its best!
Thankyou Ruby.
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Comment by Morgan Bell
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do you not watch the tv?
do you not watch movies?
do you not read books?
do you not listen to music?
if you are speaking particularly about the visual arts perhaps you should think about who designs the cover art for your books and records, who renders the CGI in your films, who draws the graphic novels that created all our super-heroes, who photographs the celebrities and models that appear in fashion magazines?
everyone benefits from the arts!
its like people who dont own cars saying they dont want their taxes to pay for roads, if there were no roads the delivery trucks couldnt bring food from the farms to your supermarket, and the postman cant deliver your mail to your door . . . try thinking of the bigger picture
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Nathan 1
Film Banana
There are distinctions though in what people see as art. Not that there should be but those who study fine art may not think that comic books and music is worthy of being called art. Oddly enough I was watching an interview with Nick Cave and he was being interviewed by 2 Australian writers who were really busting his chops. They accused music of effectively being superficial with no real impact on societal concerns. The interview kind of annoyed me, but yeah, would you consider advertising to be art also?
Comment by Morgan Bell
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thanks for the interesting question
i wouldnt say the industry of advertising falls under the banner of "the arts" but i do think advertising often draws on the arts for inspiration, uses artistic techniques and can employ artists
there is clearly artistic elements in most forms of advertising but it is an industry that is primarily functional
the intention of an advertiser is to sell a product but they may take advantage of themes and techniques popularised by "the arts"
actually i think they may refer to sign-writers, jingle-composers, poster-designers, copy-writers, ad-directors etc as "commercial art"
what do you think?
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Comment by RubySoho
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Oh yeah, that artwork has just gotten me and my "urine-soaked bigotry" banned from another Orble blog! haha.
Guess who's? haha.
Cib, yes, i think a lot of the antagonism is simply envy. Art is not a real job so why should people get paid for it?
But what people don't take into account is the huge amount of time the artist spends not earning anything, or else working another menial job just to survive.
Comment by Kleonaptra
Kalikapsychosis
I have to say thankyou again, my working week just finished so Ive had time to go through the comments. My mind is stimulated, Ive laughed so hard Ive loosened up...Lovely.
At the end of the day, every artwork is an experimentation. Even after its completed, it becomes inspiration for another experimentation. So he takes some pictures of naked younger humans. Thinks - Nah, I didnt quite pull it off. Next time I will do it better.
Man, we can just keep the argument going then huh?
Arent kids always running around bloody naked anyway? Jeez. Dont you people look down in the shower? It makes me want to walk down the street naked to give everyone some perspective, but Im afraid someone might call it art.
As for piss christ....Please.....Please.. ...LOOK AT IT!!!! Look at it not as a parody or a metaphor just LOOK AT IT!!!
Its BEAUTIFUL! Jesus is GLOWING.....The light surrounding the cross looks like firaments of the universe.....The lights of heaven. Im really, really sorry that urine is the only liquid that will create that effect, but I didnt make that true. Thats for the Big Man himself to answer. I keep saying it. It aint a perfect world.
Its a stunning artwork. The point of art is to take away from it whats important to you. Some see the parody and the metaphor, but it is possible to just see Jesus glowing as if lit from within.
And to all my lovelies who see it all and beg to see more....
Morgan and Fog, you crack me up. Am I blogging in Morgan too?
Ruby, oh man, I almost had tears I laughed so hard....Its that easy to get banned huh? If only I had known!
*kisses*
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