Dear A&O Readers:Welcome to January 2013! It'll be five years this August! I began Alpha Omega Arts in 2008 after moving to NYC and being overwhelmed by the rich religious and cultural diversity. Daily blogging helped me to sort through the complexity and gave me peace-of-mind. Today, I live in Indianapolis but remain all-consumed by explorations of religious diversity through the lens of the arts. In 2011, my blog gave birth to the educational charity, the Alpha & Omega Project for Contemporary Religious Arts, Inc. Together, they help...
Monday, 31 December 2012
ALPHA OMEGA ARTSBy Ernest @DisneyBrittonOn the 7th Day of Christmas (New Year's Eve), I gave Gregory Disney a glass ornament of Mickey Mouse as Santa Clause. It's a Hallmark product but with gold shoes, and a lovely swan to swim along with the rest of Greg's collection of gold ornaments on the tree. I hung it myself. [12 Da...
ALPHA OMEGA ARTSBy TahlibPost #4, Artist Todd Fox's INSPIRE ME! profileThis year I created our first ever "Top 10 Religious Art Stories" of 2012 to see if there would be any surprises. I assumed that as Editor of the Alpha Omega Arts news blog, that I would already know which were the most popular. I was wrong. I was 10 out-of 10 times wrong! In doing this research, I learned that while you do certainly read controversial posts, that they...
Sunday, 30 December 2012
THE NEW YORK TIMESBy MANOHLA DARGIS★★★★---In the first long act of “Les Misérables,” Anne Hathaway opens her mouth, and the agony, passion and violence that have decorously idled in the background of this all-singing, all-suffering pop opera pour out. It’s a gusher! As he showed in “The King’s Speech” and in the television series “John Adams,” Mr. Hooper can be very good with actors. But his inability to leave any lily ungilded — to direct a scene...
ALPHA OMEGA ARTSBy Ernest Disney-BrittonThis is the final NEWS OF WEEK for 2012, and time to share my appreciation to the members and readers of Alpha Omega Arts. It's been an extraordinary year. I thank you for over 10,000 visits each month; for sponsoring college scholarships for interfaith youth; and for voting to honor an American artist and a religious leader for their advancement of religious understanding through art. In closing...
ALPHA OMEGA ARTSBy Ernest @DisneyBrittonOn the 6th Day of Christmas, Greg opened his red-paper wrapped gift box with a red-white and blue button inside. The button read, "Out For A Wild Time." It made me think of Wild Geese a laying. I know it's a reach but 12 days is a whole lot os gifting! [12 Da...
Saturday, 29 December 2012
ROGER EBERTBy Roger★★★---One of the ingenious and sort of brave accomplishments of Russell's screenplay (inspired by a novel by Matthew Quick) is the way it requires both father and son to face and deal with their mental problems and against all odds finds a way to do that through both an Eagles game and a dance contest. We're fully aware of the plot conventions at work here, the wheels and gears churning within the machinery, but with these actors, this velocity and the oblique economy of the dialogue, we realize we don't often see it done this...
COLUMBUS DISPATCHBy JoAnne Viviano"The Guardian" by Lucas Lorenzo, Acrylic on masonite panelOHIO--Art collector John Kohan stops in front of a dark image of an angel gazing at a German soldier and holding a hand over the muzzle of his gun. The etching by Austrian artist Ernst Fuchs is a far cry from the nearby glitter-covered depiction of angels rejoicing, painted by Rudolph Valentino Bostic of Savannah, Ga. The artworks are among three dozen angel-themed...
JERUSALEM POSTPHOTO: ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITYISRAEL---Archeologists uncovered rare remains of ritual objects and a 3,000-year-old temple while conducting excavations ahead of the renovation of the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway, the Antiquities Authority announced on Wednesday. A First Temple-period discovery announced on Wednesday was a large structure with massive walls and an east-facing entrance, believed to be a temple. A central dilemma of...
WASHINGTON POSTBy Associated PressWASHINGTON, DC---Is a gay-centered Christian church needed anymore? On that Sunday in 1968 when Troy Perry borrowed a minister’s robe and started a church for gays in his living room, the world was a very different place. It’s remarkable the denomination has endured at all. Metropolitan Community Churches brings together many different Christian traditions under one banner that often struggle to stay friendly in the outside world. Perry, now 72 and retired, is a Pentecostal who started preaching when he was just...
ALPHA OMEGA ARTSBy TahlibYes, Virginia there is a ton of Religious Art in Indiana! The 10 Most Popular Posts for 2012 are ranked inorder below. What were the surprises? None for me. What about for you? To check out the entire listing of Indiana art news postings, visit: [Indiana]. Here is the Top 10 for 2012:Alpha Omega Art's Interfaith KidsEarth House: Closing DoorsMadonna's Ancient Religions Half-TimeGary Vavel's ChristmasIslamic Art at Indianapolis Museum of ArtA&O Meetup for Islamic Art DocumentaryA&O Meetup for Saints at the Indianapolis...
INDIAN EXPRESSBy VadodaraImage of artist being arrested for obscene religious artINDIA---Paintings of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati, alleged to be "obscene", were today removed from the exhibition hall of the Fine Arts faculty at the Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU) here, after VHP activists opposed its display and lodged a complaint in this regard. Surjeet Singh, an artist from Jammu, had organised this exhibition of paintings from December...
TOWELROADPOLAND---Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan's 'HIM,' a 2001 sculpture of Adolf Hitler praying on his knees, has shown all over the world, including New York City's Guggenheim and Venice's Palazzo Grassi, eliciting emotions everywhere it appears. And that's precisely the point. But should the likeness of the most vile anti-Semite be placed at the site of Poland's Warsaw Ghetto, home to so many Jewish people killed by Hitler's Nazi armies? HIM...
RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICEBy Daniel BurkeReligious videos sparked international riots, stirred up the U.S. presidential campaign, sought to comfort LGBT youth and urged Christians to rethink their religious ideals. In chronological order, here are seven religious videos that made headlines in 2012. [link]Why I hate Religion, But Love Jesus“It Gets Better,” at Brigham Young University“Innocence of Muslims”Obama’s 2007 speech on race, Katrina and the Rev. Jeremiah WrightSecretly taped Mormon temple ceremoniesMitt Romney talking about Mormonism, abortion...
Friday, 28 December 2012
ALPHA OMEGA ARTSBy Ernest @DisneyBrittonOn the 5th Day of Christmas, I handed Greg the smallest of gift boxes from the pile, and inside he found two silver door stops ("Butoir de porte rigide") from Lowes. Why these for Christmas? My answer is a second question, "If not then, when?" Since last year, it's been on his to-do list (and mine) to pick up these doorstops to match the other hardware on our 2nd floor renovation but these small items keep...
THE DAILY STARBy Andrew LawlerAFGHANISTAN---When the Taliban blasted the famous Bamiyan Buddhas with artillery and dynamite in March 2001, leaders of many faiths and countries denounced the destruction as an act of cultural terrorism. But today, with the encouragement of the US government, Chinese engineers are preparing a similar act of desecration in Afghanistan: the demolition of a vast complex of richly decorated ancient Buddhist monasteries....
ALPHA OMEGA ARTSBy Ernest @DisneyBrittonOn the 4th Day of Christmas, Greg picked from my pile of wrapped gifts a box of Snowballs. What are snowballs? They are carmel popcorn covered in brown sugar and white chocolate from the South Bend Chocolate Company, and came with a gift certificate for a cup of hot white cocoa. He's really enjoying this notion of 12 Days of gifts, and who wouldn't like this from the company that promotes themselves...
THE GUARDIANBy David ShariatmadariUNITED KINGDOM---In a simple house in 7th-century Arabia, a woman drapes an embroidered curtain with pictures of living creatures on it across a doorway. When her husband returns, he is displeased and pulls it down. This is no ordinary house, and no ordinary husband and wife. It is the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, and his spouse Aisha, who related the story that has been passed down for nearly 1,400 years. But it...
AEON MAGAZINEBy Emma Crichton Miller Abstraktes Bild 809-4. Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty ImagesWhen art was an adjunct of religion, its power was clear. But from the Renaissance on, painting, at least in the Western tradition, has preoccupied itself as intensely with secular as with overtly religious subject matter, or else with no subject at all. Yet when you are in the presence of an unequivocally great work of art, it seems to open a door to...
Thursday, 27 December 2012
HOUSTON CHRONICLE | ICONIABy Menachem Wecker"Sanctum"LOUISIANA---Many different faiths have enlisted art as a way to show how belief can improve human behavior. But other times, religion can be dark and frightful, as appears to be the case when one first considers the work of Houston-based painter Sharon Kopriva. Kopriva’s cardinal, for example, whose clothes are tattered, whose eyes are sunken, and whose skin is weathered, recalls one of the artist’s...
THE DISPATCHBy Rebekah Cansler McGeeJudy King holds one of her unique clay-sculpted nativity creationsthat shows Mary and Joseph on the ground with Baby Jesus.NORTH CAROLINA---Life is not flawless, and despite historical renderings where the nativity scene was picture-perfect, the story of Mary and Joseph included real people, in a real place at a real time, and their life might have been just be a bit messy, too. That untidiness of life is reflected...
SACRAMENTO PRESSBy Jessica RineSculpture on display. Image courtesy of Wall Street JournalCALIFORNIA---Legend says that when the deity Manjushri came to Nepal from China, he found the entire valley under water. To make his way through, Manjushri took his sword and sliced through the surrounding hills, draining the valley of water, and the Kathmandu Valley was formed. A statue of Manjushri begins the exhibit of Nepalese art at the Crocker Art Museum....
ALPHA OMEGA ARTSBy Ernest @DisneyBrittonOn the 3rd Day of Christmas, Greg picked from his pile of wrapped Christmas gifts a: Freedom to Marry T-shirt. On one side it reads, "Right Side of History." How about you? Are you on the right side of history? Among religious traditions, we know the Metropolitan Community Church, United Church of Christ, and Episcopalians are currently on the Right Side of History. The same is true for Reform Judaism and Conservative...
Wednesday, 26 December 2012
ALPHA OMEGA ARTSBy Ernest @DisneyBrittonThe saddest thing about Christmas is that for many people, it ends on December 25th. That's why we started a new tradition this year: an Advent Vegan Fast that led up to Christmas Day, and then we began our 12 days of Christmas. On this 2nd Day of Christmas, I gave Greg a bowling ball for the 2nd Day of Christmas. It'll take me a while yet to perfect the link between the gifts, the song, and the...
THE GUARDIANBy Jonathon JonesDetail "The Annunciation" by Leonardo da Vinci. Photograph: Francesco Bellini/APITALY---Leonardo da Vinci painted the most beautiful angels in the world. This is strange, because Leonardo was not a religious man. Although the National Gallery made a vivid case for him as a religious artist in its 2011 exhibition of his paintings, there is very little in his notebooks to suggest that Christianity was part of his everyday,...
BLOUIN | ARTINFOBy Nicolai Hartvig "72 Vierges" (2012) by Mehdi-Georges Lahlou (b. Morocco)BRUSSELS---The 29-year-old French-Moroccan artist Mehdi-Georges Lahlou has had an eventful early career. The two works hit on several sensitive issues in Muslim culture: the prohibition on modifying one’s body, nudity, sexuality, and improper use of the Koran and religious objects. With his loose combination of religious iconography and incongruous objects,...
ALJAZEERABy Eric BleichVERMONT---When I invited artist Marie Rim to Middlebury College, I didn't know what to expect. Her project "Burka Fittings Across America" asks randomly selected people to try on a burka for a few minutes and to look at themselves in a full-length mirror. Her artistic goal is to explore "otherness, embodiment and empathy, as well as the meanings Americans associate with the burka". Marie Rim grew up on the East Coast and is...
Tuesday, 25 December 2012
INDIANAPOLIS STARBy Gary VarvelCartoon by Gary VarvelINDIANA---This cartoon is composed of multiple images. May you find the Savior who was born in a manger. His names are found in Isaiah 9:6: For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. [li...
ALPHA OMEGA ARTSBy Ernest @DisneyBrittonINDIANA---My images for the 12 Days of Christmas are courtesy of Foodie, Carol Bowen Ball at BariatricCookery, but my stories are about Greg Disney-Britton. Greg is funny. On the first day of Christmas, his true love planned to give to him a single gift (but in response to a whine or three whines), he received his normal three: (1) Mind: Words with Friends, the board game version; (2) Body: A Gentspa massage...
RELIGIONS NEWS SERVICEBy David Gibson"Nursing Madonna" (1520s) by Bernardino LuiniAt its heartwarming core, Christmas is the story of a birth: the tender relationship between a new mother and her newborn child. Yet all the familiar scenes associated with the holy family today – creches and church pageants, postage stamps and holiday cards – are also missing an obvious element of the mother-child connection that modern Christians are apparently happy...
Monday, 24 December 2012
RELIGION NEWSBy Kimberly WinstonIn addition to Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, secular humanists have added a new celebration to the crowded calendar. HumanLight, observed on or about Dec. 23, is a secular celebration of human potential that is growing in acceptance. This year, at least 18 groups, from New Jersey to Florida and Pennsylvania to Colorado, have ceremonies planned. And at least one government building that displays holiday scenes has...
THE HINDUBy Jessu JohnBuddha by Ram Onkar. Photo: Special ArrangementTake the case of Ram Onkar, a self-taught artist. Fascinated by the spiritual forms in India, many of his paintings focus on iconic religious figures like Buddha and Krishna. Ram Onkar would not have pursued a career in art if not for his teacher who motivated him. He has won many awards and has had over 30 solo and group shows, some of which form part of the collection of the President...
Sunday, 23 December 2012
ALPHA OMEGA ARTSBy Ernest Disney-BrittonAt the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza in Mexico, thousands chanted, danced and otherwise frolicked around ceremonial fires and pyramids to mark the conclusion of a vast, 5,125-year cycle in the Mayan calendar. The Internet generated rumor of doomsday ended in a celebration of life. On 12.21.12, Buddhists, Christians, pagans, druids and followers of Aztec and Maya religious traditions united...
Saturday, 22 December 2012
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS★★---A month ago, the biggest controversy about Christopher McQuarrie’s “Jack Reacher” was whether Tom Cruise could appropriately portray the massively built, 6-foot 5-inch hero imagined by author Lee Child. Today, the movie has been impacted more significantly by timing. Right now, it’s hard to consider even a popcorn flick escapist entertainment when it opens with a deadly sniper attack. But if we’re judging the picture on its...
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALDAUSTRALIA---The Louvre said on Thursday its new Islamic art wing helped cement its position as the world's most-visited museum with nearly 10 million visitors in 2012, over a million more than last year. The exact figures will be released early next year, but in the meantime the Paris museum said there was a "remarkable progression in Chinese visitors, who now figure in the top three groups (of non-French visitors) alongside Americans and Brazilians". Costing nearly 100 million euros ($A126 million), it is funded by the...
Friday, 21 December 2012
ASSOCIATED PRESSBy Mark StevensonMEXICO---In the darkness before dawn Friday, spiritualists prepared white clothes, drums, conch shells and incense ahead of the sunrise they believe will herald the birth of a new and better age as a vast, 5,125-year cycle in the Mayan calendar comes to an end. No one was quite sure at what time the Mayas' 13th Baktun would officially end on this Dec. 21. Some think it already ended at midnight Thursday. Others looked...
THE GUARDIANBy Oliver WainwrightColour Nativity by Sebastian Bergne. Photograph: Sebastian BergneCALIFORNIA---When Saint Francis of Assisi staged the first ever nativity scene in a cave in 1223, with a simple manger, ox and an ass, he could have had no idea what he was starting. Almost 800 years later, his humble tableau has been transformed into everything from miniature toy sets that grace mantelpieces around the world, to gigantic plastic lawn...
THE HINDUBy CharukesiINDIA---The spate of stories on smuggling of Indian, especially South Indian artefacts, must have shocked thousands of devotees. “It is not a new phenomenon”, says my friend, art critic and conservator, Dhenuga, from Kumbakonam. “It has been going on for centuries. The reputed archaeologist Robert Sewell of the Archaeological Survey of India submitted a report (Vol. II) to the then Madras Province on the subject, in 1881. It is our callous attitude and indifference in conserving our heritage that are to be blamed. “More idols...
Thursday, 20 December 2012
BLOUIN | ARTINFOBy Sonia Kolesnikov-JessopTHAILAND---A comprehensive exhibition on Buddhist art in Thailand across 1,500 years explores the many unique styles that developed in the making of Buddha images and other decorative ritual objects as a result of Thailand’s unique blend of religions and beliefs. “Enlightened Ways: The Many Streams of Buddhist Art in Thailand,” now showing at the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) in Singapore, presents over...
THE NEW YORK TIMESBy Thomas FullerTHAILAND---The gilded roofs of Buddhist temples are as much a part of Thailand’s landscape as rice paddies and palm trees. The temples were once the heart of village life, serving as meeting places, guesthouses and community centers. But many have become little more than ornaments of the past, marginalized by a shortage of monks and an increasingly secular society. “Consumerism is now the Thai religion,” said Phra...
THE DAILY BEAST | NEWSWEEKBy Emily SmithImage courtesy of Rainy day booksThe art world is in spiritual crisis—it has not had a new idea in years. So argues the cultural critic and feminist provocateur Camille Paglia in her new book, Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art From Egypt to Star Wars. The book—intended as a companion piece to her 2005 volume of poetry criticism, Break, Blow, Burn—is a slim survey of Western art in 29 essays, each focusing...
WFPL | LOUISVILLEKENTUCKY---The Fund for the Arts launched the online fundraising platform Power2Give in Kentucky and Southern Indiana last December. In its first year, the platform has helped raise more than $700,000 in additional funds for the region’s arts organizations. There’s a $10,000 cap on funding goals, and the Fund for the Arts recruits corporate sponsors to match funds raised for many projects. 81 nonprofit organizations in Kentucky and...
Wednesday, 19 December 2012
ARTDAILYISRAEL---Thousands of images from the Dead Sea scrolls, which date back more than two millennia, were on Tuesday made available to the world on a joint Israel Antiquities Authority and Google website. The new website http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/ aims to make "the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century accessible to both scholars and the general public," an IAA statement said. Using technology developed for NASA, the...
FOX NEWSBy Walt Maciborski INDIANA---Some say the end of the world as we know it will be this Friday, Dec. 21, 2012. They’ve made movies and books about it and YouTube has been blowing up over the Mayan Calendar Doomsday Prophesy. Recent surveys also revealed 12 percent of Americans still actually believe in the Mayan Doomsday. [li...
ALPHA OMEGA ARTSBy Gregory A. DisneyPlease join the Board of Directors for the Alpha & Omega Project for Contemporary Religious Arts in putting "Untitled" (above), a self-portrait by Gina Baird on a pedestal through your gift to power2give.Board of Directors:Sarah Adams, AFVP Framing, IndianapolisSandi Ballard, Artist, IndianapolisGinger Bievenour, Artist, IndianapolisMichael Bourke, Kroger Co., CincinnatiRev. Ernest O. Britton, Arts Council...
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
THE EPOCH TIMESBy Susan JamesUnterlinden Museum was formerly a Dominican convent. (Susan James)FRANCE---Colmar is a small town in Alsace near the border of France and Germany, but in the world of art, it has a very large footprint. On permanent exhibition in a former 13th-century Dominican convent, now the Unterlinden Museum, is the Isenheim altarpiece. This 16th century masterwork is by German Renaissance artist Matthias Gothart Nithart (called...
Monday, 17 December 2012
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRERBy Kirstin HolmesA Nativity scene from the Mohonde tribe in Tanzania. PENNSYLVANIA---Every Christmas season, for two decades, Alan and Mary Liz Pomeroy have unpacked figurines of Mary, Joseph, and the Christ Child that are a chronicle of years spent living abroad. In all, the Pomeroys, of East Bradford, Chester County, have collected more than 200 depictions of what Christians believe is the birth of the savior. The couple...
ALPHA OMEGA ARTSBy Gregory Disney-Britton★★★---Ernest O. forewarned me to expect a light-hearted children's story based on a slim novel published by J.R.R. Tolkien in 1937. I read on Fandango's Movie Ratings & Reviews that the Fans said "Must Go" and the Critics said "So-So." It was hard to imagine what his sweeter and softer version of "Lord of the Rings" would look like, and frankly after 2 hours and 49 minutes of the movie, I still don't know....
Sunday, 16 December 2012
ALPHA OMEGA ARTSBy Gregory Disney-BrittonYou can help put women on a pedestal with your gift of $1, $5, $10. This week on 12.12.12, Alpha Omega Arts joined 60 other arts groups by including its ask for $200 through "power2give." That $200 request is to purchase a pedestal for an upcoming art show at Indiana Interchurch Center Gallery. I manage this new giving program for the Arts Council of Indianapolis. It's a crowdfunding platform similar...
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