One of the aims of this blog is to explore the Gospel’s implications for and impact on all of life. Redemption is not just for the soul but the mind and the creative aspects of life. I regularly try to set aside some time and space each Friday to encourage the exploration of creativity. I try to do this by linking to the photography of Joe Kennedy, Will Turner, Timmy Brister, Steve McCoy, Joe Thorn, along with the Friday Flickr Group in which they participate. In addition to that I have a regular rotation of poetry, visual art and music. The poets, artists and musicians in question may or may not be Christian. The main criteria is that they pursue their craft with excellence and in some way have encouraged me to think biblically about creativity. You may or may not initially see the connection. If not, please ask. Otherwise, enjoy.

Last Friday night, my wife and I, along with some friends, had the chance to go to the Modern Museum of Fort Worth for what they call “The Modern ‘Till Midnight.” They open the museum, obviously until midnight, but they also have bands play. We had the chance to see our good friend Doug Burr and also Peter and the Wolf. Other bands, including St. Vincent actually played, but those were the only two we actually saw. In addition, the museum featured the closing weekend of their exhibit of the amazing sculptures of Ron Mueck (featured here) along with paintings by Mark Rothko (featured here) and Barnett Newman. I was literally in awe to see paintings by Rothko and others. My wife was not quite as moved and is convinced that she could do the same quality of art. I’m not so sure, as much as I love her.

Newman is today’s featured visual artist. Newman (1905-1970) was an American abstract artist. As a contemporary of Mark Rothko, Newman became known as one of the most prominent abstract painters though he was often underappreciated during his own lifetime. Many of this paintings featured fields of color separated by a thin stripe that he referred to as “the zip.” Although his paintings were abstract, he did give titles to many of them which hinted at themes he might be addressing. Many of this titles included Jewish and even Christian themes with titles such as “Abraham” and “Stations of the Cross.”

At the museum’s exhibit, there was a plague on the wall that said that Newman felt that “true” art had to be abstract because art is about “pure ideas.” An interesting concept that I’m not sure I agree with. What do you think? Today’s featured painting is “Concord” from 1949.

• Read Wikipedia’s Barnett Newman page
• Visit the Modern Museum of Fort Worth’s website

Today features quite a bit of music, hope you don’t mind. First up, we have a band building off of last week’s feature of Psalters. Playing off of that hippie vibe, this week’s band is a band that recently relocated from Fort Collins, CO to Portland, OR, called The Lighthouse Band (thanks blah blah). I don’t know much about the band other than that it seems to center around a husband and wife team. In keeping with Psalters, the band has many bongo moments reminiscent of Rusted Root and sometimes the Grateful Dead, all the while with a nice folk feel. I typically try to avoid linking to Myspace downloads because they’re usually poor quality, but that’s all I could find to link to, so that’s where these downloads come from. Enjoy.

• Visit the official Lighthouse Band website
• Visit the band’s Myspace page and download four free tracks

In honor of this week’s recent interview with Bill Mallonee (see here and here), I wanted to remind you that he’s offering two free albums right now on his website. One album, Summershine, is an outright free download, no registration, no purchase, no-nothing necessary. Granted, it’s a bit different from most of the other Bill Mallonee and Vigilantes of Love releases, drawing heavily on Britpop influences, but don’t let that fool you, it’s a great album through and through.

The other release, Blister Soul was the fifth Vigilantes of Love album. Released in 1995, the album was alternately noisy and quiet, featuring quite a mix. This album is free when you purchase any other album from Bill’s site. All you have to do is e-mail your receipt in to get the free download code. This means that you can get three albums for the price of one! Come on people, it doesn’t get any better than that!

Lastly, in the Bill Mallonee camp, as you may or may not know, Bill encourages the taping and trading of his live shows. The primary stipulation is that you don’t sell or profit in any way from the recordings. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Live Music Archive, but it’s a great online resource for archiving live concerts. There was recently a new live concert uploaded from September 27, 2007 in Birmingham, AL at the UCF House. It’s a great quality show featuring a lot of great tracks with terrific performances. If you haven’t heard Bill’s recent live performances with Muriah, this is a great introduction.

• Visit Bill Mallonee’s official website
• Download Summershine
• Download Blister Soul
• Download Bill’s 09/27/07 Birmingham show

I realize that I have featured Doug Burr several times now, but believe me, it’s well worth it. If you don’t have his new release On Promenade, please get it, you won’t regret it. Lullabyes apparently recorded Burr’s set at the Modern ‘Till Midnight set the other night, so I wanted to pass that on for your listening pleasure. It’s not the full set from what I remember, but it’s still good.

• Visit Doug Burr’s official website
• Order on Promenade from Velvet Blue
• Download Slow Southern Home
• Download Graniteville
• Download Always Travel Light
• Download Thing About Trouble
• Download Last Promenade