Cavalcade of Bad Nativities

Well its that time of year again. Time for me to send around my annual link to Cavalcade of Bad Nativities. If you've not seen this before, make some room to laugh at the comments and kitsch.


"Is the baby Jesus made from mini marshmallows and those little Andes tingaling mints? And his name shall mean, Snacks Are With Us."

Jazzhands Jesus

We saw this at the Indianola Balloon Classic a few years ago. I've seen it on the cover of a book recently as well.

As my friend Dave said, "If this is how we are going to meet Jesus in the clouds, the rapture is going to disappoint a whole lot of people..."

kairos or chronos?

Ok...I saw this in a church office while attending a friends wedding and just had to take a picture of it.

So much fun with this one...

Kairos or Chronos?
Woe to you when my batteries run out...

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." (Mt. 4.17)

Jesus said to them, "My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. (John 7.6)

american gothic

October brought a return of a recruiting pilgrimage to eastern Iowa (Luther , Warburg , UNI, Loras, UDubuque, Central and more). I love travelling in Iowa in the fall. I love the colors...the farmers in the fields (i even try to have compassion for them on the highways). This trip brought a new destination to my lonely admissions counselors travels. I wandered passed Eldon Iowa where the famed American Gothic home still stands. This home lives, in our collective memory as a gift of Iowa's greatest artist Grant Wood. Painted in 1930, it now hangs in the Chicago Art Institute.

It was a fun experience to see the home and to walk around it. What was more interesting was the museum just to the south. The museum had a collection of kitsch that boggled my mind. This national treasure has been raped by our advertising and consumer society...everything from ducks to Mickey and Minnie mouse have been imaged in those overalls and dress. And on everything from matchbooks to lunchboxes. If you do a google image search for American Gothic One can even borrow from the museum itself the top half of the dress and overalls and a pitch fork to have your very own picture taken in front of the home.

This is one of my favorite shots from the visit.

Below are just a few images I found on a google image search of how this national treasure has been re-used.

"And his name shall be called snacks are with us": Christmas and Kitsch

Christmas astounds me. More accurately I am amazed at the ways in which it is perverted and marketed. What Christmas joy I might actually have left is being killed off daily by the ubiquity of Christmas music, consumerism, and just bad theology. One solace has been the Advent Liturgy and its focus on anticipation and waiting rather than our cultural illness of immediate gratification. That aside I am constantly incensed as both an artist and theologian at the horrific nativities that clog our lawns, tables and store shelves. Plastic and mass produced Jesus, Mary and Joseph's replete with an eerie glow from the light-bulb up their rear. What are we saying about the holy family by imaging them in a hollow, mold-injected plastic with an artificial light? It is these types things that suggest to me that the iconoclasts had it right.

Here is a link to a host of Christmas kitsch to simultaneously brighten and steal your Christmas joy.

http://www.goingjesus.com/cavalcade1.shtml

I can't decide which is my favorite...B'gok!

Be sure to look at all 3 pages and the 2007 additions!