andrew dodson

I found this on Justin Taylor’s blog and it really hits home with me. Sort of shapes how I should view my work as a graphic artist.

1. Christian artists should view their talent as a gift from God and see its use ultimately as worship to God.
2. A Christian artist should have a sober assessment of his gift and neither
   over-estimate the opportunities it should given him or undervalue the
   contribution he can make with it.
3. The most authentic Christian art results from our joy in Christ overflowing
   into Christian art, not our strategies to do art that is Christian.
4. Creating art is an expression of faith and obedience, not of compulsion or identity.
5. The Christian artist should see his art as a way to love God, his people, and the world.
6. The Christian Artist sees the sovereign hand of God in both his opportunities and his obstacles.
7. The Christian artist is committed to truth in the way he lives and what he creates.
8. While the Christian artist is under no burden to make all of his art
   explicitly Christian, it would be an unbiblical use of his gift to
   intentionally create a body of work without reference to Christ.
9. The Christian artist rejects the worldly concept of artist as an outsider
   and embraces his place among God’s people in the local church as
   essential to his life and gifting.
10. The Christian artist should not ignore his personal responsibility to evaluate the theological soundness of his work.
11. Because the Christian artist trusts God, he will battle selfish ambition,
    competition, and any pretense of entitlement in regard to his art.
12. The Christian artist will see the evaluation of others as an essential help
    in both growing in their art and assessing its fruitfulness.
13. The Christian artist will resist elitism and care about the accessibility
    of his art to the average Christian in the congregation
14. The Christian artist must never confuse the joy of creativity with the joy of knowing and pleasing God.

There he goes, again. That John Piper guy is getting all literal on us, telling us that we should just throw our ESV away and go back to the KJV.

I’m really, really kidding. But, it’s an interesting word-study. He says:

The following meditation comes from my devotional lingering over Psalm
96:7. All the modern versions translate it, “Ascribe to the
Lord…strength” (ESV, NIV, NASB). Only the KJV renders it with the
literal, “Give unto the Lord…strength.”

There’s nothing unusual about this Hebrew word “give” (yahab). It’s used over sixty times in the Old Testament in all the ordinary ways the word give is used.

The word ascribe in Psalm 96:7 is an interpretation. It’s
a paraphrase. It’s a good interpretation, I think, but, as with all
paraphrases, it short circuits our reflection. But for me,
full-circuited reflection is where my soul gets its best food. So I am
glad I spent the summer of 1969 with William LaSor learning Hebrew.

That’s just a highlight. If you want, you can go read the whole article.

Evidence there is some good remaining in humanity. A violinist leaves his $4 million dollar violin in a taxi. It is safely returned very quickly.

> Go read the story

So, I’ve got graphic design on the brain. I’ve had a creative spurt lately, which has led to some new and different designs for me. I figured I’d showcase some of them here, mostly done for The Point:

We’ve broken fresh ground.

I’ve partnered up with someone to do some graphic work, in exchange for some promotion of BADmedia.  One thing they want is animated GIFs for their website.  I’ve never created animated GIFs so I figured now was a good time to learn.  Also, I’m working on a website for BADmedia to get ready to start promoting my business some more.  Why not create an animated GIF for the BADmedia site?

I couldn’t live with a simple animated GIF.  I wanted something more along the lines of Flash (another web animation I’ve never learned).  After reading a bit on the net, I learned you can turn an AVI into an animated GIF.  Cool!  I dropped a background graphic and some animated text into iMovie HD, exported as an AVI, dumped it into ImageReady and voila!  My first animated GIF.

Howdy y’all (That’s Kentucky for “hello”).  It’s Derby Week here in the Bluegrass, and to be honest, I don’t care that much.  I always hate to say “I’m busy” because everyone is busy this day and time, but that would be more true right now than any other.  Seems like spring time is always my busiest time of the year.

I’m working on several recordings right now.  I recorded a southern gospel concert a couple of weeks ago, so I’m moving on to the mixing stage of that project.  I recorded last week’s Georgetown College Symphonic Band concert.  That recording should be wrapped up this weekend, since it was just a few mics.  Mixing will go quickly on that.  But, I turn around on Sunday to record the Central Kentucky Concert Band’s spring concert.  On top of all this, I’m beginning the process of picking songs for The Point’s first worship album.  It’s really more of a glorified “bootleg” concept.  I plan on recording all the services from now on, and every few months, making a low-budget CD of 10-12 songs.  I’ll manufacture all of them myself in small runs of about 100.  It’ll mostly be a good outreach tool, I think.  We’ll see.

I’ve been digging in to some new graphic design techniques as of late.  I’m a self-trained artist, so I still have a lot to learn.  Mostly, I’ve been digging into Photoshop a bit more to create stuff for web and print.  The majority of my time is usually spent in Illustrator designing shirts.  But, I’m doing more graphic work for The Point these days, and I’m looking to expand BADmedia some more.  So, I think learning more in Photoshop will help.  Mostly, I’ve been playing around with new brushes and the like to create the ever-so-popular grunge and distressed looks that are “all the rage” right now.  I feel like I’m jumping on the bandwagon, but I’m learning new stuff, so that’s always good.

I’m not doing a whole lot of web stuff for the time being, but I think that will change as I move into the summer months.  I have a few sites in desperate need of redesigns, and as mentioned, I’m working on getting some more clients.  I’ve struck up a small partnership with another local business that might lead to some new web clients.  More on that to come.

Tonight was PCG night, and our group went through the study fairly quickly.  It was a good study and I think we were all surprised that we hammered through it in under an hour.  So, I find myself with some free time that I don’t normally have.  Hence, this novel of a blog post.  I’m off to enjoy the rest of the evening…