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Spiritual American Trash

Buddha-killer and regular contributor Greg Bottoms has a new book out! It is a collection of eight biographical essays on 20th-century religious self-taught artists called Spiritual American Trash: Portraits from the Margins of Art and Faith (Counterpoint). It’s filled with his trademark poetic prose and insights on spirituality, creativity, suffering, and art-as-survival, and several of…

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What Do You Believe? How Do You Know? Want a Free Book?

For as long as I’ve been interested in the search for proofs about the existence of God, I’ve been interested in drawing them. Words and equations just didn’t seem like enough; to wrap my head around what these constructs were expressing, and to try to communicate them to others, I had to make pictures. As…

Easter_2013

Break An Egg

I love confetti eggs. I love their potential, the colorful exterior that quickly dyes my fingertips, the fragility and all the beauty inside waiting to be smashed open. And then. I love the confetti colors, the tiny circles of pastels all piled on top of each other, the clean edges of the cracked egg shell,…

egglestonmustang

Dear Mr. Eggleston

When I hold your photograph, I’m looking at our car in the Sears parking lot in 1976, and time has collapsed.

Valentine's Day 2013

History of the Heart

Happy Valentine’s Day! Q: What’s the history of the heart shape? How did it become associated with the human organ and a symbol of love? A: Unfortunately, no simple answer. But, I made a drawing for you… Here are some of the explanations, speculations & historic representations: Silphium seeds used as a contraceptive in North Africa,…

Photograph taken during Brooklyn Museum's exhibit Andy Warhol: The Last Decade (2010).

Finding Warhol’s Soul in Pittsburgh

To quote art writer John Richardson: “To believe the envious Truman Capote, Andy [Warhol] was a Sphinx without a secret. In fact, he did have a secret, one that the kept dark from all but his closest friends: he was exceedingly devout—so much so that he made daily visits to the church of Saint Vincent…

neonprotein

Religion Island

Dawkins vs. Sri Lanka, and silence wins.

CHERYL, CHERYL: FRITE OF SPRING, video still, 2010.

American Idolatry

A new exhibition puts pop culture fandom on white walls.

The Best American Comics 2011

Best American Buddha-killer

Join us at Bookcourt this Tuesday to hear from KtB contributor Danica Novgorodoff, whose work is featured in The Best American Comics 2011. This year’s volume, guest edited by Alison Bechdel, also includes contributions by Dash Shaw and Jillian Tamaki, who will join Danica to talk about all things comics. Bookcourt 163 Court St. Brooklyn,…

Scott's iPad.

Fan Art!

Blogging can be a lonely job. Sometimes I feel my words blowing through cyberspace like little pixellated tumbleweeds. Or I’ll be tweeting away, thinking “Why am I writing this stuff? No one cares!” But sometimes I hear from people. Sometimes I actually get fan art! Recently I was tweeting about the Guitar Mass and realized…

the fountain [explored] by It's Holly / © Some rights reserved.

Jesus, PI, and the Case of the Liberating Curse

Speaking in riddles and a four-letter finale.

Devil N House"

In the Devil House

People always told Frank Jones that he was special.

Frequencies

Tune in to Frequencies!

Everyone talks about “spirituality,” but less often is it especially clear what we (or they) actually mean. That’s why, together with The Immanent Frame and the historians of religion Kathryn Lofton and John Lardas Modern, Killing the Buddha has been quietly working since the beginning of the year to develop Frequencies, a new online “collaborative genealogy…

Clarence Schmidt. Photo by David E. Johnson, via Flickr.

Mountainous Harmony and Everlasting Peace

Great art meets faulty wiring.

Jacket, "It’s a Jungle Out There," autumn/winter 1997–98.

Alexander McQueen’s Afterlife

Those who only know of Alexander McQueen as the name behind the most famous wedding dress in recent history will be in for a royal shock when they step inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s retrospective of McQueen’s career. Nowhere will one find anything resembling Kate Middleton’s virginal attire on display. Instead, the collection begins…

Geraldo Alfonso collage, from Gray Art and Raw Vision.

Ghosts in the Mirrors

The making of a Santero artist as an old man.

St. PJs mural

“Dance with the Saints” Friday Night

There’s a dance party happening in the undercroft of New Haven’s St. Paul and St. James Church: American Revolutionary David Wooster raises the roof with Joan of Arc; J.S. Bach leaps between Harriet Tubman and Black Panther Warren Kimbo; Moses’ sister Miriam twirls her purple skirt behind the wall outlet that keeps the coffee pot hot for…

Earthalujah!

Reverend Billy’s Church of Earthalujah!

I just got a note from