BTW — just wanted to add that we are up to 142 members!

Good Morning Michael,
I certainly understand your personal concern with this. I wish you had offered an alternative image that could have possibility have won the challenge. As hosts, we have no control over the images that are uploaded into the challenge, other than to make sure they follow the basic rules of the group. The group will vote and the image that wins will be our banner. Should we use it to feature one of your photos and you find it offensive, you are welcome to delete the banner from your comments.

This is a simple group of artists. We are not here to make a religious or political statement. We are just here to celebrate this particular type of beauty.

We are not going to scrap the challenge and the members hard work who did choose to enter. However, we understand that if you feel allowing our group to freely choose what to upload and what to vote on is offensive, and something you can’t live with, then you are free to leave the group.

Dear Gail and Themis,

thank you for your responses.

Gail:
‘We are not here to make a religious or political statement.’ Of course you are. ALL art is political, and therefore also makes religious statements. Artistic beauty is an aesthetic value, created in a specific cultural, political and religious (etc.) context. The very acts of photography, painting, sculpture, musical composition etc. are culturally-determined forms of aesthetic expression, and understandings of beauty come from this, and therefore also reflect and comment on these contexts. If you haven’t yet read it, Susan Sontag explores this very helpfully in her little book ‘On Photography’, for example.

I must confess that I find your closing paragraph markedly intemperate in tone. I did not ask for the challenge to be cancelled, nor did I denigrate the hard work of any of the people who submitted work for the challenge; to suggest that I ‘feel allowing our group to freely choose what to upload and what to vote on is offensive’ is quite simply ridiculous and suggests you didn’t really read my message properly in the first place. What I expressed a desire for was ‘something else, or nothing at all’. Your first paragraph points to the possibility of deleting a banner if it’s unwanted which perfectly satisfies my desire for ‘nothing at all’: I did not know that this was possible, but this would have been quite sufficient information, without the acerbic and unpleasant tone that your message moves into towards the end. I did express regret at not offering anything myself, but explained why. In any case, had I submitted an image, another one may still have won (almost certainly, given my lack of skills in this regard!), and the problem would still exist. Perhaps the issue lies in the vagueness of the criteria that were set for the challenge, more than anything else. Depending on the banner that is chosen, might I suggest that you alert featured artists to the option of deleting the banner if they feel it is inappropriate, perhaps especially if their chosen work is not of a Christian church? Whether you think you are or not, I can assure you that you are on sensitive territory here, and this might help minimise offence you have the potential to cause.

Themis:
Thank you for your explanation. I didn’t recognise your photograph, in that case! :) Elaborating on your image in the context of this correspondence is very helpful to me, and I would have no issue with the use of your image as the banner (so yes, your image gets my vote…!). It communicates the theme of the group, but does not overtly communicate a specific tradition or belief system – something that is hard to do, but very important in thinking about these issues. Given that in my working life I teach on religion, politics and visual culture, this is very important to me!

I think this is an excellent idea for a group, and I wish it well. All good wishes to you both,

Michael

Michael, I don’t think Gail’s intention was to offend but rather more likely to point out that most images are captured based on the aesthetic beauty in the eye of the artist, and not necessarily based on the religion of the structure. I don’t think most of us are thinking that deeply on the subject and I truly don’t believe that most members would be offended to find a featured banner with a Christian symbol on their non-Christian entry. If that were the case they likely wouldn’t enter the image into a group with buildings of other religious persuasions.

The intention when starting this group was to showcase the architecture more so than the religion — it just seemed to me that historically many of the best examples of period architecture had been devoted to places of worship..

Every member of RB has the option of deleting any comment from their work at any time and I think most are aware of that (the “delete” choice being situated beside the “reply” choice.

Frankly, I’m a bit surprised at this line of commentary in relation to an innocuous challenge – and I can assure everyone that it was not our intention to have this group turn into any type of religious or political forum.

Let’s play nice!

I am totally in agreement with Richard and George. I saw nothing offensive in Gail’s remarks – and I completely agree with Leanna. Let’s not make this a religious or politcal forum. Places of worship do offer incredible architechture, of which I love to study and see how others capture this – as George says… all religions have amazing offerings and the more variety we see the better! This is a lovely group and I feel honored to be a part of such talented people that capture Religious Architechture so beautifully. ~ Bernadette

You should realise that Redbubble is an ART site, and not a platform for dismissing other peoples cultures, religions, and beliefs.

We are all here to display our art and writing, and NOT to get involved in religious arguments that you seem to be trying to create.

We will consider this subject closed.