excerpt
A word of caution
(References & Sources, p. 3)
I have been a collector of American detritus since I was a teenager back in the 1960s.
The fundamentalist Christian culture that so dominates our politics today was largely
invisible back then. While my awareness of them was piqued by illegally poached cable
TV in the 1970s, I had already begun to find the occasional pamphlet or LP in my diggings
through the U.S.'s pile of leftovers, unwanted, gathering dust in thrift stores,
flea markets, used bookstores, and garage sales. As this exhibition drew closer, I began
to troll through the pages of eBay for publications, and other ephemera. This is the one
subject for which I never encountered competitive bidding. I am sure this array of products
is merely scratching the surface of what has been produced in the attempts of born-again
Christians to convert sinners, or provide wholesome alternatives to secular temptations.
What has emerged due to the success of conservative culture is today a multi-billion
dollar industry that exists in parallel to the culture of mammon, reflecting and entering
into it's materialist realm. (...) Lastly, there are a few non-Christian propaganda examples,
followed by a ragged group of images taken as reference photos, or culled from the
internet that served as inspiration for more specific elements of the paintings, and detail
sketches, followed by installation shots of collection filled vitrines from the show itself.
I hope this is as educational for you readers as it was for me to find these examples.
And perhaps as inspirational as their creators had hoped for in the first place.
Jim Shaw
