Confessions of a Quirky Christian Artist

[note: all images 'by' Brian Craddock] It's 2022 and this year AI art became a cultural presence. A phenomenon in my creative circles. Something that has stirred up huge emotions. Excitement, awe, fear, panic, sadness...   It's very hard to describe the feelings that these fascinating AI generated galleries produce in me. Especially the ones that tweak recognizable things from my youth. Because there's obviously a large component of absurdity, which I'm conditioned to find funny. But the absurd is not intrinsically funny. It can also be unsettling.   I've never felt the emotions that people have described feeling from the genre of cosmic horror. But this is maybe the closest thing I can compare my feelings to. The fact that these come from a collective unconscious of our society, interpreted by a non-sentient black box that outputs *almost what a conscious human mind puts out. It's uncanny, unsettling, disturbing, and when I try to probe the logic behin...

I’ve read two books this year that present delightfully clashing worldviews, told through the lens of history.  Dominion reinforces everything I was taught growing up. Some from direct lessons, but mostly absorbed through my culture.  The message of Dominion in a nutshell: Christianity is what propelled human rights, bending the moral arc of history upward, leading to our present time of unparalleled freedoms, rights and dignity. (One which is quickly backsliding due to the rejection of Christianity ).  Personally, my study of history, science, religion and philosophy over the years has changed my thinking on the worldview I inherited. But much like my opinions on the specific faith I was raised with, this evolution of thinking is not an overt rejection. Instead it’s a deeply critical interrogation of my own ability to adjudicate the veracity of the claims therein. I can’t tell you if a creator god incarnated as a man to sacrifice himself for the sins of mankind. I simply...

I'm finally near the end of unpacking from my move, and pleasantly surprised to find these lovely Jed Henry prints I had purchased years ago at a game convention. These are interpretations of franchises that were foundational in my creative journey as a game developer.  One thing that is so lovely to me about these is the personal resonance they bring, because I spent 5 years of my childhood in Japan. I was quite young, I think around 2-7 years old. So my memories of Japan are hazy and magical.  It's interesting that Japan became so ascendant in the medium of videogames, so not surprisingly, all 3 of these franchises are Japanese in origin.  It's hard to say how much of my creative influence is "Japanese".  But in looking over these artifacts, it's clearly a lot.  Let's see if I can categorize the effects these had on me. 1. (Center) Legend of Zelda (NES) My 11-year-old mind is blown by the idea that a game can be a WORLD, as opposed to my previous experie...

  Over the past half-decade my need to blog has diminished as I’ve been more active on social media.  But I still like the idea of checking in on this blog for the big milestones, as a more permanent (as permanent as internet may be) historical document for myself.  As 2021 nears its end, this seems like a good time. First, I’ll drop some facts that I can reference as I go. The household has managed to avoid Covid  We were forced to move from our home of 12 years, but found a nice place, miraculously, in one of the worst times ever to buy a house. That happened in July. I continue to work from home 100% of the time, and it seems like this will be an option in perpetuity.  Our household is still composed of me, Heather, our youngest son Shane (22) and my brother John. My job continues to be amazing and has been getting better and better Heather’s health continues to decline. The biggest event was a lung surgery to remove a mysterious cavitary lesion in September....