This painting has been with me for ten years. I painted it the year after I finished my degree in Studio Art, at age 55, and was working on my MA in English which I completed a few years later. The war was taking its toll on me and on everyone around me, and I watched as young people became convinced that they had no choice but to enter the military. Living in Alabama, that’s a familiar refrain, and it was brought home to me during the six months I worked on my art thesis paintings.
I had begun with a painting that featured dolls from the early part of the century, when my grandmother was born. I sought objects that represented the same era, that were old and worn, and as I created the still life setups for these paintings I became aware of a few things that took me by surprise. The dolls and toys that children played with in the early part of the 20th century were realistic, and looked like actual children, or other objects that children played with. The second painting was meant to represent a child born around 1925, when my father was born. And by the time I came to the third painting it dawned on me that the changes between my grandmother’s generation, my father’s and my own were about more than just newer technology.
The dolls, for instance, were more colorful. Artificial colors, not found in nature. The body shapes, as we know, became more stylized, and the faces were painted on smiles, artificially happy and frivolous — this was due to the discovery of acrylic paint, plastic, and to TV. As I pondered this I realized that each generation of my family had been strongly affected by a war. First WWI, then WWII, then Vietnam.
The other part of what I wanted to say involves what you cannot see. My father was an atomic veteran, and he and my mother both eventually died from his exposure to Shot Fox, operation Tumbler-Snapper, in 1952. My mother’s cancer developed in 1967, and my fathers appeared soon thereafter.
Yet it wasn’t until he lay dying in a trailer in Tampa, Florida that I understood what had caused his death. His description of the blast, the “hell red” mushroom cloud, the rush of dust and debris that blew over them before they climbed out of the trench and marched toward ground Zero, I’ll never forget.
It took me a long time to understand my own struggle with the idea that something like invisible radiation caused both my parents to die of cancer, and even longer to try to find ways to talk about it so that others can understand. I don’t blame “the government” or some sinister force in the universe, and yet I am aware that there were people in power who knew exactly how dangerous these conditions were, and yet they continued to test bombs all over the planet.
So then this painting becomes about all of us. We who knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction, yet were unable to do anything to stop the march to war. Those of us who were reading Mother Jones, Truthout, Salon.com, and the Nation, who listened to Air America, who gathered in homes to protest the senseless destruction felt helpless, and yet here, in Alabama, it seemed that most people didn’t question the idea at all.
When DailyKos appeared, I was thrilled. Having watched the community grow, I’m ready to finally get to Netroots Nation and meet many of you. I’m bringing this painting. I hope someone wants to take it home with them.
Ten years is long enough.
Here’s a link to my gofundme page. Go Fund Me