In process: et al # 7

 

Below is the journal for my my Iraqi et al painting project. This painting is being created with the help of two families, one Iraqi and one American. Both families have daughters that are involved in the military operations in Iraq. Both women know and depend on each other for their mutual safety. Their identities are withheld to protect their safety and the safety of their families.

Winter, 2004-2005

A chance meeting of a couple at a wedding anniversary celebration has resulted in me collecting doodles and drawings from across the world in Iraq. An Iraqi family whose daughter is involved in military actions on behalf of the US and the new Iraqi government has sent me doodles and drawings of their own making. The family of the American military women who worked closely with this Iraqi has also contributed doodles. I am awaiting her own drawing before I begin. The drawings that were contributed are startling in that they do not look like anything I would have expected. There is a joy and a desire for a normal life hidden within them. Absent are the immediate terrors of life in Iraq. To me they represent ideals worth leaving for and are not meant to be "snapshots" of the violence and war now resident in Iraq.

Here are the doodles from the Iraqi family:

Here are the very abstract doodles from the American family:

The sketch book sent to me was covered over with decorative paper.
On close inspection the image of Saddem and a child can be seen
through the covering paper. I used this portrait in the painting.

I tried to avoid pulling images from the media on the war in Iraq. I did however go to see a moving installation put on by the Quakers called "Eyes Wide Open" which used a pair of boots to stand for each US soldier killed in the conflict. Civilian shoes lined the walls and represented the Iraqi loss of life. The boot image came to mind when I saw a shoe drawn by one of the Iraqi siblings of the Iraqi soldier. This boot image came to represent to me several things including the force countries use on others and their own people as well as the war dead. Here is an photo from that installation:

Powerful, isn't it?

So here is an early stage of the painting. Notice the faces taken directly from the Iraqi soldiers sketch book, the boots, the orange swish of a soccer ball, and a child' happy and sad faces. The yellow halos came from the Iraqi soldiers halo drawn around a happy clown (see above). To me it became symbolic of both a halo and an explosion.

And here is the finished version. I added the US soldier and her family's abstract and organic images and tried to create a sense of a wind- like push and pull between the different symbols. To me this reflects the tragic and hopeful "push and pull" underway in Iraq today.

This painting seems almost trivial in comparison to the world shaking events underway in Iraq, but there it is. Thank you soldiers and families, may the winds of change subside and peace and happiness be with you all in equal measure some day.