et al # 6: a collaborative painting with the Montagnards

Artist Statement

The Montagnards are aboriginals from Vietnam. They sided with the US in the Vietnam War so you can imagine how they have faired under communism. Over 5,000 have relocated to North Carolina with the help of Special Forces Veterans. Since 1986 I have been involved with helping them as a cultural broker and sponsor. This painting is a response to a Sunday afternoon I spent collecting doodles from them at one of their churches in Greensboro. Pastor Y Hen Nie allowed me to ask the community for drawings that reflected their experiences. In the inspired painting above, I have chosen to visually reflect their struggle for survival by creating a vine or snakelike figure running through it. This vine represents the attack on their way of life from the war, Communism, and now life in the USA

Some recognizable images in the work include their traditional home on stilts, chickens, a well, a tree stump, rain cloud, skull, and soldiers fighting. The latter was provided to me by a 10 year old Montagnard child who graphically recounted the battles his people have faced with the Vietnamese. The red line running down the middle was something I borrowed from their traditional weavings. They are usually black with a red strip down the middle. If you look closely in the lower right corner you can see an airplane. To me this represents both their travels to the US and the communist bombers used to attack their villages. Y Thein, a close friend told me the bombs would make the earth roll like a shaken blanket, the shock of which would kill anyone who made the mistake of lying down. For a people who have been through so much and who continue to go through much, they still posses a love of simple things like nature and community. I hope I have related some of these here.

-- Todd Drake