A New Kind of Art Show...

 
   Tommy and I spend more than our share of time at the VA.  It has been such a blessing in our lives and on one occasion literally saved Tommy's life.
 
  Each time we enter the revolving doors, something new is going on. The hospital is in perpetual expansion and repair both inside and outside.

  When we were there this week, the hospital was hosting  the "2016 Fine Arts, Applied Arts and Crafts Competition".  Beautiful pieces of artwork were arranged on tables waiting to be judged. 

 Brochures explained the qualifications to enter the contest. A written letter of no more than 225 words would describe "the physical and/or mental challenges the Veteran overcame in order to accomplish the creation of his art.

   The Veteran must have experienced combat duty during World War ll, Korean War, Vietnam, Gulf War, or current combat operations.  The artwork must relate to the Veteran's personal experience in the war or conflict."

    I spent most of my time in the lobby looking at the artwork, reading  the notes that accompanied the different forms of art while listening to a flute played by a courageous lady who served in the Navy. Next to rain on a tin roof, the sounds of the ocean touching the shore, and soft whispers of a baby, I think her music was the most soothing sound I have heard in a long time.

     
  On other tables were paintings in watercolor and pastel. Some of the paintings  had an oriental focus or memory of Southeast Asia. It took a long time to study the artwork. They held unwritten stories in colors of war.

The ship to the left is a miniature creation of the USS Missouri. Never in a hundred years would I be able to hold my hand steady enough to accomplish putting  this together.

I walked around the tables three times.  Each trip I found my way back to one special piece of art.  It was a homemade scrapbook. Each page painted in shades of red, rust, brown, dark brown and black.  Once again the colors of war to me. In my mind, the creator was stationed either in Vietnam or Southeast Asia. A few pages make me think of the Middle East.  I believe the artist is a woman. I do not think for a minute the war is ever far from her mind.

  I would have paid a hundred dollars for the book however, I doubt if it was for sale. The book is a collage created with scraps of words, pictures, and square holes connecting one page to the next with  quotes and heart felt emotion.  At times the pages resemble a ruined home in the Middle East. It is someone's memories someone's stories. Perhaps the stories are hard to remember yet impossible to forget. It would be a hard place for the mind of anyone to live for any length of time.  Joy held court in another book but had no place in this one.

  I took photos of the book and I intended to post them, however I changed my mind. It is not my book to share. I feel it is alright to describe the cover of the book from my perspective.  It was made from cardboard that had been painted black multiple times. Written in slightly hard  to read words was the title of the book, "Ghosts of the Shadow of War".  Something gold is painted on the left side and runs halfway up and over the top of the book cover.  At times it looks like a dragon, other times a snake with a spider web near the top of the book.
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  Written in the midst of the golden dragon looking figure are the words, "The Not So Enchanted World". In the midst of all this was drawn a black knight and a small blond girl...both riding a lighter shade of black horse.

  I don't know what it really means. I have many ideas but I doubt if any are right. To me it seems the young woman went to war to help people in need, perhaps as a nurse. There is one photo of three young women running away from a helicopter. The camera captured the panic look on their faces. They are all wearing dusty green fatigues and black boots.  Perhaps the young woman was full of life and promise then something happened; she saw war up close and personal. War and fighting appeared to rip a hole in her soul. Seeing that at such a young age, changed how she saw the world, perhaps forever.  

  War is never normal unless you were born in a war zone.  Even then there is no normal anything. It is more of a wait and see what happens next kind of life. After war, perhaps a normal life would feel uneasy, fragile and war would be the 'normal' nightmare.  Awkward. Scary.  Peace would be a reprieve but hard to get used to. I  think some veterans would  be looking into an empty space...uneasy, perhaps reliving the same scenes over and over in there minds at odd times of the day or night.  I hope I am wrong. 

  To most Americans I have talked to who have been to war, it is hard to come back and live a normal life soon after seeing war up close and personal. It takes awhile to adjust to peace. People change. I think it would take a long time to remember 'normal'. It might have to be redefined again.