Artistic Response
Artist Statement
In my art piece, The Suffocation of Lies, I am trying to portray how soldiers in war had become so detached from what they were doing and were evidently changed from who they really were. I chose to do my art piece on these effects war has on soldiers because throughout our entire Truth of War Project there never once was one truth or universally feeling about war. I can’t imagine what soldiers must go through in war, but in this art piece I tried to create and grasp at one truth that must have been felt. My soldier in my painting is wrapped up in strings which shows how walls have been built up around him from all the horrors of war. Dread, death, pain, and sorrow couldn’t break or wiggle themselves through to the soldiers anymore. In the thought bubble above my soldier I try to show all the things that were being pushed into the minds of young men during war. They were socialized to believe that communism was a threat to their country so they needed to step in, that going and fighting would make them brave and strong men, and that they had to do it for the women to protect them. I wrote a quote from Tim O’Brien on the bottom of my art piece that I believe adds to what I think happened to the men that fought in Vietnam; “Imagination is the killer.”
In my art piece, The Suffocation of Lies, I am trying to portray how soldiers in war had become so detached from what they were doing and were evidently changed from who they really were. I chose to do my art piece on these effects war has on soldiers because throughout our entire Truth of War Project there never once was one truth or universally feeling about war. I can’t imagine what soldiers must go through in war, but in this art piece I tried to create and grasp at one truth that must have been felt. My soldier in my painting is wrapped up in strings which shows how walls have been built up around him from all the horrors of war. Dread, death, pain, and sorrow couldn’t break or wiggle themselves through to the soldiers anymore. In the thought bubble above my soldier I try to show all the things that were being pushed into the minds of young men during war. They were socialized to believe that communism was a threat to their country so they needed to step in, that going and fighting would make them brave and strong men, and that they had to do it for the women to protect them. I wrote a quote from Tim O’Brien on the bottom of my art piece that I believe adds to what I think happened to the men that fought in Vietnam; “Imagination is the killer.”
Project Reflection
For the past three months we have struggled to reveal the truth of war through learning about WW1 and WW2 and reading the books All Quiet on the Western Front and Slaughterhouse-Five. Learning about different war tactics, weapons, dictators and how they ruled their people, political ideologies, causes and effects that sparked both wars, different battles, and how losing a war can affect an entire country gave us a sense of what war may have been like for a soldier. Though we could never truly understand how war affects a person, we took an experience from one of these new knowledges to write what we think a human would feel by the ricocheting horrors of war. The book was open for us to write in when we started this project. Through many starters and exercises we were able to create a character, setting, and plot to create a beautiful piece of writing.
I believe that one of the most helpful things in this project was all of the new writing techniques and beautifications that really enhanced my writing. Showing versus telling was something I had learned about before in other humanity classes, but I had never understood as well as I know now. Painting a picture in someones head can be easy, the challenge is making that picture clear and beautiful to all. I had never known that by using thought verbs you were only fogging up that picture and not showing it for all that it is. There are so many verbs in our language that we all seem to forget when we write and through this project we were really able to go find those hidden verbs and embellish our writing. One sentence can become five engaging and amazing sentences.
Speaking aloud and in front of a bunch of people has always been something I have struggled with and through this project I gained many new skills that let me finish this project by sharing my story out loud to a crowd of people. In class when we did starters there were usually two things that we would always do when we finished. We would either trade papers with someone and write our favorite thing they wrote up on the whiteboards and go over them or read what we had written out loud to our classmates. I felt that this was really helpful in preparing me to read for a crowd at our exhibition. Getting feedback on our writing and ideas constantly made me more confident with what I was writing and want to share more often.
I think that most important thing I learned through this project was creating awareness an of myself, others, the world, and how to accept and try to understand differences. Because this project was so open ended each of my classmates wrote stories that weren’t like anyone elses. This made me think about how we have all had different experiences that may have sparked our stories and what our teacher, Shay Lopez, had said to us about creating experiences through our art as well. I can’t even imagine what everyone on this world has gone through and trying to understand and create one perspective was a challenge for me through this project. Thinking about people and how we have evolved through time is amazing to learn and see, but the one simple truth is that we are still all human no matter what we do, have done, our skin color, sexuality, religion, or anything that makes up who we are now. Writing in the homosexual perspective was difficult and let me come to this realization that will always impact me.
Sometimes doing what is challenging and maybe even painful, can leave more positive consequences then negative. This project was a steep deadly mountain that I climbed and was able to reach the warming sun rays at the summit. Although I never found the one truth of war, I now know that there are an infinite amount of truths. The one thing each truth has in common is that each truth does and will forever leave an impact on those in its path. As the victim changes so will the experience and the affect left. The point is to accept and try to understand that these differences are what make us human.