War works
My father was killed in Service when I was three. I grew up in Bossier City, the home of Barksdale Air Force Base, where the B-52 bombers were stationed and the H bombs were stored. In High School we could tell which planes were bound to bomb Vietnam or had been there because their silver wings would be painted camouflage. The sign in front of the base read "Peace is Our Profession". The bus station in Shreveport, across the Red River from Bossier was always crowded in the 60’s with soldiers going to and from Fort Polk for infantry training.
People who started college in 1970 arrived on campus to a fully formed antiwar movement. Nixon had been elected in 1968 having declared that he had “a secret plan to end the Vietnam war”. Two years later it was still raging and would do so for years to come. My mother had been pro war until I turned draft age. She was petrified that having first lost her husband to service she would also lose her oldest son.
After Vietnam ended there was a feeling that the US would avoid wars and concentrate on making our country a better place. Unfortunately, we have been involved in an endless stream of invasions, occupations and wars around the globe. In 1990 I naively thought that we could stop the first gulf war with art. I proposed the Artists on War exhibition at the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans and was the Project Director of it. We invited every artist living in Louisiana to submit a work on war which would be hung without censorship at the CAC.
What I learned from this is that art cannot start or stop wars. The artist bears witness to what happens in life but does not control it. Paintings and sculptures especially take too long to complete and are too removed from the war itself. Documentary photography and movies are a more effective means to move people than paint on canvas.
