Art made from old uniforms helps vets tell their story
A group from Vermont has come to Key West to teach veterans how to turn their uniforms into therapeutic art and showcases the work in an exhibit called `Fibers of Reason.'
Dress blues from the Navy. Night camouflage fatigues from the Marine Corps. A flak jacket worn in Vietnam.
Military uniforms once meticulously pressed and proudly worn lay cut in pieces on a table in the back yard of The Studios of Key West, destined to be pulverized into pulp in the name of art.
The Combat Paper Project turns the pulp into paper and then into cathartic works of art that give shape and texture to veterans' military memories -- good, bad, deeply buried.
Former Army field artillery soldier Drew Cameron co-founded the thought-provoking and empowering project two years ago at a studio in Vermont. He wanted to help himself heal from the isolation of post-combat life and destructive behavior, such as ``boozing,'' by sharing his war experiences and disillusionment.
He and other leaders of the project are in Key West to host a hands-on workshop Friday, inviting veterans to bring uniforms to create new art to heal old wounds. The group also is exhibiting a collection of the Combat Paper Project's work from around the country called Fibers of Reason, which runs through Jan. 10.
``This exhibit really touches the human soul,'' said Eric Holowacz, executive director of the Studios of Key West. ``The horror of conflict and killing and death and the things soldiers are going through is made real through their art.''
Said Cameron: ``I want you to understand what does happen in war. I want you to know what is happening right now in the name of our democracy, what is happening to the young men and women who are over there now.''
Cameron was a gung-ho, 18-year-old from a military family when he enlisted in the Army in 2000. After four years, including eight months in Iraq in 2003 and two years in the Vermont National Guard, he left the military feeling ``betrayed by my government.''
He pointed to a gray piece of art that features an Army combat uniform with a hole to represent a shrapnel injury to the lower abdomen.
``I call this one Unserviceable,'' he said, referring to the common military term used when someone is injured or equipment is broken.
The uniform belongs to a former sergeant from Minneapolis who served in Iraq. It's embedded in paper made from fibers of his uniform, combined with pieces of uniforms from soldiers who served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Haiti, Bosnia, Guantánamo Bay and Afghanistan.
``All of these different conflicts, all of these different experiences of individuals -- their threads are in this, and so is our collective story,'' Cameron said.
Cara Cast spent four years in the Marine Corps, from 1993-97, and said she left the military more fulfilled than when she entered. She never saw combat -- though her Vietnam veteran father ``was the textbook example of the guy who saw the worst . . . and came back and internalized it and never spoke about it.''
Cast said she was interested in the art project to see if she could help veterans in the San Diego area who have been traumatized like her father and don't know how to get help.
While art therapy for war veterans has been popular since the 1960s and '70s, deconstructing uniforms for art was an idea conceived by Cameron and project co-founder Drew Matott, a book and paper artist with no military experience.
The project's signature piece is called Breaking Rank, in which one soldier in a row of six steps out of formation to cut off his uniform.
Veterans with many different types of military experiences have been attracted to the workshops. Donna Perdue, a media coordinator who served 22 years in the Marine Corps, attended a workshop in Cleveland and was hooked.
This week, the former staff sergeant hung up a giant piece she had created in Key West titled My Culture. Created in the ocean near Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park, sand and seaweed is embedded in the pulp along with her uniform and threads from others' uniforms. Perdue said the art was created using a picture of an Iranian refugee she took in Ethiopia.
``She spoke English and told me, `I wish the U.S. would understand more about my culture when they occupied my culture' '' Perdue recalled. ``I want others to know that.''
For more information about the project, workshop or exhibit, go to www.combatpaper.org or call the Studios of Key West at 305-296-0458.