// ARTISTS //

Stefan Abrams and Amy Adams : "Hey Johnny, What are your rebelling against?" "What've you got?" archival pigment print 2005

Terry Adkins: Anthem, Lone Wolf Recital Corps, 2003

Sam Belkowitz

The Great Steal, Plotter Print 2003 : Our Korea Plotter Print 2004 : This Year Believe in Peace Plotter Print 2004

Shanon Bowser

End Return Concrete, wire, wood 2005

gerard brown

Possible outcomes, Text and buttons in an edition of 250 per design 2005

I was moved by the wording of fliers passed out by veterans at the march describing activities in which they had participated as soldiers in Viet Nam . It struck me that these horrific yet mundane actions - at once the backbone of war and the last things I would wish done to another person in my name - were not isolated events stuck in a certain historical moment. They are endemic behaviors of soldiers that all soldiers might potentially carry out, under orders or as an understood aspect of following orders.

Charles Burns

For Jimmie Hendrix, Photo Copy in Plastic Sleeve, 2005

Mark Campbell

A Personal History of the Vietnam War, from the series "Autobiography" C Print / Audio Disc 2005

Candy Depew 

Hearts cry, heavy with the Darkness that flows like water across the lands of Yesterday and Today Silkscreen fabric pigment on cotton, red thread unwoven from an American flag from the early 1970's, mylar glitter sticker 

August 2005 in commemoration of Operation RAW exhibition 
As i unwove the red of an old American flag (saved in my personal time capsule from my youth)-I turned stripes into threads so that i could draw drips with a needle. As i did so i thought. 
As i drew the drips coming from a printed flower made of hearts, i thought.  I thought about how a heart is really two drips. 
  As i cut similar drips of smokey grey glittery mylar and stuck them a surface of black woven fabric, i thought.   
As i placed final drips falling from a beautiful pink flower and one from the crease of a lime leaf, i had my final thought.  I thought about hearts... ones that cry, heavy with the darkness that flows like water across the lands of yesterday and today. 

Jessica Doyle

ink and acrylic on paper, 2005

I am 28 years old and I do not have any direct or immediate connections to the Vietnam War or protest. The first thing that comes to my mind when presented with the topic of the Vietnam War or War in general is the War in Iraq and my family member who currently serves in the Armed Forces. He is my brother-in-law and he is in the Army reserves. He comes home every few months and has a young family. He is only 24 and is married with a 3 year old daughter and 4 month old son. Watching him with his family for a couple of days to a week that he spends with them is indescribable. What patience they have to live like that. They make up for months lost in days. I saw a photograph of Matt with his daughter, Victoria, both in Army fatigues. His daughter was elated and glad that she was with her dad. It is a beautiful and sad picture. In my drawing, I have put this current day depiction in to the past setting of Vietnam .

Steve Donegan

 Reliquary, copper, 6ft. diameter, 2005

From European Christian tradition of the Middle Ages, a reliquary is a sacred container believed to hold a body part or fragment from the life of a saint. They are characterized by elaborate designs and laborious craftsmanship in glowing precious metal to emphasize the spiritual nature of its contents. What is contained is often represented as part of the object’s design. If the reliquary contains a joint of a finger, the reliquary will include the idealized representation of a finger or a hand. As an artifact of belief and symbol, the reliquary is a highly charged object of commitment and commemoration, one that can function both as a cautionary signal while also inspiring an irrational devotional response. Adapting an intricate process designed to attract and hypnotize, as war insidiously continues to be, I am suggesting the appalling and mindless loss that is the inevitable outcome. I have envisioned the reliquary as a symbol of mourning and commemoration. By way of its shimmer and gloss, it is designed to repel and antagonize while hats and helmets crowd towards its lethal center.

Paul Swenbeck and Joy Feasley 
Vietnumb 
projection, aluminum, paper, flocking, resin 
2005 
 
Courtesy the Swenbecks 
One of the only memories I have of Vietnam was cleaning a house with my mom for the "Boat People". Our church sponsored a family as did a lot of churches in this { Eastern PA } area. The family left after about 4 months and I always wondered what happened to them. I didn't understand why they left our idyllic little farming community in upstate New York . Finally looking back 30 years I understand.

Matthew Fisher

March Acrylic on Linen 2005 Courtesy of the Artist

I just wanted to do a piece that dealt with the feelings of being a soldier. Not necessary with what the soldiers are doing in regards to the War(s).

Susan Fenton

Vietnam Still Life Toned Gelatin Print 2005

Sherman Fleming

Apologize Decal 2005

This piece is the image for the gallery exhibit. My installation involves placing "Apologize decals" in locations between the gallery and the Vietnam Soldier Memorial, Philadelphia .

Don Fox

Silent Witness Photography-based digital mixed media 2005 Courtesy of the Artist

    In The Things They Carried , the award-winning fictional account of the effects of the Vietnam War on those who experienced it first-hand, author Tim O'Brien speaks of two kinds of truth: what really happened versus an artist's portrayal of the essence of what happened. "Sometimes," he says, "story truth is truer than happening truth." Among the things I have carried all these years is a photograph of the haunted and haunting face of this ordinary Vietnamese woman whose life is inextricably caught in the crosshairs of history.  Modern digital technology has enabled me to take this single "happening truth" and explore some of the "story-truths" that lie within it. Each iteration of her face reveals a different "truth" about war, the victims of war, and the effects of war, as well as truths about the humanity and dignity of those caught up in it. As you look at these iterations, what "truths" to you find in this old woman's face? 

Will Gabaldon

Untitled, oil on canvas 2005

Sarah Gamble

 Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, oil on canvas , 2005

This painting is about post-traumatic stress disorder which I am certain many Vietnam or any war veterans go though. Waking up in the middle of the night freaking out is something lots of people can identify with. I am not comparing one persons paint or anxiety to another’s. It’s just that it is one little way we can all identify with each other.

Arthur Gonzales

Artnam mantrA , oil and oil stick on paper 2005

Patrick Grugan

Where hope comes from, oil on board, 2005

Susan Hagen

Soldier Drawing #1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, conte on paper, 2004-2005

This series of conté and charcoal drawings is based on current images of American soldiers in Iraq found in newspapers, magazines, books, documentary films and on television, supplemented with information from interviews with soldiers and veterans and from studies from life. The drawings have been used as preparatory studies for a new series of sculptures titled The Lost Army, which will be exhibited at Schmidt Dean Gallery in Philadelphia from September 9- October 15, 2005 . In The Lost Army I have turned my attention to the subject of the ongoing United States occupation of Iraq – focusing on the individual American soldiers who have served there. The Lost Army is a monument to these soldiers and consists of a series of one-foot tall, carved wood soldiers, charred velvety black, complete with gear and weapons that will be displayed together as an installation.

Carolyn Healy and John Phillips

More Bloody Lies Sculpture/video 2005

Mary Henderson

Dean Rusk, Robert MacNamara, McGeorge Bundy, Walter Rostow, William Bundy Watercolor on paper 2005

My project is a series of 5 tiny monochrome watercolors.  The subjects are: McGeorge Bundy:  National Security Advisor, Kennedy and Johnson administrations; William Bundy:  brother of McGeorge; Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under Kennedy (later Assistant Secretary of State under Johnson); Walter Rostow:  Deputy Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, reporting to McGeorge Bundy (later National Security Adviser to Johnson) ; Robert McNamara:  Secretary of Defense, Kennedy and Johnson administrations ; Dean Rusk:  Secretary of State, Kennedy and Johnson administrations

These drawings are of some of the Kennedy-era architects of the policies that led us into the Vietnam War.  They are all smart, serious men – “Best and Brightest” figures – who believed sincerely in liberal interventionism. I was drawn to the sense of basic normalcy that they seemed to embody.

Parallels are often made between the Vietnam War and the present war in Iraq .  And there are similarities.  In both cases, the U.S. finds itself propping up a government which lacks the means to defend itself and fighting an insurgency that, while incapable of defeating the U.S. militarily, also can’t be defeated militarily by it.

But there is, I think, something very dissimilar about the various attitudes and figures that led us into the two wars.  The policies that sent us into Vietnam reflected a near- consensus about what threats the nation faced and how the U.S. needed to act in order to contain those threats.  It was only after those policies unraveled that the country became divided.  The present war, on the other hand, was one we went into as an already divided nation.  And its architects have exploited and exacerbated those divisions throughout.

So, essentially, the subject of this is the moment before things went sour and the very terrible consequences of the early escalation became clear.  I wanted the paintings to evoke the sense of unity and certitude that the Vietnam War effectively ended. 

In the context of the show, you could consider my piece a "prequel."

M. Ho

Untitled, collage on newspaper 2005

_____

Richard Hricko

Tommy - 1967, Digital Photograph 2005

My brother's Army photograph taken before he shipped out to Vietnam in 1967

Cathleen Hughes and Alex Taylor

Untitled, acrylic on canvas 2005

Jane Irish

Operation Rapid American Withdrawal

oil on chalk ground , 2004-2005

38 canvases; one canvas collection of LaSalle University Archive, Imaginative Representations of the Viet Nam War

From April – September 2004, I traveled the route of the Operation RAW march and completed a cycle of 19 paintings plein air, French easel and all, which took me as long (exactly 87 hours -paint to canvas) as the march took. While I was on the site, I carried documentation in the form of articles and photographs, and when bystanders approached, which is often the case for landscape painters, I would tell the story of the event.

At the same time, I was reading the literature of Vietnam , and came to experience the New Jersey and Pennsylvania landscape through the eyes of these great writers. I hope this has come through in the landscape paintings, it deepened my understanding and experience of the pilgrimage I had originally viewed solely as a protest march.

n 2005, I completed this piece in the studio by painting 19 combat paintings depicting either dead soldiers, figures in fear, damaged landscapes, rain, and other Vietnam images. These paintings suggest the memory in the landscape of the marching antiwar vets.

Jane Irish

Breaking Arms

digital production of painting 2005

Jeanne Jaffe and Anne Seidman

Gook, paper clay/acrylic/medium/ink/pins 2005

Christianne Kapps

Stop, Thin, Listen, Change Digital Prints 2005

We are naked in the face of History

Our very loud cries of "STOP" or "Listen" go unheeded as events swirl around and around, faster and faster until we are paralyzed and deaf

Bad news tumbles up and around us like cold air after a hot shower and we are frozen in place

It is the stunned silence that allows us to open our eyes and ears and minds

Why does it take the rush of too much to teach us moderation, acceptance, forgiveness?

Truisms fall about our feet and crunch when they are stepped on, and wait for next Spring for the chance to be regrown, reheard, respoken

Each generation reinvents ways of being horrible to each other; will we also learn to stop?

Juliana Espana Keller

RAW Digital Photograph 2005

RAW Performance
The focus of this performance reflects on—or even intervenes in—social and political conditions of our time.  Since the 1960s, if not before, artists have centered their work more increasingly and offensively on issues of socio-political parameters. The exhibition, Operation American Withdrawal was a creative act in the form of a search and destroy mission performed by anti-war Vietnam veterans of their time.  My brother,  Elio Espana, an American Tattoo Artist and I engaged in a collaborative creative act by drawing a tattoo of two of the soldier participants on my back and linking this moment in time.
Aligning with the participants of the march through the drawing process, with what began as a stencil  grew and evolved on my skin.  I was not in Vietnam .. I felt the mark of the pen on my back but could not see it.
With this analogy, the finished image reveals the mental anguish and physical manipulation endured in Vietnam but for those who were not there, we cannot feel it entirely..only speculate.. In action, performance can reveals the preoccupation in which meaning is constructed and transmitted though language and the way in which hearing and gesture interact and define our relationships with one another and with the world beyond the perimeters of our own bodies.  I extend these concerns further by questioning the distinctions between individual and collective freedoms, and moral and sensual values today.

Nicholas Kripal

Specter (after UT) Metal Leaf Wall Drawing 2005

Kit Layfield

Untitled Pencil 2005

Gabriel Martinez

Mixed media 2005

On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of Operation RAW I offer this memorial for those who have lost their lives in recent American wars. 
 
Saint Barbara (Chango) is one of the most popular and revered religious icons of the Afro-Caribbean culture. She is an extremely powerful figure and is the patron saint of all things related to artillery; in fact her image has graced powder magazines and arsenals for years. She is both fierce warrior for the cause and passionate protector for the innocent. 
 
Novena to Saint Barbara 
Oh Lord, keep away the wicked, miserable people who lurk in the shadows seeking to harm me. I look to you, Saint Barbara, to confuse them and remove them from my life. You, the sublime and generous Christian protector, who opens your heart to all good people, intercede with your heart's blood, to liberate me from those who would interrupt my Christian path. Protect me and save me from all harm. 
 
Amen. 

Karen Mauch

Tony, member of Operation RAW Color Inkjet Photograph 2005 Karen Mauch Photography C. 2005

Henry, member of Operation RAW Color Inkjet Photograph 2005 Karen Mauch Photography C. 2005

Jan, member of Operation RAW Color Inkjet Photograph 2005 Karen Mauch Photography C. 2005

I consider Jane Irish's work on the Vietnam war as stimulus to wake a muted collective memory of a time when voicing critical opinions mattered, no matter how unpopular and indeed even dangerous. It also is a challenge to all to shed our common complacency about the horror that our government is again and still wreaking. Like many others, I participated in protests in Philadelphia and D.C. during the Vietnam war. I am struck by how eerily similar our times are to those then, when negative views are squelched by the media and government, and fear of the consequences to dissent is palpable. The bridge from then to now was brought home for me when I met Tony, Henry and Jan. Their presence, and their words, evoked a powerful feeling of a time when passion and conviction could affect change. They, and this exhibition, are a foundation for a new generation to think about and understand the Vietnam history in light of the "new Vietnam " in Iraq . 

Kait Midgett

 #1 Patriot Metal motor, flag 2005

Sarah McEneaney

September 1970 egg tempera on wood 2005, Courtesy Tibor de Nagy Gallery

In September of 1970 I was 15 and entering my sophomore year of high school in a suburb of New York City . Though my knowledge of the Vietnam War was limited to the daily newspapers and evening television broadcasts I knew enough to be sure that our involvement in Vietnam was wrong. During my junior year I started attending antiwar rallies in New York and Washington DC . while in social studies we were reading excerpts from Frances Fitzgerald's Fire in The Lake. 
 
When Jane Irish asked me to participate in Operation RAW I said yes immediately. Watching the film of the 1970 march, Different Sons, reading prose and poems by vets and historians and news accounts by local journalists brought up my memories of political coming of age. 

For the painting I re-imagined the march and a mock “search and destroy” mission in a small village. I studied the news photographs and stills from Different Sons to depict a line of soldiers entering a town, taking captives by force and violence and then marching on. I depicted myself, at 15, first as a bystander, then as one of the targets of interrogation and torture and finally as a supporter of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. 

Susan Moore

Blindfold I paintstick 2005

Blindfold II paintstick 2005

Joshua Mosley

Untitled B/W Video tube, DVD, Wood, Resin, Paint 2005

Jack Ofield

Different Sons, Vietnam Remembered, 1970. On the road with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War

Producer-Director: Jack Ofield , Producer: Robert J. Sann ; The original 56-minute documentary reissued in a new half-hour version, January, 2004. Images from the film Different Sons are used by permission of its maker, Jack Ofield . Different Sons© Jack Ofield , Bowling Green Films, Inc. 1971.
Distributed by New Pacific Productions, P.O. Box 12792 , San Diego , CA 92112 .  

Taping, photographing, or copying the film Different Sons in any manner is prohibited. All rights are reserved.

Sharyn O'Mara

Missing Man Chalk on floor 2005

Michael O'Reilly

Video and mixed media 2005

Tom Porett

Preemptive d'gustation Mixed media 2005

This installation mixed media piece has been created as a protest against the too often used power of the United States government to try by subversion or outright military intervention to achieve policy goals. The motivations driving these goals are varied but usually not truthfully stated. This essentially amounts to lies, stated in order to gain public support. The Iraq pre-emptive invasion is among the most recent and clear examples of this technique.

Pre-emptive d’gustation consists of a table setting consisting of a flag motif paper tablecloth and placemats derived from frames of the “Different Sons” film by Jack Olfield. Toy soldiers are attached to eating utensils, symbolizing the combatants being used as utensils of ideological intervention. Napkins are also flag motifs but inverted, a symbol of distress. The centerpiece consists of medieval warriors fitted with the faces and chef hats of the four presidents, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and G.W. Bush. Finally is the menu with the chef’s choice interventions.

Pre-emptive d’gustation focuses on those most obvious interventions in which there have been few if any real threats to the USA , but have been conjured through ideology to provide justification. I have focused primarily upon three interventions; the Bay of Pigs abortive attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro, the Vietnam war and the second Iraqi war. In addition I have made references to the Spanish-American war that led to the “manifest destiny” concept of hemispheric (now global) justification for intervention. Another reference was the successful overthrow (murder) of Salvador Allende in Chile . Other examples exist but the ones chosen were among the most blatant examples.

A nation most certainly must protect itself and does indeed have interests to protect. The war against the Taliban in Afghanistan was one such example as individuals that had trained in that country attacked the US . The aftermath of scaling back reconstruction in Afghanistan has been an unfortunate consequence of the Iraqi debacle.

Aside from the consequences usually meted out to a civilian population in any war, the wonton waste of young men and women in the military is despicable. It is clear that perhaps a majority of the military is convinced that the Iraq war is right and justified. Most of these individuals are truly convinced in the righteousness of the cause.

I take issue with their conclusion but honor their dedication. It is the leaders of such endeavors that I have targeted in the artwork. The “chefs” of these interventions readily commit the precious lives of the military to ill-conceived adventures that cost us dearly in talent and devotion to country

The piece is dedicated to two individuals, William Rawson and Carl Thorne-Thompson who lost their lives in Vietnam .

Cynthia Porter

Figure muslin and digital print 2005

Andrew Prayzner

Range oil on canvas 2005

Huston Ripley

Sacrificial ' Nam acrylic on canvas 1992

Courtesy of Frank Klock

Sarah Roche

Black Heart india ink on paper 2005

In Black Heart, swords and armor from the Middle East are reflected in the glass case containing a suit of European armor. The armor gallery at the Philadelphia Museum of Art inspired this image, where historical antagonists face off for posterity. This conflict with the Other is entrenched in our psyche.

Our pre-modern president spoke early on of the invasion of Iraq as a crusade. To his apparent surprise he was told that this was an offensive term. In fact a modern day crusade has already begun. Although religion isn’t spoken of officially as a rationale for war these days, our cultural memory helps us connect the dots. After the Vietnam War it seemed that the country wouldn’t easily accept another ideological and unwinnable war. Yet we are repeating history with echoes of the Dark Ages. Our leaders have called on the crusaders in our hearts to crush the infidel. Our enemies are scorned for their idea of jihad. Somehow it is hard for many to notice the similarity between the enemy and us.

James Rosenthal

Yankee Doodle Video on DVD 2005

Mark Shetabi

The Rapture MDF, plywood, acrylic, styrene, cloth, resin, metal, plexiglass, fluorescent light, and peephole lens 2005

Courtesy the artist and Ratio3, San Francisco

Mark Shetabi

Readymade Found name tags 2005

Courtesy the artist and Ratio3, San Francisco

Larry Spaid

Untitled Mixed media 1971-2005

Clint Takeda

Budgie ’72 Okinawa Plastic, steel, polyurethane foam, enamel paint 2005

Ira Upin

Shared Sacrifice Enamel, paper, over tar on door panels 2005

Jeremy Vaughn

Weapons of Utter Frustration Mixed Media 2005

Tony Velez

Vietnam Memories : At War and Peace

Vietnam Photographs, all small images 1966 -67; Vietnam Veterans Against the War, all large photographs from "Operation RAW" 1970

An inventory:

Jockey Hollow Rd , Morristown NJ Silver print

Twice Decorated Infantry Selenium print

Sunrise Day Two Silver print

Line of March I Silver print

Al Hubbard Silver print

Line of March II Silver print

Rt. 202 Silver print

Nurse for Peace Selenium print

Sunrise Day 3 Silver print

Assault Silver print

Nurses and Veterans Silver print

Time Out Silver print

Henry Velez Selenium print

Lone Soldier Silver print

New York Times Silver print

Assembling the Wounded Silver print

Veteran Speaker Silver print

Breaking of Arms Silver print

Peace Silver print

Bill Walton

Channel Marker / R.A.W. Wood 2005

Natalie Wieters and Janet Richard

Rest in Peace Mixed media 2005

Sarah Zwerling

Untitled LCD, DVD, Paper, Wood, Paint 2005