Today, Doc and SSG D spoke with Leigh and Jason from Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.  They're going to help spread the word about our project through their Community of Veterans.  It was a very exciting phone call that hints at a lot of potential.  IAVA has nearly 5000 members and is growing every day.  We hope that we can return the favor and tell folks about their mission as they help us spread the word about Unconventional Military Art.  SSG D spoke with Keith from the United States Veterans Artists Alliance yesterday.  He offered a lot of advice about how we might be successful in communicating our goals to a wide variety of people.

The big news is that we have received and published our first batch of photos!  Click on over to our photos page and have a look.  If you have any you'd like to submit, send them to us in an email or publish them to our facebook page.  

This is as good a time as any to re-cap our objectives.  We want to share a side of modern military life that hasn't been talked about or published very much.  Graffiti, drawings, or writings in various places has been a part of combat since soldiers had five spare minutes and something to scrawl with.  "Kilroy" was all over the place during World War II.  It goes on today, in the oddest of places.  More to the point, it's more than just random scribblings, and it's more than just art.  Each cartoon, slogan, or writing is a snapshot of how that person felt at that moment.  We feel that these snapshots, taken as a whole, will show how the current conflict, this thing called asymmetric warfare, affects our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen.  Because a vast majority of this graffiti wasn't intended as 'fine art' it carries a blunt honesty about how that person was affected by the realities of combat.
Once we amass a large enough collection, we'll publish a book and donate a fair share of the proceeds to charities that directly benefit veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait.  This is our generation, these are our comrades, and we'd like to offer them our respect and gratitude by saying, "We remember.  You're not alone.  And, thanks."

I had a great phone call with Keith from the United States Veterans' Artists Alliance today.  More about that later, but he shared a great quote with me, that certainly applies to this project:


“The artist's job is to be a witness to his time in history.” - Robert Rauschenberg

This is turning out to be a challenge.  I think when the photos start rolling in, our task will seem easy.


We've emailed, posted on walls, made phone calls, I wouldn't be surprised if Doc isn't out there writing some of his own graffiti to let people know about our project.  We've talked to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the United States Veterans Artists Alliance, and the War Experience Project.  We look forward to figuring out how we can work together and bring this idea into reality.

Maxim has agreed to do an article about the project and our partners.  We hope to see the article in the next month or so.  Doc will contact Stars and Stripes this week to work out trading links and maybe additional publicity in their newspaper.  We are sifting through several gigabytes of images and collecting our partners' biographies. 
Here's where we're at: The more press we can get, the better our chances of getting the art we're looking for.  We're doing our best to get the word out by our own contacts and acquaintances but we require much more exposure.  We are trying to collect as many images as possible in order to assemble the most outstanding book as possible.  The more Servicemembers we can reach in this phase, the more images we will receive.  In other words, the final quality of the project depends heavily on casting our net as widely as we can.  The interviews are one way to accomplish this; another is word-of-mouth.  If you have a Facebook account, become a fan of our page.  That provides people another opportunity to submit their images as well as discuss or project.  Share and Enjoy!

Welcome to Unconventional Military Art.  As stated on the home page, we are looking for art created by military service members on unconventional canvases.  As we develop the site, we'll make it easier to submit photos of your own artwork or the stories behind it.  If you have created any work yourself, we'd love to hear from you!  Drop us a line using our Commo page.