Robert L. Lynch

Dear friends and colleagues,

As we continue to hear more news about the devastating tornado that passed through the town of Moore on the outskirts of Oklahoma City yesterday, we at Americans for the Arts send our thoughts and prayers to the artists, administrators, and all those affected.  When natural disasters strike, there is no way to fully comprehend or process the pain they inflict.  They are arbitrary, and yesterday’s horrific storm makes us feel powerless.  As we try to contact friends and colleagues in the area, and know that many of you are doing the same, we realize that while we can’t stop these tragedies from happening, we can join together to help others pick up the pieces.  Moore and Oklahoma City are resilient, creative communities, and we are here to support them as best we can.  Americans for the Arts staff have been in touch with many of our partners and colleagues in the area, including the immediate-past Chair of our Board of Directors, Ken Fergeson of Altus, OK, and continue to monitor the situation.  We hope to be able to share more information soon, and in the meantime, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us directly.

Oklahoma, you are in our thoughts today. I have included below some emergency resources to help you start on the long road to recovery, and know that we are always here to answer questions, to help, and to send you our hopes for a brighter tomorrow.

Emergency Response Resources:

The Essential Guidelines for Arts Responders is an immediate resource to help you determine your organization’s response and work in the weeks ahead. It is an abridged version of a longer, more detailed handbook (now in development) that’s designed to help local and state arts agencies, organizations, foundations, and other arts groups plan and administer a coordinated disaster mobilization system within their service area. We hope that it helps you, and we welcome your comments and additions.

We also encourage you to visit our National Coalition Partners: CERF+ and ArtsReady for resource links and more disaster relief information.

You may also visit our website for more information; here is a link to our page that has resource links for emergency preparedness and disaster relief:
http://www.artsusa.org/networks/laa/017.asp

Please let Theresa Cameron, Local Arts Agency Services, know how you are doing and if you have other information you would like to share.  In these days after the tornado, our thoughts are with you, your families, friends, and colleagues.

Best,

Bob Lynch, President and CEO
Americans for the Arts

Joanna Chin

Throughout this week the overriding question has been: why do we use the arts in this complex space where individual and community health, veterans, and the military intersect?

On day 1, the resounding answer was that the arts promote the health and wellness of our veterans and active duty members. Two experts in the creative arts therapy field, NICoE Healing Arts Program Coordinator Melissa Walker and Semper Sound Military Program Director Rebecca Vaudreuil, made science-based arguments for the place of art-making and music in opening up channels of communication and guiding service members down the path towards healing. Susan Rockefeller’s experience documenting Nell Bryden’s band as they played for troops serving in Iraq gave anecdotal evidence of the impact that music can have on those thousands of miles from home.

As part of a natural progression from individual health to community wellbeing, on day 2, bloggers spoke to the power of the arts to aid in community reintegration. Punctuated by beautiful writing from the Veterans Writing Project, blog posts by Combat Paper Project founder Drew Cameron and Executive Director of Maryland Citizens for the Arts John Schratwieser asserted the need for everyone and particularly, artists/arts administrators as bedrocks of their community, to engage in the work of re-connecting veterans to home.

Looking at the intersection of the arts and the military from a global perspective, day 3 explored how culture plays a significant role in the success of missions and military communities abroad. From David Diamond’s observations of theater on military bases to two posts by General Nolen Bivens and American University Professor Dr. Robert Albro, we saw a shared acknowledgment of art and culture’s importance to the military (both in protecting cultural assets and, also, as a tool for creating and maintaining social and political stability), as well as diverse viewpoints on the challenges associated with this work.

On day 4, our three artist bloggers responded to the question of why we do the work by reflecting on how the arts change and enrich the public narrative around the military, war, and service members. Graffiti of War’s Jaeson Parsons and Outside the Wire Artistic Director Bryan Doerries emphasized the necessity of building understanding between service members and civilians, while playwright Tammy Ryan examined a civilian artist’s impetus for creating awareness and action around women in the military.

A continuation of this conversation on affecting the collective conscience, our final day explored the ways the arts allow us to memorialize and commemorate those who have served. From public art in a national cemetery to a hundred portrait project to a “museum” of memory and accountability, projects by bloggers – Ann Wykell of Social Sector Solutions, artist Matt Mitchell, and Director of the Guantánamo Memory Project, Liz Ševčenko – exemplified a movement in memorialization toward a more democratic process that seeks to capture a multi-faceted, “real” picture of military experience.

There is so much space for more artists and arts organizations to get involved in fostering better, stronger communities by supporting veterans and their families. A huge thank you to our incredible bloggers who are leading the field with their innovative work and willingness to share their knowledge of and passion for addressing military issues through the arts. And thanks to all of you for joining us for this conversation.

As mentioned earlier in the week, if you’d like to get a great overview of programs, projects, and people doing amazing work with veterans and military issues, take a look at Animating Democracy’s newly released trend paper, Art in Service: Supporting the Military Community and Changing the Public Narrative, by Maranatha Bivens. We’ll also be rolling out separate profiles of some of the organization represented in the salon and paper in the Profiles section of our website in the coming weeks. For more information about the rest of the work Americans for the Arts has been doing around the arts and the military, check out the webpage for our National Initiative for Arts & Health in the Military.

Matt Mitchell

Since the spring of 2005 I have been working on a project entitled “100 Faces of War Experience: Portraits and Words of Americans Who Served in Iraq and Afghanistan”. In some ways this work can be seen as a memorial, yet it differs from a traditional memorial in a key aspect. Most, if not all, American war memorials are built around an official representation of the American experience of war or a vision of that experience decided upon beforehand by an artist. The 100 Faces project is, instead, an experiment in self representation by people who gone from America into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When complete the 100 Faces project will consist of one hundred painted portraits of, and statements by, Americans who have gone to the theaters of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The paintings are done in a traditional portrait style and show the person’s head and shoulders at life size. Each painting is started from life in a meeting between the artist and the person pictured.

The statements that accompany each portrait are the place where self representation enters the picture. These statements are chosen by the person pictured and are not edited or censored. Every effort is made to make sure that the participants in the project know they have complete freedom of speech. The only restrictions on these statements are that they be no more than 250 words and that each person must make their statement in some way different from all of those that have come before them.  In this way the project becomes more than a series of individual accounts, it becomes a complex collective narrative of the American experience of these wars. Even though all of the portraits and statements look independent when hanging on the wall, the entire group is meant to be kept together as a single unit in order to preserve this narrative.

You can see the on line exhibition by clicking here.

The people selected for the project are chosen for their ability to represent both the typical demographics of the American experience of these wars as well a wide range of diverse experiences and backgrounds. People are involved not based on what they might say, but based upon how they can fill out a kind of total picture of the American experience through their role and background.

In order to learn how to best represent the demographics of the American involvement I enlisted the aid of Sociologist, Dr. Daniel Burland in 2009. We developed a selection criteria involving ten dynamics. To select each person in the project I consider aspects of their experience that include: role in country, race, gender, rank (if military), branch of service (if military), location, and dates in country. In a break with the traditional memorial, American civilians who went to the war zones are also included because this aspect of the American involvement is an important and often overlooked. The civilian Americans pictured range from a peace activist to a paramilitary contractor. At least one person from each of the 50 states will also be included. Despite our efforts to find the best available demographics, the wars have been on going, so the demographics can, in the end, only be a best guess. The project will end with the participation of one of the last people to return from Afghanistan, expected to take place in 2014.

Jeff Dale and his portrait

With the demographics of the project I did make some choices that are based more on an artistic sensibility than upon pure statistics. I have chosen to represent ten injured people and ten mortalities. These numbers are not accurate in a statistical sense, but I felt it was important to do this.  For the posthumous portraits I speak with the family to try to understand how to represent their loved one and the family chooses the words that accompany the portrait.

When the 100 Faces project is complete the aim is to tour the project around the country as an exhibition, making it available to a wide public and searching for the best permanent home for the work.

The project is a work in progress. As I write this I am glancing up from my computer to the three portraits I am currently working on. Portraits 68, 69 and 70. Jeff Dale, Lawreece Fluellen, and Chris Johnson. Each of them visited the studio over these past few weeks, and their visits stay in my mind as I continue to struggle to represent their likenesses. Each portrait takes 40 to 80 hours of painting time.

Jeff, Lawreece, and Chris have provided their statements. In each case, when I received their words, I was deeply impressed with how they took the narrative to a new level of sophistication and emotional power. My work on this project makes me wonder if this is an innate human ability.

The 100 Faces project differs from the traditional memorial in that it is not an official representation of war and it is not a representation of war as imagined by an artist.

Instead the project is an experiment with democratic ideals. What happens if you give a selected population a platform to speak freely and as equals? The 100 Faces project takes this practice and applies it to the American experience the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ann Wykell

As art consultant to The Patterson Foundation (TPF) in Sarasota, FL, I manage the commissions of public art for the assembly space in Sarasota National Cemetery.  The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), National Cemetery Administration, builds and administers 131 national cemeteries in the US. TPF an endowed charitable foundation and is fully funding the design and construction of the ceremonial amphitheater called Patriot Plaza, as a gift to the VA to honor the military ties of the family whose fortune endowed the Foundation. The theme of Patriot Plaza is Honor Veterans, Inspire Patriotism, and Embrace Freedom.

To select artists we followed best-practices for public art process, as defined by the Public Art Network of Americans for the Arts. However working within a military space has implications that are not typically encountered when placing art in public spaces. It is impossible to make meaningful art about the military without encountering the historical, political, art-historical and personal context. Typical questions for a public art project took on nuances and complexities: Who is our audience? What is this space used for? A national cemetery is a place where active duty military killed in the line of duty are buried, and where men and women whose honorable service took place decades earlier choose to be interred. It also provides burial space for eligible family members of veterans.

When we showed examples of military-themed sculpture to two focus groups their reactions illuminated the range of expectations.  One image was of a handsome young pilot in a flying suit, carrying his helmet under his arm, looking out into the distance.  Bronze, with a shiny patina  – it was an image of youth, strength, and perfection.   In a meeting with the leaders of local veterans organizations, all older than 50, they thought this kind of sculpture alluded to the values of valor and courage that they wanted depicted in Patriot Plaza.  A group of active duty reservists who had recently served in various parts of the Middle East, and who were in a unit that provided honor guards at funerals in national cemeteries throughout Florida, had a very different reaction. These young men and women admired the sculpture, understood and liked what it represented, but they felt it did not belong in a national cemetery.  To them it did not tell “the truth”, was “too perfect”, did not convey the reality of military experience and sacrifice. They hoped there would be art that spoke to what “it was really like”.

I believe that these two reactions epitomize the dichotomy and internal tension in making art for and about the military today. The divide has always existed between the values and attributes the institution lives by and aspires to:  valor, discipline, courage, loyalty, service, and especially, sacrifice – and the reality of living the military experience day by day; of being in violent conflicts; separating from family,  facing inner fears. Most military art references conflict, or tries to address the values through symbolic soldiers or scenes of heroic action. Maya Linn’s  Vietnam War Memorial is typical of another approach  where abstract forms and minimalism allow  viewers to project their own value-based reactions on the viewing experience.

For Patriot Plaza we needed both – to interpret foundational values and to be relevant to the men and women who want the public to know “what it was really like.   We chose to base the project in narrative – story telling and in the military experience of those who serve and their families.  Stories must be about individuals and specifics, even if they are, on another level, metaphors or allegories.  The prospectus issued for potential artists states:

Patriot Plaza is a space where art tells stories to future generations. The primary focus will be on the individuals who have served: Who are they?  What did they do?  What was the nature of their service?  What shared values inspired their decision to serve their country? What effect did this have on them?   Who are their families?  What was their experience as families whose loved ones were in the military? What is their contribution?

Through these narratives visitors will understand the reality of the service that is honored in this space and the value of patriotism that it seeks to inspire. 

The Patterson Foundation is interested in the wide range of approaches, styles and materials that contemporary artists use to interpret their themes.

Another complex concept that we worked to unravel and articulate was the issue of memorialization which is associated with remembering the dead. As well as wars and traumatic events. The assembly space is a place grounded in the present and the living. People gather there to celebrate as well as commemorate and mourn. The desire to ensure that future generations remember, understand and appreciate the contributions of the military was expressed by every informant consulted in this process, and it is a compelling mandate.  The  prospectus states:

Patriot Plaza is not a memorial space, but through its art it will preserve memory.

 Visitors to Patriot Plaza when it is opened in 2014 will encounter five art installations unlike anything in any national cemetery. They are by Ellen Driscoll, Pablo Eduardo, Ann Hirsch and Larry Kirkland. Each is entirely different, but each responds to the goal of telling stories through art.

Liz Sevcenko

“I just hope that because of the pain we are suffering, the eyes of the world will once again look to Guantánamo before it is too late,” wrote hunger striker Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel in his 11^th year of detention. Our eyes have looked away before:  twenty years ago this month, another group staged a hunger strike to bring attention to their indefinite detention at GTMO. They were Haitian refugees seeking asylum in the United States, first rescued at sea and then held in makeshift tent cities behind barbed wire while their cases were considered. In 1993, the hunger strike drew international attention.  After an intense legal battle supported by a strong social movement, in June a US district court judge “closed Guantánamo.” So why is it still open?

GTMO has over a century of history before 9-11. It’s been used and reused to contain a whole variety of perceived threats, from communism to communicable disease. While the Haitian camps were closed in 1993, the government’s right to hold people at GTMO indefinitely was ultimately upheld – allowing “Gitmo” as we know it to open just a few years later.

But for many military families, GTMO has never been forgotten. “My most vivid memories of Guantánamo was everything just being free down there,” says Anita Lewis Isom, whose father was stationed there in the early 1960s. “I would give anything to be able to go back.”

How can Guantánamo represent both freedom and confinement? What can we learn from this contradiction?

The Guantánamo Public Memory Project works to share GTMO’s myriad stories – and the historical context that shaped them – to foster dialogue on the future of this place, its people, and why they matter to all of us. In 2012, the Project invited students at 11 universities around the country to ask: what can GTMO’s history tell us about what’s happening now—there, and here at home? They dug through historical and visual archives; talked to people who worked there, lived there, or were detained there; and explored how GTMO relates to issues, people, and places in their own communities. They created the Project’s first video testimonies, web platform, and traveling exhibit (appearing in 9 cities so far) sharing their discoveries—and the difficult questions they struggled with.

The Project’s primary goal is to open – and sustain – exchange and engagement in GTMO and the questions it raises for us at home. The dialogue began among the students themselves, a post-9-11 generation confronting this history for the first time, through the Project’s blog and video conferences. The Project sought to involve students in the widest variety of political and cultural contexts possible, in collaboration with people with diverse direct experience – from Cuban refugees to base workers.

LIfe at Gitmo in the 60′s

Students from the University of West Florida lived among a highly organized community of “Gtimoites”: American service people and their families with fond memories of attending the base’s WT Sampson High school; celebrating “Cuban-American Friendship Day”; or barbecuing at Windmill Beach. Teams from UFL and the University of Arizona participated in a string of GTMO reunions, including a Caribbean cruise for people evacuated from the base during the Cuban missile crisis. They worked with Gitmoites to integrate their stories, personal photographs, and perspectives into the exhibit, conducting over 100 oral histories.

“It was like being in my backyard at home. It was not just safe, it was so enjoyable… It was a wonderful life,” remembers David Pruett of GTMO in 1962-3. This feeling persisted after 9-11:  one officer wrote us of 2008-2010: “GTMO was home and is the fondest memory in my heart. While so many people are blinded by the detention facility the sense of community and family is often overlooked.”

Students were stunned. Of all the “secrets” of the base, the memories of GTMO’s military community drew by far the greatest response. “The most shocking discovery I had was when I found out that to some of its residents, Guantánamo was paradise,” wrote Kavita Singh of IUPUI in Indianapolis.

Now led from Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, the Project was conceived by the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, whose museums celebrate multiple perspectives and dialogue. But students struggled hard with these ideas when it came to Guantánamo. Singh demanded, “How can these two opposing viewpoints coexist in a place people were forced to call home?” For Mandy Charles, learning “what [GTMO] has meant to all people throughout its history is a positive step towards understanding what should and can be done with the site.”

Haitian refugees

Here’s the question for me: Can we simultaneously create a space for collective memory – something layered and continually contested – and for collective accountability – something that challenges us to take responsibility for past injustice and prevent it from happening again?

The University of West Florida students put it another way: “Should memories of past residents be part of the current dialogue on GTMO?”  In the exhibit’s “Shape the Debate” feature, visitors are invited to vote and comment on this and other questions via text message (or the web); responses are then displayed in the exhibit as it travels across the country. Thus far, responses are fairly evenly split. What’s your take? Add your voice by going to http://gitmomemory.org/participate/question-10/

Want to bring this conversation to your community? Learn how to host the exhibit and other ways to join the National Dialogue.

Joanna Chin

In the past half-century, the mechanisms for remembering and honoring service members have been evolving: from statues of proud figures gazing off into the distance to approaches that are more multi-faceted, process-oriented, and democratic.

A natural continuation of yesterday’s look at artists working to enrich the public narrative around the military and war, today we dive a little deeper into the question of how the arts are contributing to and changing the way that we memorialize and commemorate those that have served. As evidenced by today’s bloggers, the public art and museums of today are placing less emphasis on permanent structures and the values that the military as an institution lives by and aspires to (e.g., valor, loyalty, discipline) and focusing on enabling multiple voices to form a collective, realistic narrative of their experience. Check back later on today for posts from Ann Wykell, the art consultant managing commission of public art for the assembly space in Sarasota National Cemetery; artist Matt Mitchell; and Director of the Guantánamo Memory Project, Liz Ševčenko as we bring the Arts & the Military Blog Salon to a close.

Tammy Ryan

“Every artist worth a damn in this country was terribly opposed to that war….We formed sort of a laser beam of protest.  Every painter, every writer, every stand-up comedian, every composer, every novelist, every poet aimed in the same direction. Afterwards, the power of this incredible new weapon dissipated. Now it’s like a banana cream pie three feet in diameter dropped from a stepladder four feet high…”     

-  Kurt Vonnegut http://progressive.org/mag_intv0603

It’s been over forty years since the Vietnam War, the time of protests in the streets underscored by the visceral antiwar response that erupted from artists in the 60s and 70s. Now at the end of a decade of war, critics have complained about the dearth of new American plays about Iraq and Afghanistan, but it isn’t because they aren’t being written. Many American playwrights have been taking this subject on since the first Gulf War and while war stories still feel very much part of the male mythology grab bag, women playwrights, such as Naomi Wallace, Karen Malpede, Arlene Hutton, E. M. Lewis,  Andrea Stolowitz, Jami Brandli, Caridad Svich, and many others are writing plays that dig into this grab bag in personal and political ways.

Given the climate for politically minded plays in this country, I asked myself as I was about to write a play about rape in the military: why would I do it? Plays take a long time to research, write and get produced.  I was looking at a commitment of three to five years maybe longer and I had a number of roadblocks, not the least of which was the fact that I knew next to nothing about what it was like to be a woman in the military. What do I have to say – and maybe more importantly what good does it do? Given the coterie nature of the theater in this country, we often feel like we’re preaching to the choir.  So what do our voices add to the narrative as artists outside the military experience? Do we offer protest, criticism or simply acknowledgement and does any of it make a difference especially when it’s so hard to get any play produced, much less one that might criticize the government? If a playwright writes a play about war in a forest and no one hears it does it make an impact? I’ve been described by a local critic as a writer who looks at history through a microscopic lens. At the time this was not meant to be a compliment, but it’s true. As a playwright and a mother my way into this play about war and its aftermath was through the lens of being a parent.

The inspiration came to me on a fall afternoon in 2007. As I was waiting outside my daughter’s school, a classmate’s Mom stood next to me in combat boots, desert storm fatigues, her hair pulled tight in a bun. My first surprise was that she was a Marine in the Reserves (I didn’t know this when we worked together at the book fair a few weeks before) and my second surprise was that she was being deployed to the Middle East. While she wouldn’t be in harm’s way (she said) she would miss the entire nine months of kindergarten. None of us other mothers standing there with her, waiting for our children would be impacted in this way.  Hers was the only family military family and while her child’s classmates drew cards and sent care packages to her during her deployment, she went through this apart from her community. Our ability to look away, to go on with our own lives, made it so.  Around this time, I read an article in New York Times, describing the growing epidemic of rape in the military. Armed with facts and the face of a friend going off to war, I couldn’t turn away.

In the time it has taken me to research, write and develop my play, the documentary The Invisible War, brought this subject to the nation’s attention and directly to Congress affecting policy change in terms of how charges of rape will be dealt with going forward as well as instigating the lifting of the ban on women serving in combat in a remarkably short amount of time. What more can a play do? As playwright Caridad Svich, in an interview in 24 Gun Control Plays says “while a play or poem in and of itself may not effect immediate change, the effort to speak out and up, to raise the voice with power and feeling and artistry and passion, does matter. Otherwise why are we artists? We make things, we throw light on our culture and its troubles because we do think it matters to someone somewhere down the pike….”

With any luck my play Soldier’s Heart will play to audiences in the city where I live. My book fair buddy, now a Captain whose daughter is in the fifth grade with my own, may be seated next to me in the audience. What she thinks will mean more to me than any critic and in talkbacks with audiences the real conversation begins.  In another forty years when someone is looking for the response of today’s artists to these wars, they might find my play alongside the work of other American Playwrights, a choir who added their voices to the (her/his) story we’ll be left with. I have to believe that will have more impact that a banana cream pie.

Jaeson Parsons

The cultural chasm separating the civilian and the warfighter has never been wider. Most of the conflicts in 20^th Century American history have relied on conscription, better known as the draft, to fill the ranks of our armed forces. The Global War on Terror of the 21^st Century has been and continues to be fought by an all-volunteer force and because of this, the gap continues to grow as more and more professional soldiers shoulder the weight of a decade of conflict.

The typical soldier joins the military right out of high school, most have never lived outside of the town they grew up in and even fewer have visited another country. These men and women are just out of childhood when they join the military and many of them have fired a weapon in combat multiple times before their first drink in a bar at age 21. The military culture is all they know of adult life and once they are separated from this family of sorts, the civilian world is as alien to them as the sands of Iraq were when their boots first hit the ground. After multiple years in combat, witnessing man’s inhumanity to man, they are forever changed and trying to relate to their generational civilian counterparts is almost mission impossible. This is the divide, the cultural gap that separates those who have witnessed the horrors of combat firsthand and those who have simply watched the events unfold on CNN. We, as a nation, must construct a bridge over this divide to bring together this fractured generation and not let yet another war separate so many of our military heroes from their civilian brothers and sisters. Art, in its many forms, can be that bridge we so desperately need and art is what inspired our project, the Graffiti of War, which aims to bridge the divide and join our nation together like never before.

The idea we began with was a simple one: to collect and document the art from across the conflict zones in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan and to showcase these vastly different works of art to the American public. What started as just an idea between friends during our deployment to Ar Ramadi, Iraq in 2006 had evolved into a multinational project with goals surpassing the original aim of creating a simple coffee table book. After the initial months of slowly collecting images from our growing base of veterans and military members, we realized we must travel to Iraq before the proposed withdraw of Coalition Forces in 2012. With the assistance of some experienced and world renowned journalists such as Tim Hetherington, Sebastian Junger (of Restrepo fame) and Zoriah Miller, we were able to secure just under a month in Kuwait and Iraq by the Department of Defense. We were able to capture thousands of images in several different areas including over 100 photos of murals by local Iraqis in Basra, the expedition was a huge success. After returning to the U.S., our team discovered a new avenue in which to raise awareness, one city at a time: art exhibits. Through the fall of 2011 to the spring of 2012, we showcased dozens of the images we captured since the inception of the project to hundreds of people, both civilian and military alike. It was through these exhibits that we truly began bringing the cultures together. Veterans would view the images with their friends and family and begin talking about their experiences as it related to that particular piece of art, it was incredibly inspiring.

As we prepare for another year of exhibits in 2013, including a fall show at West Point, we continue to strive towards building an ever widening bridge. Art is therapy, whether by creating it or viewing the creation, it transcends barriers and inspires unity. Each show that we do is more satisfying than the last as we connect the civilian with the military veteran and promote a greater understanding of the dedication and sacrifice that these brave men and women have endured on behalf of each citizen of this great nation. Art allows our military and veterans to express the inexpressible, to speak the unspeakable and provides a way for civilians to comprehend the incomprehensible. Arts therapy can change the world we live in and changes the lives of those who defended that world.

We stand at the precipice of a bold new direction in the care for our invisibly wounded warriors and now is the time for each one of us to work collectively and unite the countless organizations out there supporting our warriors and veterans. United we stand but divided we will fall. We must have the courage to join together as one to combat the struggles set before us as we strive towards a new avenue of treatment for those who have bravely sacrificed their lives so others may live peaceably and without fear of harm. This generation of heroes became the 1% so the remaining 99% could carry on with their lives, we owe it for their sacrifice. As George Washington said, “A Nation will be judged by the way it treats its veterans.” How will we be judged?

Richard Crespin

When Capital One bought ING Direct last year in the first big bank acquisition since Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act, the deal was subject to a high level of scrutiny. While regulators poured over the facts and figures, what they really wanted to know was could Capital One be trusted?

“We had hearings with the [Federal Reserve] in three different cities. Numerous nonprofits testified on our behalf about our corporate character,” said Carolyn Berkowitz, Managing Vice President for Capital One Bank and President of the Capital One Foundation. “They all said, ‘…this is a company that’s going to add to our community, not detract from it…’ That kind of commitment doesn’t come from just writing a check.”

Milton Friedman famously said, “the business of business is business.” Corporate responsibility skeptics often ape Friedman, asking how these programs impact the bottom line. But for most publicly traded firms, over 80% of their market value – the real test of shareholder value – lies on the balance sheet in good will and brand. Capital One’s good will, built through skills-based volunteering, added to its brand value and its book value because it helped ensure the purchase of ING Direct.

Although Capital One’s skills-based volunteering program is more than ten years old, in 2008 the company expanded and restructured it to make it a cornerstone of their brand. At its founding, Capital One was “a company that was a new idea, knocking down the price of credit. That was a mission unto itself,” said Berkowitz. “For our associates, taking on pro bono is like a new mission. Having the opportunity to use their very honed skills, taking them into the community and back to the company is a reward for our people and has a big impact on our ability to grow.”

Capital One joined 365 of America’s largest companies and well-known brands in taking the A Billion + Changepledge to “donate their best talent to tackle tough problems in their communities and around the world.” The pledge inspired the donation of the equivalent of $1.998 billion of volunteer time and the organization wants to get to 500 participating firms by this summer (Source: Billion + Change). But skills-based volunteering isn’t an easy story to tell.

On April 22, during a Pro Bono Summit panel organized by A Billion + Change, Deloitte, Fairfax Chamber of Commerce, George Mason University, and Fairfax County, Berkowitz asked, “how can the media help tell this story?” By common wisdom, donors and volunteers respond to pictures of volunteers coming to the aid of suffering people, not “capacity building” – strengthening the infrastructure, operations, and management of nonprofits. According to Berkowitz, “we often find nonprofits aren’t ready for us; don’t speak our language,” and don’t have the structures to make use of volunteer resources. Without that infrastructure, nonprofits can be like water in the dessert: pour on all the resources and they’ll just run off without making an impact.

“We’re a visual medium, so a park clean-up is an easy visual,” said NBC4 Washington’s Northern Virginia Bureau Chief Julie Carey. “But we also love numbers,” so the kinds of statistics that underlie programs like Capital One’s can draw media attention. Yet many businesses still don’t know how they can help nonprofits overcome capacity problems. That must change.

Over my next few blogs I’ll explore how Capital One and other companies use programs like the A Billion + Change pledge to drive business value and magnify social impact. Here’s a quick preview of my next post on the business case for using skills-based volunteering to build nonprofit capacity…

“We need to totally rethink and resell pro bono,” said Deloitte’s Evan Hochberg, National Director of Community Involvement. “At last year’s Impact Day,” said Hochberg, describing Deloitte’s annual community service day, “I had one executive come up to me [dressed in a suit], and say, ‘This is not Impact Day. I need to be outside in a t-shirt,’” doing something with her hands, not her skills. While her attitude shifted over the course of the day after seeing Deloitte’s skills-based volunteers transform these organizations, her original thinking is the kind that still predominates in many circles.

“So far, [skills-based volunteering] has been sold as an employee benefit, not as a deliberate way of having social impact,” said Hochberg. “Our country can’t afford for us to be that cavalier with human capital.”

What operational, infrastructure, and management challenges does your nonprofit face? How has your company made a transformative difference for a nonprofit? What undermines these kinds of engagements?

(This post, originally published on BCLC.uschamber.com, is one in a weekly series highlighting The pARTnership Movement, Americans for the Arts’ campaign to reach business leaders with the message that partnering with the arts can build their competitive advantage. Visit our website to find out how both businesses and local arts agencies can get involved!)

Bryan Doerries

One of the first people to speak after a Theater of War performance was a perfectly kempt military spouse with blonde hair, striking blue eyes, and a soft, unassuming voice. She leaned into the microphone, took in the crowd of nearly 400 Marines and their spouses seated shoulder-to-shoulder in a dimly lit Hyatt Regency Ballroom in San Diego, cleared her throat, and said: “I am the proud mother of a Marine, and the wife of a Navy Seal. My husband went away four times to war, and each time—like Ajax—he came back dragging invisible bodies into our house. The war came home with him. And to quote from the play, ‘Our home is a slaughterhouse.’”

The Marines all held their breath, as if kicked in the gut with a steel-toed boot. In the back, a small group congregated around a cash bar, nursing Budweisers, staring at the floor and waiting out the silence. In the far back, there was even a dinner buffet, though no one seemed in the mood for eating.

Those Marines who had elected to attend the reading of scenes from Sophocles’ Ajax and Philoctetes, or as one Marine called it, our “little skit,” had been attending a conference in August of 2008 on Combat Operational Stress Control, the Marine Corps’ way of referring to post-traumatic stress without pathologizing it. They had freely chosen ancient Greek dinner theater over tickets to a San Diego Padres game, and many of them had brought their spouses and girlfriends to the performance. The bar and buffet certainly helped draw the crowd, as did the presence of several well known actors, including Jesse Eisenberg and David Strathairn, but no one who showed up that night had any idea of what was about to happen.

Many of the Marines came expecting to see a fully staged reenactment of the 300 Spartans bravely standing down the Persian Army at the Battle of Thermopylae, featuring hack-and-slash swordplay and pyrotechnics. But when they discovered four actors in their street clothes sitting at a long table in front of microphones, wielding scripts instead of battle-axes or spears, many of them were visibly disappointed.

Sophocles’ Ajax tells the story of a fierce warrior who slips into a depression near the end of The Trojan War, after losing his best friend, Achilles. Feeling betrayed, when the Greek generals award Achilles’ armor to Odysseus, Ajax attempts to murder his commanding officers, fails, and—ultimately—takes his own life. The play tells the story of the events leading up to Ajax’ suicide, as well as the story of how his wife and troops attempt to intervene before it’s too late.

Twenty minutes into the performance—as Bill Camp, the formidable New York actor playing Ajax, wailed and screamed about how he wished to kill Odysseus, “the thief who stole my honor,” and finally resolved that “a great man must live in honor, or die an honorable death,” before plunging himself upon the enemy’s sword—something in the audience seemed to shift.

All the Blackberries disappeared. Everyone in the room leaned forward and “locked on,” a military term that describes when service members stare intensely at something or someone without blinking for a preternaturally long period of time. Some Marines rested their heads in their hands, peering through the cracks in their fingers. Others gazed off into the distance, glazed over, but fully listening with every fiber of their beings. A few wiped tears from their eyes, tightly gripping spouses’ hands, while others smirked at certain words with uncanny recognition. It was if these ancient plays had finally found their intended audience, almost 2,500 years after they had first been performed.

In the Theater of Dionysus, where Sophocles’ plays premiered, as many as 17,000 citizen-soldiers gathered each spring to watch performances of tragedies that only those who had been to war, or cared for those who had been to war, could possibly understand. Following Sophocles’ lead, my company, Outside the Wire, has presented more than 200 readings of ancient Greek war plays in military communities throughout the United States, Germany, and Japan as a catalyst for town hall discussions about the visible and invisible wounds of war. And what we’ve learned over the past three years of touring is that when people see their own private struggles reflected in an ancient story, they open up and share some of the most personal and profound things—things they’ve never said out loud—let alone in front of an audience.

There is a theory that storytelling, and Greek tragedy in particular, arose in the western world from the need to hear and tell the veteran’s story—to help those who’d been to war make meaning out of their fragmented memories, and to evenly distribute the burden of what veterans brought back from battle upon the shoulders of the entire community. Sophocles was a general in the Athenian army. The actors in his plays would undoubtedly have been combat veterans. The Trojan War, at the center of many of the surviving plays, was as distant to the Athenians as the Athenians are now to us. Seen through this lens, Sophocles’ plays emerge as a powerful public health awareness tool, an ancient military technology that we are now harnessing to deliver a healing message to veterans and their families throughout the world. Or, as one combat veteran put it after an early performance of Theater of War, “Knowing that PTSD goes back to BC gives me the feeling I’m not totally alone.”

Many of the greatest humanistic achievements of 5th Century Athens—arguably, one of the most highly militarized democracies to ever inhabit the earth—were forged in the crucible of constant military conflict. Art and war were vitally and inextricably interconnected. Perhaps one of the most overlooked, and yet crowning, achievements of this ancient democracy, from which we have borrowed so much, was the wholesale use of the arts to communalize the experience of war. The Greeks knew that the arts had the power to convey the spirit of an ultimately indescribable experience. Through their plays, Sophocles and his contemporaries forged a common public vocabulary for openly acknowledging and discussing the impact of war on individuals, families, and communities.

Joanna Chin

On the website for the Combat Paper Project, founder Drew Cameron (who issued a brilliant call to action in our blog salon on Tuesday) is quoted:

 The story of the fiber, the blood, sweat and tears, the months of hardship and brutal violence are held within those old uniforms. The uniforms often become inhabitants of closets or boxes in the attic. Reshaping that association of subordination, of warfare and service, into something collective and beautiful is our inspiration.

Today’s topic gets at the heart of why the arts are and have the potential to be so effective in this intersecting space with the military. Whether contributing to national interests abroad or supporting service members here in the U.S., artists are core to changing and enriching the public narrative around the military, war, and service members. Today’s bloggers will speak to the ways that artists from within and outside the military are creating art that impacts the public narrative about the politics of war and military culture, and the effects on those actively engaged as well as those left behind.

Up until this point in this salon, we’ve talked about the connection between the arts and the military as something new and ground-breaking. However, in his post later on today, Artistic Director of Outside the Wire, Bryan Doerries places the company’s innovative Theater of War Production within the context of storytelling and a history that stretches back to the ancient Greek tragedies. Picking up on this thread of connectivity – between past and present; military and civilian – Graffiti of War Project founder, Jaeson Parsons articulates that “art, in its many forms, can be that bridge we so desperately need” for this generation. On the civilian side, Tammy Ryan, having never experienced war firsthand, provides some insight into the forces that drive us as artists to create work that gives voice to an issue, sparks conversation, and contributes to larger social and policy change.

Dr. Robert Albro

Over the past two decades cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible, has become an increasingly evident – and fraught – subject of foreign affairs. One reason is a recent proliferation of multilateral conventions by UNESCO, among others, more specifically articulating international frameworks for the protection and conservation of cultural heritage globally. These include the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, the 2005 Diversity Convention, and the 2008 ratification by the U.S. of the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, among other precedents. New collaborations between cultural professionals and the U.S. military, in the context of this increasing attention to heritage, constitute non-traditional opportunities for cultural diplomacy.

One effect of the recent push for international normative frameworks governing the conduct of persons, communities, and states with respect to heritage has been to identifiably constitute “cultural heritage” as a kind of scarce local or national resource, as a well-defined potential subject of state action, and as a basis of international relations and of conflict. Tracking this trend, some historians have referred to the contemporary onset of “heritage crusades,” which can lead to “heritage wars.” In other words, attitudes about cultural heritage have changed over time, and international actors increasingly seek legal redress, or take violent steps, in relation to an increasingly prevailing conception of heritage as: rivalrous, non-renewable, specific in time and place, and exclusively owned by people, communities, or nations.

Not coincidentally, the potential destruction of cultural heritage has become a major preoccupation, not only for particular communities and nation-states, but also for the U.S. military. Recent history is replete with multiple examples of the destruction of heritage sites or objects in active conflict zones, or leading to conflict. A short list would include the 2001 demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, the 2003 looting of the Baghdad Museum, the devastation of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the destruction of Timbuktu’s sacred tombs during the conflict in Mali, and ongoing heritage loss as part of the conflict in Syria, among others. Heritage destruction, looting, and the illegal antiquities trade are one front in these heritage wars. Conflicting claims, the definition of heritage as property, and calls for repatriation, are another front.

Unsurprisingly, then, international organizations, U.S. and other government agencies, have begun to consider more closely the vulnerabilities of heritage in circumstances of conflict alongside the growing importance of “cultural security,” as an emerging feature of international affairs and as a dimension of responsible engagement in conflict zones. For the U.S. military, this has led to a largely unprecedented set of often remarkable collaborations with an array of civilian archaeologists, museum curators, art conservators, and arts and culture organizations, and others, as part of the military’s growing awareness of the ways the mismanagement, neglect, or lack of protection provided heritage resources can actively generate conflict.

The U.S. military’s efforts to protect and conserve cultural heritage in conflict zones is part of a broader cultural turn over the past decade. And it has taken various forms. These include the development of a “No Strike List” for Libya in 2011 to insure heritage sites were not targeted, in collaboration with the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield. They also include military logistical support as part of humanitarian interventions to save endangered heritage in the aftermath of disasters, natural and man-made. They include the innovative use of new tools, such as the coordination of GIS, digital databases, and archives. And they include cultural diplomatic interventions, such as the use of cultural mapping technologies to identify an ancient Afghan irrigation system inadvertently compromised by a U.S. military base. The base was redesigned.

This work also includes the consolidation of new lines of communication and networks of collaboration between military and civilian personnel and applied practitioners in diverse fields of the arts and culture, such as the new CHAMP initiative hosted by the Archaeological Institute of America. These networks cross what have been seldom crossed boundaries between the humanities and the military. On the one hand, they highlight an emerging military footprint in humanitarian “operations other than war,” as a feature of peacekeeping, stability operations, and cultural diplomacy. On the other, collaborations with the military to safeguard heritage illustrate new directions in the applied arts, where working artists and cultural professionals are extending their skills, techniques, and creative visions as a part of the U.S. response to global crises and conflict.

The cultural diplomatic potential of U.S. military cultural heritage management is not without risks. At times the military has been so intent upon developing its cultural capacity that it has not appreciated conceptions of culture other than its own tendency to view culture as an asset and mission resource. It can also be deeply problematic for the safeguarding of heritage to be directly implicated in strategic or tactical military “soft power” objectives. Cultural professionals can be perceived as agents of coercion and control. It is, therefore, critical for them to develop robust parallel humanitarian networks in ways enabling a legitimating autonomy rather than have their work defined primarily through military mission priorities.

Brigadier General Nolen Bivens, U.S. Army, Ret.

The conditions have been set and it’s now time to use the arts and cultural engagement at ground and grassroots level to further enhance cultural diplomacy and effectiveness of military security cooperation operations.

The model for military operations has six phases. The recent withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq and the goal of drawing down troops in Afghanistan beginning in July of this year, returns the focus of U.S. Military leadership to preparing for the future and the point in its operational phasing model known as Phase Zero – shaping the environment.

In the 12 years since beginning combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, joint U.S. Military Forces, other governmental and non-governmental organizations, and coalition members have demonstrated unprecedented courage, sacrifice and even creativity to protect national interest in the Middle East region.

Realizing that a key component to success during these operations is winning the hearts and minds of the people, they also learned how vital and necessary the “whole of government” approach is during all phases of military operations; that is, integrating activity across the whole of society – the political, military, economic, social, infrastructure and information components.

Examples include bringing the curatorial skills of the Archaeological Institute of America, Iraq’s Cultural Ministry and U.S. Army Reserve soldiers to address the ransacking of Iraq’s museums and archeological sites by looters and insurgents.  For those not familiar with the story, in the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad, “Mobs of treasure hunters” tore into “Iraqi archaeological sites, stealing urns, statues, vases and cuneiform tablets that dated back 3,000 years and more to Babylon” according to some archaeologists. From a nongovernmental perspective, Greg Mortenson, author of “Stones into Schools” built 130 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan – an effort that did not go unnoticed by four-star U.S. military commanders. His 2006 book “Three Cups of Tea” was “required reading for all Special Forces soldiers deploying to Afghanistan.”

Interested in applying these lessons to needs in their own region, other combatant commands have integrated various government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, public-private partnerships, private sector, and international organizations into a “whole of society” approach built on shared interests and security during their phase zero security cooperation operations.   Even a 2005 advisory committee report to the State Department stated, “Cultural diplomacy reveals the soul of a nation, … when our nations is at war, every tool in the diplomatic kit bag is employed, including the promotion of cultural activities.”

It applies even during the time of natural disasters.  In the wake of the devastating 2010 earthquake, the Haiti Cultural Recovery project was launched by the Smithsonian Institution in partnership with the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, the Government of Haiti, Ministry of Culture, U.S Southern Command and with assistance from several other federal agencies—National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Given the incredible momentum these successes afford us, and tremendous sacrifice by our service members, now’s the time to leverage the cultural and artistic communities to further U.S. interests and image around the world during phase zero security cooperation operations. Innovatively joining arts and cultural engagements during phase zero activities is a lever to build transnational community connections, and bridge cultural distinctions.

Utilizing these new tactics will contribute to preserving the costly gains made in shaping world opinion about the U.S. to date. The past decade has only been the preamble to the “long war” in combating terrorism and the required “generational commitment” former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice spoke of early on in the Iraq war. It is time to apply all elements of national power, including, culture, industry, science and technology, academic institutions, geography, and national will to this task during phase zero.

Connecting the laudable, extant efforts of U.S. Embassies, nongovernmental organizations, and nonprofits along with those of the military can achieve a more synergistic approach at the U.S. Government level. But what would an integrated approach to engagement look like? A typical phase zero engagement might be the construction of a school in a particular village during a military to military engineer training exercise.  However, with an integrated approach, young writers from that nation who participated in The University of Iowa International Writing Program (IWP) sponsored by the U.S. State Department could be included during the school’s grand opening ceremony, expanding the perception of the United States’ goodwill and be a catalyst for future cultural engagement.

Imaginatively combining arts and cultural with existing military plans activities during phase zero of military operations is the action needed now for the idea Thomas Jefferson expressed in a letter from Paris in September 1785, “You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts … as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world and procure them its praise.”  – Winning hearts and minds at home and abroad, and strengthening security in the long war against terrorism.

David Diamond

First of all, who knew that there were theatre companies on US Army bases? Who knew they had annual one-act play and full-length play competitions? Who knew that working as a mentor to the directors of those plays existed as a job?

My supervisor, Jim Sohre, recently retired as Chief, Entertainment (Music and Theatre) Program, U.S. Army Europe, created the Mentoring Program in 1995: “I started the concept when we got actor, director (and personality!) Charles Nelson Reilly here to judge our Army Europe One Act Play Festival in Heidelberg.  He not only critiqued, he got right up on stage and re-worked scenes with the groups.  So it was more a working Masters Class.”

I began working as a Mentor Director for the same Festival. This involved traveling from base-to-base throughout Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Turkey and Northern Italy. There are about 20 bases that participate in the annual competition; I visited 14 of them. As Jim explains, “Well, first, by bringing in mentors/judges from the US we are able to get top notch industry professionals who can provide contemporary input and training that is not available here in the English language.”

Each base I visited has a theatre company that regularly presents plays and musicals for the residents of the base. These companies include not only soldiers, but their families, other military personnel, non-military base workers, etc. Since the funding for the theatre companies and their facilities is at the discretion of the base commander, they operate under wildly different conditions. In Stuttgart, you have an entire performing arts complex with theatres, rehearsal spaces, everything state-of-the-art; in Grafenwoehr, plays are presented in a corner of a former basketball court using only clip lights and a boom box for tech. Still, it is remarkable what they are able to produce.

Each afternoon, I would arrive at a base and get settled in Army housing. In the evening, I attended rehearsals of the play that group was planning to present during the Competition coming up in a few weeks in Heidelberg. It is there that representatives from all of the bases come together to share their work and compete for prizes. As an Adjudicator of the Competition, I would see about 20 different productions over 2 days. The collegiality of the “competitors” was inspiring; they cheered for each other’s productions.

Some of the directors had never directed a play before; others had some small experience; an occasional few had directed professionally in the States or elsewhere. I watched rehearsals and tried to help the directors in the very specific way they desired. In some cases I met with the actors and ran some scenes offering suggestions on staging, character development, design elements, etc. Sometimes, I just met privately with the director to discuss what I had seen. I was not trying to impose my aesthetic on their vastly different working methods or tell them how I would do it. I asked them what they wanted to know about what I had seen and we took it from there.

I was incredibly moved by the desire of these individuals to commit to doing theatre in such a strange and fraught atmosphere. We were in the midst of two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, and soldiers were being deployed to both places regularly. When they were not in training or preparing to depart, some of them found the theatre; those who did were fiercely committed to it and determined to be the best actors (or directors or designers or technicians) they could. Jim Sohre had the right idea: if you bring them a taste of professional quality, they will take themselves more seriously, express themselves more openly and create a more cohesive community.

What kinds of plays do they perform on Army bases? Is there censorship? I was pleased to experience a wide range of styles and subjects being covered in the various pieces I saw. For one-acts, it ranged from Christopher Durang to David Ives to Williams and Chekhov to original plays, and some short musicals. Full length plays in a different competition in the Spring had much bigger musical productions, kids shows, serious American dramas and Shakespeare. Since shows are presented for a family audience, you didn’t see too much Mamet or Ravenhill, and you didn’t see anything overtly anti-American or anti-military (although one group did attempt A Few Good Men.)

My conversations with soldiers involved in the theatre companies were illuminating. I learned from one soldier who acted in plays with his 8-year-old son, that he found the experience an excellent way to stay in communication with his children when he couldn’t explain where he had just come from and what had happened during his deployment. They could “play” together which many families found therapeutic. One soldier told me how he could channel his emotions into a play he was working on so he wouldn’t have to take the intense feelings home.

I met one extraordinary man who had been deployed several times to Iraq. He had been blown up by roadside bombs three times, and survived. Each time he came back to Germany, to the US Army base where he lived, he returned to the theatre company on base. He wasn’t an actor; he enjoyed working on the sets, building things, doing everything backstage. But he said, it was like coming back to a family, and he felt useful.

The friendships I made with the directors, the soldiers, base commanders and others gave me a fresh perspective on what it means to be in the US Army and also how important the arts are for allowing us to express ourselves in a creative way. So much of the fighting of wars is about destruction, not creation. It was illuminating to see how essential it is for us to explore creative expression and how it can lift a community constantly faced with family members coming back debilitated physically or emotionally or both.

Joanna Chin

After moving from the individual warrior to families and communities of service members, we’d like to widen the lens even further. Our first post of the day by theater artist, David Diamond, transitions us from work with service members returning home to arts activity supporting military communities abroad. His reflection on experiences working on army bases abroad gives a personal context to the topic of day: the relationship of the arts to cultural diplomacy and military missions abroad.

In the past couple of decades, the arts have gained legs as a tool for diplomacy and as a transformational lever to build transnational community connections, bridge cultural distinctions, strengthen foreign relations, and support military communities abroad. However, this growing appreciation for the power of the arts and culture carries with it additional challenges and questions:

• What is the role or responsibility of the military to protect other nations’ culture?
• How do arts and culture strategies contribute to the success of U.S. missions abroad? to stronger civic structures?
• What are the ambiguities for artists and cultural workers helping achieve “soft power” objectives?

Check back in later today for posts from General Nolen Bivens, U.S. Army, Ret. and Professor of International Communications at American University, Dr. Robert Albro, which will offer differing insights around these important questions.