I am a war historian because …

There is one question that I am constantly asked:

Why do you research war?

And rarely have I told the truest truth.

But here it is, inside this video that I made as my non-profit organization Stories of War.

Many of you know me through the mixed media art world. If you’ve taken my classes you have an understanding of my deep reverence for our ancestors and how much they influence us whether we acknowledge it or not.

You’ll catch a glimpse of that on your screen when you watch this video.

You know how much the human brain loves to categorize and lump people into boxes or stereotypes, right? … because you’ve inevitably experienced the brunt of that at some point in your life.

My two biggest ‘identities’ are two very separate and isolated boxes, and I do not comfortably fit into either.

War history and all of the stereotypes a person must fit if they are into that sort of thing in one box, and the stereotypes of what an artist ‘is’ are another.

I’ve been straddling both worlds in the most uncomfortable of ways for many, many years, but that’s another share for another day.

My work is not pro-war.

I am pro-human, pro-peace, and most of all: pro-deepdive into ourselves to take responsibility for all the ways that we contribute to a bigger picture existence.

I just have to get inside the muck in order to make sense of it all.

My soul lights up when I get inside the ugliest aspects of humanity and turn it into some form of beauty, like empathy or visual art or wordsmithing or healing hurt places inside or finding answers for families with questions about what war has brought into their legacy.

Or all of the above.

What about you? What do you stand for? What are the experiences that light you up?

My hope is that you are lit up from the inside and shining - and oozing out over the edge of any and all boxes.

We are here to gush our souls all over the place. In my humble opinion :)