Author. Artist.
Thursday, May 11, 2017 Today I am working on a journal that will be a record of my time here at the battlefield. For this project, I started with an old book I found in an antique store. It was falling apart, but had good […]
As I reflect on my two weeks at the park, I remember the people, landscape, history, and animals that came together to make the experience so meaningful. Each day the park introduced me to something or someone new – the golden field of buttercups at […]
Monday, May 8, 2017
Mixed media day! I was excited to begin work on a fun new project that combines history and nature with images and words from the battlefield. I’ve been thinking about this idea for a while and was anxious to get all of my “stuff” out and get started. Mixed media is fun to work with as it gives the artist so much freedom to explore avenues of expression. I set up out on the back patio of the park headquarters building where the staff was kind enough to give me temporary studio space. 
For this project, I began with a blank canvas treated with gesso. Then I combined copies of old battlefield maps, diary extracts, bits from letters, and quotes – all layered on the canvas. After trying several layouts, I settled on the one that I felt gave a good representation of battlefield and nature. These words and images were gleaned from research at the park library. This is the first part of my final project to be donated to the park.
During my Artist-in-Residence time at the Manassas National Battlefield Park, I had every intention of writing and posting on this blog each day. But, that didn’t happen and though I missed some of those daily deadlines due to a creative struggle between writing and painting/drawing, […]
Tuesday, May 9, 2017 After a brief introduction to supplies on hand (including my favorite watercolor pencils) we dispersed a bit to find our own spot to reflect and record our impressions. The history of this place provides an interesting background for our journaling. Soldiers, […]
As I began to plan for my Artist-in-Residence experience at Manassas National Battlefield Park, I thought about how and why the park is important to me. I hike there often and enjoy sketching along Bull Run and at the Stone Bridge, where I also go to admire spring wildflowers. The beauty of this special place can sometimes make one forget, just for a moment, the sorrow lingering beneath the soil.
During my time at the park, I will work to capture the layers of history and nature here –the ways in which the two have coexisted. Battles ripped and scarred this graceful landscape, but nature soothed and reclaimed the land and pays homage to those who perished here. History and nature, sorrow and beauty – all are represented.
Samuel Fiske, (pen name Dunn Brown) soldier in the 14th Connecticut and correspondent for the Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican wrote about this relationship in 1863:
HOW NATURE COVERS UP BATTLEFIELDS
“Did I tell you ever, among the affecting little things one is always seeing in these stirring war times, how I saw on the Bull Run battle-field (sic) pretty, pure, delicate flowers growing out of the empty ammunition boxes, and a rose thrusting up its graceful head through the top of a Union drum, which doubtless sounded its last charge in that batte, and a cunning, scarlet verbena, peeping out of a fragment of bursted shell, in which strange vase it had been planted? Wasn’t that peace growing out of war? Even so shall the graceful and beautiful ever grow out of the horrid and terrible things that transpire in this changing but ever advancing world.”
This article was published in newspapers around the country in 1863.
With my words and art I hope to capture the many layers of nature and history in this special place. I hope you will follow me during this artistic adventure.
