Altered - An Armistice Art & Writing Workshop
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Altered SeriesAltered is a body of work created in 2019 by Veterans from the About Face Community, facilitated by me. I led this workshop after I’d developed the technique over a number years when I was working on the Shadow Boxes Series. I photographed the veterans, printing the images immediately onto Pictorico and allowing them to altered the portraits in which ever method they wished. I then scanned the Pictorico and printed the images digitally. The work displayed here shows the prints and the original Pictorico altered by the veterans hand.
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Altered: The Transmutation Process
In these photographs and video, I facilitating a workshop with veterans to alter their own portraits which I photographed and printed onto Pictorio paper. The veterans (or Trish on their behalf) then alters the photograph however they want in order to best express their emotions, message or experience. This technique is a means of using art to transmute experiences, thoughts, and feelings into something external so that it does not fester inside the body of the veteran, causing dis-ease, illness and pain to self and others. Experiences like the military and war are difficult and require a means of processing them. This is old knowledge that has not been practiced in our modern military. Warrior stories are not meant to be carried internally. They are not the burden of one person, but of the community that sends them to war. If we are not prepared to hear, listen and help transmute the stories of a veterans – then we are not honoring them. It is my hope that doing this work helps prevent veterans from feeling isolated, alone and lost. Connection and community and art can help to stop veteran alienation and suicide as they work to understand their experiences.
Backing tracks by Steve Brownlee (also one of the featured veterans) and Jay Glaspy.
In these photographs and video, I facilitating a workshop with veterans to alter their own portraits which I photographed and printed onto Pictorio paper. The veterans (or Trish on their behalf) then alters the photograph however they want in order to best express their emotions, message or experience. This technique is a means of using art to transmute experiences, thoughts, and feelings into something external so that it does not fester inside the body of the veteran, causing dis-ease, illness and pain to self and others. Experiences like the military and war are difficult and require a means of processing them. This is old knowledge that has not been practiced in our modern military. Warrior stories are not meant to be carried internally. They are not the burden of one person, but of the community that sends them to war. If we are not prepared to hear, listen and help transmute the stories of a veterans – then we are not honoring them. It is my hope that doing this work helps prevent veterans from feeling isolated, alone and lost. Connection and community and art can help to stop veteran alienation and suicide as they work to understand their experiences.
Backing tracks by Steve Brownlee (also one of the featured veterans) and Jay Glaspy.
