Art is Life is Art: Susan Reep Photo Art

Wow.  It was so worth it to drive down to Oceanside for the opening of the WWII art show at the Oceanside Museum.  It’s a long drive from Bako – five hours in traffic, which we had, but as with most events, the payoff is not always where you expect it.

The Oceanside Museum of Art is lovely.  All year and on all floors of the museum they are exhibiting art related to World War II.  Glen Knowles curated this show of California watercolorists who painted WWII, either at home from the perspective of the home front, or as my father did, on the battlefield.  Knowles teaches at Antelope Valley College and he has invented something that may be of interest to you artists out there.  Check it out on the link – it’s the Colorwheel Palette.

We arrived at the museum and it was packed – SO MANY PEOPLE!  Wow.

Of all the artists whose work appeared in the show, my dad is the only one still alive.  That made me the object of some interest and many questions about if he was going to be coming to see the exhibit.  Sadly, my dad can barely made it across town, let alone a five-hour car ride away.

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I told the story of this painting in a post a couple of days ago.  It focuses more on the soldiers themselves that many of the paintings and really captures the gritty feel of men in trenches.  I’ll tell another story now that I recounted several times at the opening.  It arose when talking about memories and if they became embellished as time went on.  In the case of my father, I know everything he said was as it was.  He would not talk about the war until he wrote a book called A Combat Artist in World War II. I think that is the case for most vets – they don’t want to talk about it.  Then the PBS documentary was made, They Drew Fire, about war artists in which my dad was featured.

In it, my dad recounts how the underground theater in Anzio was bombed, killing many soldiers, but dad was too scared to come out of his fox hole.  To atone for what he saw as his cowardice, in a subsequent battle, one of his fellow soldiers was hit.  Dad ran out into the battlefield to retrieve him while his commander yelled for him to stay under cover.  Dad didn’t listen to the commander, retrieved the wounded soldier, put him in the back of a jeep, and sat with him as they headed off to the medics.  Dad said that at one point in the drive he looked at the soldier and said, “He’s dead.” The soldier responded, “The hell I am.”

That man’s son watched the documentary, tracked my dad down, and said that the soldier dad saved was his father.  The son said that his father told that story using almost the exact same words that my dad used right down to “He’s dead” and “the hell I am.” The son thanked my dad for saving his, saying that he wouldn’t have been born if it weren’t for my dad.

I knew then that the stories my dad told, and probably all other soldiers, were as they happened with no embellishment.  There was no need to embellish war.

War is hell, World War II was as bad as they come, and Anzio and Monte Cassino were the most hellish of battles in that war.  The fact that my father, that any man or woman then or now, fights a war and returns to live a “normal” life is the biggest act of courage I can imagine.

It seems sacrilegious to stand next to a painting depicting something so terrible – and smile.

Someone points a camera and we smile.  But I’m happy that I could loan this painting, that the exhibit exists, and that the viewers can remember and honor all the men and women who served so heroically.

Afterwards, we set out for dinner, found a great Italian restaurant, had a wonderful meal, but before leaving I decided to order a limoncello – our new favorite liqueur after discovering it in Sorrento, Italy in 2007.  (I linked to my travel journal of Italy, but for some reason wordpress would not let me insert photos so if interested you’ll have to go to my web page to see pics.)  As we got up to leave the restaurant, we sat down again with Glen, his wife, and an art collector that loves my father’s work.  Here’s where those unexpected payoffs come in – this gentleman made a wonderful offer to bring this show to Bakersfield after it closes in Oceanside in October.  When we go home I’ll talk to our museum or others if the museum’s schedule is too locked in.

Tomorrow – The Flower Fields and the San Diego Botanical Gardens.  It was a two-martini day.

Tags: Anzio, Glen Knowles, Monte Cassino, Oceanside Museum of Art, watercolor, World War II, World War II art

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 18th, 2010 at 11:05 PM and is filed under Art, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.