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| Combat Paper art by Eli Wright |
The event—called Healing from War Through the Arts, at the
Puffin Cultural Forum in Teaneck,
NJ—featured art and writings
developed in Combat Paper and Warrior Writer workshops. As one of the curators,
I took the liberty of creating a photo book of scenes at this remarkable
gathering:
“Powerful. The one word that comes to mind after Saturday's
Exhibition and performance at The Puffin Cultural Forum in Teaneck. Simply Powerful,” Dave Keefe,
director of the Combat Paper
NJ program, wrote in a Facebook
message. “Thank you to all that attended. We have
something to say. And when we step out on that scary bridge to express
everything inside...you meet us half way. Thank you.”
This week, Keefe and other Puffin participants and fellow
artists are conducting workshops and presentations in Washington, DC
and vicinity at a national event called Arts, Military and Healing.
On April 30, the New Jersey Combat Paper program was
featured in a PBS Newshour report. Here’s what Morgan Till, one of the PBS journalists
who visited a Combat Paper workshop at the Printmaking Center of NJ, wrote on a
blog: “The veterans gathered around the cutting table, shredding uniforms and
letting the stories flow. An unburdening that is itself a catharsis many have
sought and, before now, not found.”
The next step, Till wrote, “is where the veteran can tell
their stories through art and poetry. The paper provides the platform, the
larger community of veterans provides the confidence and support to undergo
this transformation.”
The weekend after the PBS Newshour report, a small crowd of people
from a variety of backgrounds showed up at the Printmaking
Center in Branchburg, NJ
to help cut up uniforms to be turned into paper and otherwise aid the Combat
Paper program. Family members and friends of veterans involved in the program
dropped by.
Plans were discussed about future workshops, art
exhibitions, readings and fund-raisers. These include the events this week in
Washington, a Warrior Writers reading this Saturday at the Nuyorican Poets Café
in New York City, a Combat Paper art display at Teaneck, NJ’s Memorial Day
festival, a poetry reading and fund-raiser at the Newark Public Library on June
9, and a We R One-sponsored motorcycle run fund-raiser in central New Jersey on
June 23.
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