David Keefe: Teaching the Art of Transformation

David Keefe directing Combat Paper class

David Keefe served in the United States Marine Corps in Iraq as a riverine infantry scout from 2006-2007. When he came home from combat duty, he mobilized his leadership skills as a Marine sergeant and his talent as an artist to helping fellow veterans cope with the transition to civilian life through art.

Dave Keefe is the director of the Combat Paper NJ Program at the Printmaking Center of New Jersey, co-founder of Frontline Arts and senior assistant dean for student veteran initiatives at Columbia University. With a master of fine arts degree from Montclair State University and a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting from the University of Delaware, he teaches a course on Combat Papermaking for veterans at Montclair State University.

"Art is one of the best ways to express what exactly is going on in your head and in your heart. It can just be a way to tell stories. And stories can be a catalyst for anything after that, whether it's change or transformation,” he told a writer for the USO-Metropolitan Washington-Baltimore website. The USO sponsors Combat Paper workshops in the Washington, DC area. “We're transforming a certain element here that's a uniform that's the fibers. We're changing from a uniform into paper. That transformative act is a great process of art making."

Thanks to Dave Keefe’s vision, the creative process in these workshops, as many participants can attest, helps provide creative ideas for life transformations.

Selections of David Keefe’s art and work by many of his student-veterans at Montclair State will appear in “Combat Paper & Beyond,” an art exhibition running June 18 through July 9 at the Puffin Cultural Forum, 20 Puffin Way, Teaneck, NJ. The art show grand opening is Saturday, June 18 at 4 pm.

The exhibit explores the vision of the Combat Paper Project through innovative artwork created by veterans and non-veterans. Multi-media work by Eli Wright is featured with additional works by award-winning artists Jim Fallon, Rachel Heberling, Elisabeth Smolarz, Nate Lewis, Frank Wagner, Ron Erikson, Sarah Mess and others.

Sarah Mess: Illuminating War's Invisible Wounds

Sarah N. Mess served in the US Army with the 42nd Field Hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993. Her surgical unit handled mass casualties, hunkered down under rocket attacks, and Mess was pulled from operating room duty on occasion to carry a rifle on convoy security duty amid a UN humanitarian mission that disintegrated into full bore war.

“Coming home, I felt disconnected and invisible,” she told students at a New Jersey middle school during a classroom visit 20 years later. “Combat Paper NJ helps a community of veterans who have experienced these situations. War doesn’t leave you—it haunts you, so this program eases the burden. We all have experiences that we don’t necessarily know how to process.”

One of the first two women to be treated for PTSD at the Lyons NJ VA Combat PTSD unit, Sarah Mess is a mother, wife, Combat Paper maker and Warrior Writer. Her work is featured in Warrior Writers fourth anthology and has appeared in a number of Combat Paper gallery shows in New Jersey and at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine.

Selections of Sarah Mess’ art work will appear in “Combat Paper & Beyond,” an art exhibition running June 18 through July 9 at the Puffin Cultural Forum, 20 Puffin Way, Teaneck, NJ. The art show grand opening is Saturday, June 18 at 4 pm.

The exhibit explores the vision of the Combat Paper Project through innovative artwork created by veterans and non-veterans. Multi-media work by Eli Wright is featured with additional works by award-winning artists Jim Fallon, David Keefe, Rachel Heberling, Elisabeth Smolarz, Nate Lewis, Frank Wagner, Ron Erikson and others.

Combat Paper art work by Sarah Mess

Frank Wagner: Making Art out of Midnight Memories

Frank Wagner at peace vigil, Teaneck, NJ

Frank Wagner served as a radio operator with a US Army advisory team attached to a South Vietnamese infantry unit in the central Highlands of Viet Nam in 1964-65. He survived combat operations that the US government wouldn't acknowledge for 50 years. He signed up for Vietnam Veterans Against the War at a headshop on Cedar Lane, Teaneck in 1968. He's been an activist ever since.

A Bogota, NJ resident, Frank attended New York Institute of Photography and the School of Visual Arts, 1968-71. An active member of Veterans for Peace, DAV, Secaucus Vet Center art group, Warrior Writers, Combat Paper NJ and the Teaneck Community Chorus, Frank is a photographer, artist and poet.

Frank Wagner's art work has appeared in solo shows at local libraries and in Combat Paper shows in Jersey City, Morristown, Montclair and other locales. His work--ranging from photography to pen and ink drawings to wood carving--has won awards in VA art contests.

Selections of Frank Wagner's work will appear in “Combat Paper & Beyond,” an art exhibition running June 18 through July 9 at the Puffin Cultural Forum, 20 Puffin Way, Teaneck, NJ. The art show grand opening is Saturday, June 18 at 4 pm.

The exhibit explores the vision of the Combat Paper Project through innovative artwork created by veterans and non-veterans. Multi-media work by Eli Wright is featured with additional works by award-winning artists Jim Fallon, David Keefe, Rachel Heberling, Elisabeth Smolarz, Nate Lewis, Ron Erikson and others.

"Eyes" linocut on Combat Paper by Frank Wagner

Nathan Lewis, Making Art Out of War Debris

Nathan Lewis at work

Nathan Lewis, who served in Iraq in an Army artillery unit, “is a master papermaker and writer, living in the farmland outside Trumansburg [NY]. He is one of the thousands of veterans who report symptoms of PTSD, but Lewis prefers the term ‘war trauma,’ because it’s more accurate,” noted a profile in The Ithaca Voice.

A Combat Paper and Warrior Writers instructor who helps run workshops and retreats from Maine to Virginia, Nate Lewis’ work as an organizer of art, writing and organic farming projects to assist veterans in coping with war trauma has been profiled in The New York Times, as well as in local publications in upstate New York. He is also an author of two collections of his poetry, prose and art that were handmade and published under the imprint of Combat Paper Press. His signature art work incorporates spray painted impressions of bullets, dog tags and other war artifacts.

Selections of Nate Lewis’ work will appear in “Combat Paper & Beyond,” an art exhibition running June 18 through July 9 at the Puffin Cultural Forum, 20 Puffin Way, Teaneck, NJ. The art show grand opening is Saturday, June 18 at 4 pm.

The exhibit explores the vision of the Combat Paper Project through innovative artwork created by veterans and non-veterans. Multi-media work by Eli Wright is featured with additional works by award-winning artists Jim Fallon, David Keefe, Rachel Heberling, Elisabeth Smolarz, Frank Wagner, Ron Erikson and others.


How to Make a Combat Paper Book
Inspired by Chris Arendt’s How to Make Combat Paper

By Nathan Lewis

1. Play Army in the woods
2. Put up F-14 Tomcat Jet-Fighter wallpaper above your bunk bed
3. Agree to a pizza date with the local Army recruiter
4. Graduate high school, watch the planes hit the towers, graduate basic training
5. Mix 1 part nationalism with 1 part college money, stir in ½ baked optimism
6. Train, get desert gear, deploy to Iraq
7. Arrive in Kuwait, breath fumes from oil wells
8. Drive to Baghdad, load munitions onto truck, repeat for 3 months
9. Get flat tires, stares from Iraqis and meet friendly kids
10, Forget to strap down box of hand grenades, take a turn too fast, spill onto busy street, keep driving
11. Take pictures, don’t change clothes, eat meals out of metal pouches
12. Watch traffic accidents, watch the truck in front of you burn,
watch commanders get blown off burning truck by mortar rounds
13. Return home, get drunk, grind kitty litter into oil stains in motorpool, repeat for 3 months
14. Get out of the Army, enroll in college, get a job
15. Think about steps 1-13 often
16. Start writing, in groups, alone, in public, in the basement, repeat for 6 years
17. Read WWI poets, read Vietnam War poets, read Iraq War poets,
become inspired by peers of the past and present
18. Collaborate, Collaborate, Collaborate
19. Start your first book with a poem about shitting in the sand
20. Send book to Harvard and your Grandparents
21. Ask for help, receive it, be grateful, live simple, speak your mind, plant seeds
22. Help others with steps 14-21, feel good again

photos: warriorwriters.org

Odyssey of Combat Papermaker Jim Fallon

Jim Fallon

He didn’t set out to be an artist, yet Combat Papermaker Jim Fallon took 1st Place in the 2015 National Veterans Creative Arts Festival, sponsored by the US Department of Veterans Affairs and the American Legion Auxiliary. Entitled "Orphans' Opus '68," the winning work is an image from a photo Fallon took of Vietnamese orphans behind a gate merged with the strings of a grand piano. The silkscreen print is on paper made from Vietnam war uniforms.

Selections of Jim Fallon’s work will appear in “Combat Paper & Beyond,” an art exhibition running June 18 through July 9 at the Puffin Cultural Forum, 20 Puffin Way, Teaneck, NJ. The art show grand opening is Saturday, June 18 at 4 pm.

The exhibit explores the vision of the Combat Paper Project through innovative artwork created by veterans and non-veterans. Multi-media work by Eli Wright is featured with additional works by award-winning artists Jim Fallon, David Keefe, Rachel Heberling, Elisabeth Smolarz, Frank Wagner, Ron Erikson, Nate Lewis and others.

Born in Hoboken, NJ and raised in Jersey City, Fallon is retired and living in Hoboken. He served in Vietnam as a medic in an Army Reserve Medical Field Hospital Unit. During his tour in Vietnam, he also assisted a local orphanage, providing food, toys and extra medical supplies for the children.

He returned home to bartending, playing music in jazz clubs and working as a union representative. For a period of time he owned the Half Note Jazz Club in the Village in NYC. He also lived in Los Angeles, CA for 18 years working as a bartender and union representative. He’s an active member of many veterans’ organizations including Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, Secaucus Veterans Center, Combat Paper NJ, Agent Orange Organizations and as a Service Officer for the DAV. Despite a severe arm injury from cancer due to exposure to Agent Orange chemicals, he took up art in a workshop several years ago at the Secaucus Vets Center.

Jim Fallon’s Combat Paper art has appeared in numerous exhibitions, including at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Holmdel, NJ, Gloucester County College, Brennan Gallery at the Brennan Court House in Jersey City, Jersey City Art & Studio Tour, and on display as the first place entry in the October 2015 National Veterans Creative Arts Festival in Durham, NC.

"Orphans' Opus '68" by Jim Fallon

“Combat Paper & Beyond” Art Show at Puffin Cultural Forum

Eli Wright at Combat Paper art show (photo: warriorwriters.org)

Art crafted from recycled military uniforms, bullet impressions, barbed wire, midnight memories and other artifacts of war is the centerpiece of “Combat Paper & Beyond,” an art exhibition running June 18 through July 9 at the Puffin Cultural Forum, 20 Puffin Way, Teaneck, NJ.

The art show grand opening is Saturday, June 18 at 4 pm. The event includes remarks by artists, a Warrior Writers poetry jam and music by singer/songwriter Tamra Hayden.

The exhibit explores the vision of the Combat Paper Project through innovative artwork created by veterans and non-veterans. Multi-media work by Eli Wright is featured with additional works by award-winning artists Jim Fallon, David Keefe, Rachel Heberling, Elisabeth Smolarz, Frank Wagner, Ron Erikson, Nate Lewis and others.

The exhibition is curated by Walt Nygard and Jan Barry, both of Teaneck, who served in Vietnam in the US Marine Corps and Army, respectively. They have curated previous art shows and poetry presentations by veterans at Puffin, the Brennan Galley in the Brennan Courthouse in Jersey City and other locales.

A combat medic in the US Army in Iraq, Eli Wright currently serves as co-coordinator of the Combat Paper Project at the Printmaking Center of NJ in Branchburg. He heads a team of Combat Paper and Warrior Writers instructors who provide art workshops for veterans and active duty soldiers at a number of locations in New Jersey and other East Coast states, including Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland and Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

Other artists include David Keefe, co-coordinator of Combat Paper NJ, a Marine veteran of Iraq who teaches a Combat Paper art course at Montclair State University, whose work has been displayed at Princeton University’s Bernstein Gallery, among many other galleries; Frank Wagner, of Bogota, a Vietnam veteran, whose works have won regional VA art awards; and Jim Fallon, of Hoboken, who served with the Army in Vietnam. One of Fallon’s Combat Paper art works won a national VA art award.

Paintings by Ron Erickson, a Bogota-based artist, were recently on display at an exhibit titled “Suburban Eyes” at the Edward Williams Gallery at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Rachel Heberling is the studio program manager at the Printmaking Center of NJ. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the National Arts Club in New York City and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC.

Nate Lewis, who served in the Army in Iraq, runs a Combat Papermaking studio on a farm near Ithaca, NY.

Among the writers participating in the Warrior Writers poetry jam: Jennifer Pacanowski, an Army veteran of Iraq, works with theater groups in New York City on dramas about the transition from war to civilian life and runs writing workshops for veterans in many locations; Everett Cox, a Vietnam veteran, coordinates Warrior Writers workshops in Orange County, NY; Kevin Basl, who served in the Army in Iraq, coordinates Warrior Writers workshops and book projects in a number of locations on the East Coast; Sarah Mess, an Army veteran of the war in Somalia whose poetry won a regional VA art award.

Warrior Writers offers writing workshops for military veterans and family members, including monthly gatherings at the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation in Morristown and John Jay College in New York City, as well as in Boston, Philadelphia and a number of other cities.

Tamra Hayden, who resides in Teaneck and Denver, Colorado, is appearing between theater engagements in “Man of La Mancha” at Bristol Riverside Theatre in Pennsylvania and nightclub performances at Feinstein’s/54 Below in New York.


For more information and reservations: 201-836-3499 or www.puffinculturalforum.org