COMBAT PAPER

ON THE COAST OF MAINE  I.

     This is the story of a week in Maine.  Seven people

came together in a beautiful house overlooking the Narrows

between Trenton, Maine and Mount Desert Island.  On the

tip of a peninsula, we gazed upon vistas of islands and headlands 

and sky.  Dead center, passage out to the Atlantic, nature beat all 

around us and we gave ourselves up . . .

     We came to make Combat Paper, to hone skills we'd learned

over the past year and a half.  We were rededicating ourselves

to the task of Deconstruction:  our military uniforms that we cut

to postage stamp-sized pieces.  Then to Reclamation:  into our beater,

our rag would be turned to pulp, to be pulled from water with

deckle and mold, formed into paper.  For the purpose of

Communication: on that paper, we would tell our stories 

in pictures, prints and words . . . we would make art. 

A GIFT

     What do I do with an

     undeserved gift . . .?

     Through my truck stop shades

     the sky's as blue as robin's eggs

     an' stretchin' from east to west . . .

     big wide sky, with the sun, a bullet

     burnin' way up straight over my head . . . 

     wide, deep lawn, bright green and

     out beyond still waters, the Narrows,

     between two bays, isles an' jutting

     land between this deckside idyll

     and the mightyAtlantic . . .

     lookin' southeast towards

     low peaks of Acadia National Park an'

     listenin' west to the hollow thrum

     of bullfrogs lolling in the pond . . .

FIRST WORKSHOP

     I've always felt that creativity was the most

important thing in life.  The making of art, which 

I first learned from my mother, has been integral

to my survival.

     As such, I've always loved the tools of art

whether pencils or pens, paints and pastels, 

typewriters and notebooks and paper.  Paper to 

write on, to draw on, to paint on . . . and when

I first held a piece of Combat Paper in my hands,

I was overcome by the power and meaning .

     Sometimes it blows my mind when I think . . .

once I was a Marine and I served in the Vietnam

War.  As one who believes that art tells a truer

story than anything written or told by historian

or journalist, then Combat Paper is the perfect

medium for my story, for my artistic expression.

I have been given a gift, that if I wish to keep,

I must give away.