thedrifter
06-30-08, 07:48 PM
Healing through art, artist's paintings help families cope with loss of marines
By Jon Craig , The Cincinnati Enquirer
"Let's go see the boys," Westerville, Ohio, artist Anita Miller says as she heads down the unfinished wooden stairs to her studio.
There are "the boys": Eight life-size oil paintings, images she hopes capture the spirit and personalities of Lima Company Marines killed three years ago on the Iraq war's deadliest days for Ohio.
It took Miller, 47, nearly two years to paint the 6-by-8-foot portraits of the fallen boys-turned-men.
The idea came to Miller in a dream, a vision she believes is guided by a higher power. Having no ties to the Marines' families or the military, Miller took a second mortgage to enlarge her studio.
The art project spawned a healing process that's just beginning, say family members, several of whom have said they felt the presence of their loved ones within Miller's studio.
The Lima Company Memorial, subtitled "A Remembrance of Spirit & Choice," is on display at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus through Veterans Day. It will then be moved to the Cincinnati Museum Center, then to other sites.
The life-size canvases are arranged in an octagon, as Miller envisioned them in her dream.
Lima Company, the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine reserve unit based at Rickenbacker Air Base in Columbus, was among the United States' hardest hit during the war.
Miller, whose previous work includes landscapes and church paintings, says she asked God for guidance while painting.
"I need to be able to meet these guys in spirit," she says.
Miller says she read a newspaper article about Lima Company's fatalities and wished she could do something for the families. A couple of months later the dream woke her in the night.
"It felt like a download more than anything else," Miller says.
The artist called Lima Company and Statehouse officials, eventually getting their blessing. She built the studio addition with her own loans in 2006 as she gathered photographs from families.
A nonprofit was founded in January 2007 to defray some of the $100,000 in expenses, raise funds and sell commemorative books to finance a traveling exhibit.
Powerful inspiration
Miller chokes up every time she tells visitors about being divinely inspired once she began to paint in early 2007. As she looked at family photographs of the Marines, she experienced specific traits.
For Sgt. David Kreuter, 26, "When I picked up his picture and put it next to my heart, I felt a wash of dedication and commitment to service. An absolute unwavering dedication. And it just poured over me like a thousand volts. My body was trembling and my eyes were watering. And I thought, 'I'm not going to get his whole personality. I'm going to get the essence.'"
"I feel like I'm visiting David," his mother, Pat Murray, says during a visit to Miller's studio. "It's a way to connect with him. I feel like I'm surrounded by a bunch of friends. ... It gives me great comfort to come up here now. I know where to find David now."
For Lance Cpl. Michael Cifuentes, 25, Miller felt "a wash of goodness, of pure goodness that I've never felt before."
For Lance Cpl. Christopher Dyer, 19, the word was "joy."
"They are just so completely awesome," Dyer's mother, Kathy, says as she visited Miller's studio in May. "Today is the first day I've seen them since they've been completed. ... It makes me so happy. It is comforting and it does bring me happiness more than remind me of the sorrow."
'Red, red, red'
The background in Miller's first panel is fiery. "I kept hearing 'red, red, red.' It was as if my head disengaged." She couldn't apply the paint fast enough, first with a 3-inch pallet knife and then latex gloves.
"I could feel all of the intensity of the terror, the loss, the chaos of that experience. The whole thing exploded in front of my eyes, in full color. I was using my entire body to paint. It wiped me out for two days.
"I literally felt like I carried a little piece of them in my spirit body," Miller says. "I felt like I was the cocoon and all of a sudden they just flew out."
"And here they are. Bravo," says Marla Derga, stepmother of Cpl. Dustin A. Derga, 24, the first Lima Company Marine killed in Iraq, on Mother's Day 2005. ]
Bridging 'the gap of grief'
Lima Company Master Sgt. Stephen Walter, who retired from the Marine Corps in January 2006, notified several families when their sons were killed in Iraq. Walter says Miller's project will have a lasting healing effect.
"Anita Miller's artwork, I would argue, has bridged the gap of grief for the families ... of the fallen in a way that the best engineers in America could not," Walter says. "She has touched their heartstrings by making their loved ones part of their lives again in a way that few others could."
For Miller, "It's the parents' pain that I experience. Some days are worse than others. ... Just as powerfully as this thing gripped me, it let me go. There's healing here."
Ellie
By Jon Craig , The Cincinnati Enquirer
"Let's go see the boys," Westerville, Ohio, artist Anita Miller says as she heads down the unfinished wooden stairs to her studio.
There are "the boys": Eight life-size oil paintings, images she hopes capture the spirit and personalities of Lima Company Marines killed three years ago on the Iraq war's deadliest days for Ohio.
It took Miller, 47, nearly two years to paint the 6-by-8-foot portraits of the fallen boys-turned-men.
The idea came to Miller in a dream, a vision she believes is guided by a higher power. Having no ties to the Marines' families or the military, Miller took a second mortgage to enlarge her studio.
The art project spawned a healing process that's just beginning, say family members, several of whom have said they felt the presence of their loved ones within Miller's studio.
The Lima Company Memorial, subtitled "A Remembrance of Spirit & Choice," is on display at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus through Veterans Day. It will then be moved to the Cincinnati Museum Center, then to other sites.
The life-size canvases are arranged in an octagon, as Miller envisioned them in her dream.
Lima Company, the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine reserve unit based at Rickenbacker Air Base in Columbus, was among the United States' hardest hit during the war.
Miller, whose previous work includes landscapes and church paintings, says she asked God for guidance while painting.
"I need to be able to meet these guys in spirit," she says.
Miller says she read a newspaper article about Lima Company's fatalities and wished she could do something for the families. A couple of months later the dream woke her in the night.
"It felt like a download more than anything else," Miller says.
The artist called Lima Company and Statehouse officials, eventually getting their blessing. She built the studio addition with her own loans in 2006 as she gathered photographs from families.
A nonprofit was founded in January 2007 to defray some of the $100,000 in expenses, raise funds and sell commemorative books to finance a traveling exhibit.
Powerful inspiration
Miller chokes up every time she tells visitors about being divinely inspired once she began to paint in early 2007. As she looked at family photographs of the Marines, she experienced specific traits.
For Sgt. David Kreuter, 26, "When I picked up his picture and put it next to my heart, I felt a wash of dedication and commitment to service. An absolute unwavering dedication. And it just poured over me like a thousand volts. My body was trembling and my eyes were watering. And I thought, 'I'm not going to get his whole personality. I'm going to get the essence.'"
"I feel like I'm visiting David," his mother, Pat Murray, says during a visit to Miller's studio. "It's a way to connect with him. I feel like I'm surrounded by a bunch of friends. ... It gives me great comfort to come up here now. I know where to find David now."
For Lance Cpl. Michael Cifuentes, 25, Miller felt "a wash of goodness, of pure goodness that I've never felt before."
For Lance Cpl. Christopher Dyer, 19, the word was "joy."
"They are just so completely awesome," Dyer's mother, Kathy, says as she visited Miller's studio in May. "Today is the first day I've seen them since they've been completed. ... It makes me so happy. It is comforting and it does bring me happiness more than remind me of the sorrow."
'Red, red, red'
The background in Miller's first panel is fiery. "I kept hearing 'red, red, red.' It was as if my head disengaged." She couldn't apply the paint fast enough, first with a 3-inch pallet knife and then latex gloves.
"I could feel all of the intensity of the terror, the loss, the chaos of that experience. The whole thing exploded in front of my eyes, in full color. I was using my entire body to paint. It wiped me out for two days.
"I literally felt like I carried a little piece of them in my spirit body," Miller says. "I felt like I was the cocoon and all of a sudden they just flew out."
"And here they are. Bravo," says Marla Derga, stepmother of Cpl. Dustin A. Derga, 24, the first Lima Company Marine killed in Iraq, on Mother's Day 2005. ]
Bridging 'the gap of grief'
Lima Company Master Sgt. Stephen Walter, who retired from the Marine Corps in January 2006, notified several families when their sons were killed in Iraq. Walter says Miller's project will have a lasting healing effect.
"Anita Miller's artwork, I would argue, has bridged the gap of grief for the families ... of the fallen in a way that the best engineers in America could not," Walter says. "She has touched their heartstrings by making their loved ones part of their lives again in a way that few others could."
For Miller, "It's the parents' pain that I experience. Some days are worse than others. ... Just as powerfully as this thing gripped me, it let me go. There's healing here."
Ellie