thedrifter
11-12-08, 07:08 AM
Veterans Day: Artist honors fallen members of Lima Company
WKYC Cleveland
COLUMBUS -- Artist Anita Miller used her talents to create a memorial to honor 22 Marines and a Navy corpsman from Lima Co. 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, who were killed in Iraq.
Miller never met the men, yet she had a vision that she should paint a memorial to honor them. It took her two years to complete the memorial, using pictures and stories from family members to guide her in painting each man's image.
"The whole thing was such a mystery to me," Miller says. "Over that two-year period, I came to love those men. They were like my brothers and my best friends for that time."
The memorial has been on display at the Ohio Statehouse since Memorial Day.
"It felt like I was being given a huge gift not only having it here in the Statehouse, but having thousands of people walking through and getting letters and e-mails back from people and saying how healing it was," she says. "It's really neat because when people walk in there, I can see they can feel all those beautiful feelings that I felt when I painted them."
On Veterans Day, the memorial traveled to its new home at the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal for exhibition beginning Saturday and running until Jan. 4.
Along with the paintings, the memorial includes candles, boots and space for visitors to leave mementos.
For more information, visit the Lima Company Memorial website.
http://www.limacompanymemorial.org./
Ellie
WKYC Cleveland
COLUMBUS -- Artist Anita Miller used her talents to create a memorial to honor 22 Marines and a Navy corpsman from Lima Co. 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, who were killed in Iraq.
Miller never met the men, yet she had a vision that she should paint a memorial to honor them. It took her two years to complete the memorial, using pictures and stories from family members to guide her in painting each man's image.
"The whole thing was such a mystery to me," Miller says. "Over that two-year period, I came to love those men. They were like my brothers and my best friends for that time."
The memorial has been on display at the Ohio Statehouse since Memorial Day.
"It felt like I was being given a huge gift not only having it here in the Statehouse, but having thousands of people walking through and getting letters and e-mails back from people and saying how healing it was," she says. "It's really neat because when people walk in there, I can see they can feel all those beautiful feelings that I felt when I painted them."
On Veterans Day, the memorial traveled to its new home at the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal for exhibition beginning Saturday and running until Jan. 4.
Along with the paintings, the memorial includes candles, boots and space for visitors to leave mementos.
For more information, visit the Lima Company Memorial website.
http://www.limacompanymemorial.org./
Ellie