“This exhibition is acclaimed artist Mary Whyte’s unprecedented series of stirring portraits of American veterans. Featuring veterans of all ages and in all walks of life, one from each of our fifty states, Whyte’s large-scale watercolors have captured the essence of our country’s everyday people with courage, empathy and honor.”
//Booth Western Art Museumhttps://boothmuseum.org/current-exhibitions/
There is something spiritual about an art museum. Portraits are never about the person sitting, but about how the artist wants the viewer to feel. There are tools to get us to that emotional place. Then the artist chooses how much color, how loud or soft is the singer and what note will the music be played in.
During her lecture in the audirorium, Mary Whyte provided insights gained through interviewing these 50 veterans. Spiritual questions of a life are the kindest, most interesting, nosiest way to get to sort of the “marrow of the universe” because I find that that is such a soft, searching place in us.
One of the big takeaways from the Mary Whyte, We the People: Portraits of Veterans in America, exhibition, gallery walk and lecture, was that these veterans learned to never let fear stop them, and the importance of having a committment for a cause greater than them self that gives greater satisfaction than anything we can do. Do you have a committment for a cause greater than yourself that gives you great satisfaction?
Talking with the veteran astronaut, the artist Mary Whyte asked him, “Geez, weren’t you scared out there floating around in space?” He said, “No, we were too well trained.” Many of them had a job to do, a mission to do and they would never let fear stop them. What are you well trained in that keeps fear at bay?
Participating in the Marine Corps for 31 years changed my friend for the better, realizing how precious life was and in opening his eyes to see that we can stand together and withstand things that seem so emotionally or physically dangerous. He suspects that if you talk with many veterans, most of them will tell you that it was about the person standing beside you and their dependence upon one another to keep each other alive.
Suprisingly, my other friend who is a US Army veteran feels he is becoming better and better trained in prayer. His go to nowadays is to stop before he feels paniced and pray for his fear to be removed. It seemed to him that in combat there was always a specific thing to do in the moment. There were protocols that he referred to, and when that took over, everything was fine. He said, “Prayer would be the best answer to combat fear that I could offer, and it feels good to say that out loud..”
And I thought for me, wouldn’t it be wonderful as artist, if we would never let fear stop us from creating, that we knew our job so well, that we were too well trained to never be stopped by fear.
“Be all that you can be.”
in the little things, in the everyday experiences, be whole hearted, give it everything you got. Be everything you are now, and you may be more than you are now when it moves into the future. It sets the table for the growing plant in the spiritual life.
§tacyReneè§weeney 