October 2026

 

Dear Reader,

 

Sometimes, an area of art scholarship opens a door to new ways about thinking of the work and lives of artists. Recently, I was made aware that many artists throughout history served in the military or came from military families or made work about the military. Paul Revere is known primarily for his pivotal role in the American Revolution rather than as a craftsman. American school children are all taught about his famous alert, “The British Are Coming, The British Are Coming” during a midnight ride in 1775 to warn nearby Minutemen of the approach of British troops prior to the battles of Lexington and Concord. But Revere was also a silversmith whose work is included in major collections, including those in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Revere’s spoons were included in an online exhibition presented by the Georgia Museum of Art, “Recognizing Artist Soldiers in the Permanent Collection.” When I started to research this, I found out that many artists have served and that their experiences altered the way they thought about creating art.

 

Many visual artists served in the American military during WWII, including Robert Rauchenberg, Richard Diebenkorn, Roy Lichtenstein, Sam Francis, and Sol Lewitt. Significantly, Ellsworth Kelly joined the army and was assigned to the 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion: Company A in the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops known as the Ghost Army. In this issue of TAS, art historian Sara Buoso writes about Kelly and his unit who painted camouflage and created inflatable dummy tanks. Remarkably, the fashion designer Bill Blass served in the 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion: Company B, fourth platoon. What surprised me even more was to learn that Pratt Institute in Brooklyn (where Kelly studied) taught courses in industrial camouflage and had a training program for professional architects, engineers, and designers. Buoso’s investigation of the way this significant American artist’s military career shaped his aesthetic provides a new understanding of his work.

 

Atlanta photographer Sheila Pree Bright was an “army brat” as her father was career military. As a child, she lived with her family on military bases first in Germany, then around the United States. When Sheila gave her “live” conversation with writer Dr. Carol Senf for

The Art Section at American Legion Post 201 in Alpharetta, Georgia, she realized how much her father and her experience growing up on military bases were present in her work. As an artist whose photographs document her viewer’s perspective, she realized that her eye was trained as a young African American child growing up on army bases in Germany. She perceives her world through the lens of an outsider looking in. I have to report that Bright’s public conversation with the vets in Alpharetta was nothing less than extraordinary, and that Dr. Senf has written about Bright with sensitivity and understanding in her text for The Art Section.

 

Philip Auslander, a noted performance scholar, writes about music and the cultural undercurrents of performing as a musician. His books, In Concert: Performing Musical Persona, Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music, and Women Rock! Portraits in Popular Music, delve into the mindset of performing musicians. For The Art Section Auslander looks at two Vietnam War era musicians who were veterans, Jimi Hendrix and Country Joe McDonald. Both played at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, but the differences in their relationship to their shared military background illuminate complex cultural and political issues of the time.

 

The Art Section’s new initiative From Service to Self-Expression investigates the relationship of an artist’s life and work to time served in the military. More articles and “live” events at the American Legion post in Alpharetta, Georgia are forthcoming:

 

Poet Karen Hand will present her poems as well as her film Blast about the collaboration with Explosives Engineer Catherine Johnson,

the Robert H. Quenon Associate Professor of Mining and Explosives Engineering at Missouri S&T. “We began with a simple question: what might emerge from a collaboration between an explosives engineer and a poet? Catherine’s research, paired with my experience growing up an "army brat," led us to this project.” If you will be in Atlanta on October 22, 2026, please stop by American Legion Post 201, 201 Wills Road, Alpharetta, Georgia 30009 at 7 pm. All are invited.

 

And there is more to come…

 

All my best,
Deanna

​

Deanna Sirlin

Editor-in-Chief

The Art Section

 

“Live” events forthcoming 

From Service to Self-Expression:

 

November 19, 2026

Saxophonist Brandyn Taylor (principal saxophonist of the 116th Army Band with the Georgia National Guard) with Philip Auslander

 

December 10, 2026

Artist Joe Peragine with Deanna Sirlin