Saturday, November 18, 2006

National Museum of the Marine Corps Pics

Last Monday I spent the day doing a "gallery talk" of sorts at the newly opened National Museum of the Marine Corps. I was invited by the educational staff to share about my experiences as a combat artist and to work with kids wanting to draw a picture to send to the Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan. For those that are new to Fire and Ice, my academic background and occasional civilian career is in art and special education.

A good friend and coffee shop compatriot, Robert Martin, a photographer for our local newspaper, The Free-Lance Star, was on assignment covering this first day the museum was open to the general public. If you go here you can see a slide show of the pictures he shot, which include two of yours truly.

5 comments:

Kristopher Battles said...

I can hardly wait to tour the museum myself! Maybe you'll take me through? :)

I thoroughly enjoyed the dedication last week. I felt proud to be an American and even more proud to be the wife of a US marine!

Anonymous said...

I saw the pictures your friend took. What a great idea to have kids draw pictures for the Marines in combat. You have a great smile, by the way. I hope you have fun at the ball.

Unknown said...

Today while at the Commissary I picked up one of those coupon magazines. In it there was an article about a young brick artist named Nathan Sawaya and his Lego sculpture of the Iwo Jima flag-raising. The article went on to say it was commissioned for the new museum. The photo of the finished sculpture was amazing.

Nice photos of you!

I wanna see this place more and more. Hmmm....might be time for a field trip!

Best always and Happy Thanksgiving.

K T Cat said...

Nice photos, but they could really use some captions. Did I miss them?

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry I missed your presentation to the children. I think the combat art section is great. As a volunteer docent in the museum, I can also help with the captions, if that’s ok. Photo captions in order:

(1) F4U4 Corsair as seen from the second deck. Painted to look like “Pappy” Boyington’s aircraft (which it is not), it was used in the TV series “Baa Baa Blacksheep”;
(2) The Marine Corps Medal of Honor wall;
(3–5) Views towards the Leatherneck Gallery from the movie theater entrance;
(6–8) Entrance to the museum;
(9) Going through the CH-46 helicopter into the Hill 881S immersion exhibit;
(10) A Chaplain checking on a Marine KIA waiting to be airlifted (Hill 881S immersion exhibit);
(11) An Ontos (Greek word for “Thing”) in a representation of the Battle of Hue during the Tet Offensive;
(12) Children’s Corner;
(13–14) Sgt Peterson, one of the Marines stationed at the museum. All of the life size cast figures in the museum were modeled using active duty Marines. The figure hanging in the upper left was cast using a mold of Sgt Peterson. He said the process took 2 days. The Color Sgt was cast from the actual Color Sgt of the Marine Corps;
(15) Children’s Corner again