At the Aidekman Arts Center yesterday, artist Steve Mumford spoke about his travels to Iraq during combat and the struggle to create art in a war zone. Mumford, a 1987 graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University's five-year dual degree program, currently has the work he produced during his stay in the Middle East on view in the Koppleman Gallery exhibit entitled, "Baghdad and Beyond: Drawings by Steve Mumford."
Mumford traveled to Iraq four times to make sketches between the years 2003 and 2004 and made a subsequent trip to Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas to visit Iraq veterans in early 2006. Mumford described himself as a "combat artist": neither an official war artist who has a specific viewpoint to uphold nor a photojournalist whose main objective was to follow the fighting.
Instead, Mumford made pen and ink drawings of daily life, from the streets of Baghdad to a small army base in Samara. "People would start to warm to me as I would start to draw, and the suspicion would melt away," Mumford said, describing Iraqis' reactions to his art.
Many of the "Baghdad and Beyond" drawings are from Mumford's time with Task Force 27, a patrol unit. "I joined American soldiers on patrol with my art supplies in a backpack, and I would whip them out, and I'd start drawing like crazy," Mumford said. Mumford was able to complete over 250 of his 500 pen and ink and watercolor sketches as the events were taking place; the rest were finished from photographs he would take before drawing.
Mumford also explained the emotional impact of spending time at the Brooke Medical Center. "I was surprised at the morale at the facility. 20-year-old guys who had lost their legs still managed to retain their spirit of optimism," Mumford said.
One of Mumford's sketches from the medical center visit depicted three leg amputees practicing archery; despite the dinginess of the setting and the amputees' wheelchairs, their mental and physical strength were still inherent to their poses, and the juxtaposition of these elements showed viewers the lingering vestiges of war.
- Sarah Miller
