I'm an image maker, who works primarily in black & white photography. An old school wet film guy. I love to work in the darkroom, to get my hands wet in the developer bath, smelling the fixer, watching the image appear as if by magic in the developing tray. It's a tactile and sensual experience.

So what's my connection to Combat Paper?

Working out of the community darkroom at the Green Door Studio in Burlington, VT, I linked up with a bunch of papermakers. Vets using papermaking as a vehicle to tell their personal stories, of personal trauma, of the dehumanizing effects of war. Like all artists, they were searching for a way to find their voice.

At first, I saw papermaking as a means to expand my own medium, to make hand-crafted paper for book covers, for broadsides to display my images. So I learned to make paper from recycled cotton, from linen, from abaca and "blue iris" leaves from my garden. After some trial and error, I even developed a paper suitable for printing my images using alternative photographic processes. Some of my images have found their expression as cyanotypes, kallitypes and salt or albumen prints, using the age old photographic processes.

3rd ID

 

I then began making masks from paper pulp, surely metaphors of my different selves, as I searched for an expression of my own personal story. The first contained bits of my military past; a draft card, deployment orders, weapons qualification medals. I called it 3rd ID. And with the making of the mask came the release of memories, of the loss of innocence of youth, of the regimentation and dehumanizing impact of boot camp where I was remade into a soldier. Of being transformed from a volunteer in the Peace Corps to a conscript in the War Corps. And recollections of the personal power and pride I felt when firing a machine gun or lobbing a grenade down range. In the act of transforming one set of symbols for another I found I could release those lost feelings and embrace the person I have become.   Pride and Prejudice   A second set of masks was created at an artist residency in Key West in 2009, a trip tic made from combat paper, rendered in red, white and blue. Pride and Prejudice takes you from the literal to the abstract, from traditional pride to conflicted prejudice. Some may see shame, but patriotism comes in many guises, often confusing, always deeply personal.             Detail views of the three masks ...     Self Portrait, kallitype with coffee   Tom also manages the web site for the Combat Paper Project. More of his personal imagery is available on his web page.