And so it begins
The Philadelphia Weekly has a cover story on War Paint this week which includes six pages of photos and text from the book. I'm very happy about this. I've been living with War Paint for four years now in one state or another and now it's like the long journey is over. I'm grateful to the people at the Philadelphia Weekly for this, for my editor and the people at Schiffer Publishing who believed in this, and, most of all, to the men and women who shared their stories with me, painful as it sometimes was for them. It's been a long road.
This is Tom Murtha, a veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam wars. He served in the Navy and the Marine Corps and was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. He's still very involved in veterans groups today, making sure that men and women coming home from overseas know that someone appreciates what they've been through.
Click to read the story on PW
It was some time in 2006 when I first got the idea for War Paint. I had just finished up Armed America and I was looking for something else to do -- that book had taken up two years of my life and the prospect of suddenly doing ... nothing was unimaginable. I photographed my first veterans tattoo in March of 2007 and it proceeded slowly from there. After a few months I was also working on Where I Write, photographing Fantasy and Science Fiction writers desks, and then I did Who Killed Amanda Palmer and a whole bunch of other things like American Rocker, what I thought might turn into a book about rocking chairs (and still might) and then Leaving Dakota and the amazing project I did with Elizabeth Bear Veronique is Visiting from Paris and the Inappropriate Tale for Unusual Children Bunny Named Swine and a lot of other stuff -- there was so much going on, but I kept at War Paint because I knew that it was important and it was alive inside of me. And the project ground slowly and in 2010 Schiffer Publishers picked it up, realizing that it need to be a thing that people could pick up and hold and touch. And now it's out. A box of books and a bottle of wine showed up from my publisher today the same day I saw the layout of the Philadelphia Weekly story and I couldn't be happier.
Back in 2007 with WWII vets in St. Louis. It seems like a lifetime ago.
Click to enlarge
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This is Tom Murtha, a veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam wars. He served in the Navy and the Marine Corps and was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. He's still very involved in veterans groups today, making sure that men and women coming home from overseas know that someone appreciates what they've been through.
Click to read the story on PW
It was some time in 2006 when I first got the idea for War Paint. I had just finished up Armed America and I was looking for something else to do -- that book had taken up two years of my life and the prospect of suddenly doing ... nothing was unimaginable. I photographed my first veterans tattoo in March of 2007 and it proceeded slowly from there. After a few months I was also working on Where I Write, photographing Fantasy and Science Fiction writers desks, and then I did Who Killed Amanda Palmer and a whole bunch of other things like American Rocker, what I thought might turn into a book about rocking chairs (and still might) and then Leaving Dakota and the amazing project I did with Elizabeth Bear Veronique is Visiting from Paris and the Inappropriate Tale for Unusual Children Bunny Named Swine and a lot of other stuff -- there was so much going on, but I kept at War Paint because I knew that it was important and it was alive inside of me. And the project ground slowly and in 2010 Schiffer Publishers picked it up, realizing that it need to be a thing that people could pick up and hold and touch. And now it's out. A box of books and a bottle of wine showed up from my publisher today the same day I saw the layout of the Philadelphia Weekly story and I couldn't be happier.
Back in 2007 with WWII vets in St. Louis. It seems like a lifetime ago.
Click to enlarge
Add me: [ LiveJournal] [Facebook] [ Twitter] [Google+] [Tumblr]
[Roller Derby Portraits]