It’s raining here. It’s coming down in sheets and I must say it’s very pretty. The rain has been going all day, but as I was walking back from my first ever college artist talk I looked outside and it was just, pretty. Trust me, it had nothing to do with the art I had just seen (confessionals coupled with portraits of Iraqi prisoners from abu ghraib,) but it might have been the message behind his work. The text in the works depicted the memories of these prisoners of how they were arrested and what they went through. This was all part of a lawsuit to help the prisoners, the statements that is. But what I really love is that when you think of abu ghraib you think of those demeaning photographs of those poor people, most of which had not even been charged, and here you have Daniel Heyman who is painting and etching they’re portraits with the key purpose to return they’re dignity. So that people will see them as human and not a hooded figure. At least 2 of the Iraqis he meet have been killed. He told us the story of one man who during Ramadan, allowed his children to go get sweets from the shed across the street from the house. He gave them his keys and they went out side. All of a sudden he hears an explosion, and runs out side. He sees that 2 of his sons, one 9 and one 11 have been killed. He picks up one of the bodies and holds it, in complete shock even as the US troops come in. He sees a soldier walk into the field near his house and retrieve his sons head, which he hadn’t noticed had been severed, and saw the soldier lay the head down by his body. The man was then arrested (apparently common procedure,) and sent to abu ghraib until further notice, for lack of a better term. Torture occurred, but beyond that I can’t imagine not being able to mourn you children’s death. To not even be able to bury them or even talk to your wife. It just boggles my mind and I admit to crying in the lecture hall as his story was described. All of the stories were sad and perhaps that’s why the idea of being able to give back something like dignity through art really makes me happy. I guess I can’t describe it better than that. So that’s why I found the rain pretty, because I was in a midway place in my mind, and every things pretty when you see it correctly. It’s even better when you listen to this: http://www.singingrevolution.com/cgi-local/db_images/files/uploads/5-filename.mp3

Wife Swap is a terrible show