July 2011
15 posts
8 tags
Max Uriarte is Terminal Lance
“I was the kid in school that was always good at drawing and the other kids would come to me if they wanted something drawn really well.”
By Andrew Cox
Max Uriarte was a U.S. Marine from 2006 to 2010. He was a 0351, Assultman and deployed to Iraq twice. He is the creator of the popular comic strip Terminal Lance, which humorously depicts life as a “Grunt Lance Corporal” in the...
6 tags
War Art Down Under
“What I want to be able to do is have my work hanging on a wall and have a soldier stand in front of it with his wife or parents and say, ‘That is exactly what it was like when I was over there, that could have been me.’”
By Andrew Cox
Captain Conway Bown has been a helicopter pilot for twenty-one years in the Australian Army. He has deployed twice to East Timor and once to Iraq where he...
7 tags
Official Devil Dog War Art
“War zones are not attractive, but they are visually very interesting—there is always something unique to draw.”
By Andrew Cox
Staff Sergeant Kristopher Battles is the official combat artist of the Marine Corps. He signed up for the Marine Corps Reserves in 1986, went to boot camp that summer as a Reservist and was a member of the 24th Marine Regiment in Kansas City. He was a computer...
4 tags
Captain Winter Camping In Iraq
“It is kind of like camping, where you are adjusting. In Iraq, you are always adjusting.”
By Andrew Cox
Captain Cameron Winter is a future operations officer with the 34th Infantry Division of the Minnesota National Guard. He has been a solider for twelve years, starting out enlisted and becoming an officer after graduating from the University of Minnesota Army ROTC program. He...
6 tags
War Artist Victor Juhasz
“What struck me—in Iraq and Afghanistan—was how glad the troops were to see someone from the States.”
By Andrew Cox
Victor Juhasz has been creating humorous caricatures and illustrations since 1974. He has a long list of clients including The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, The Wall Street Journal, Esquire, GQ, Men’s Journal, The Washington Post and many more. His...
6 tags
Canuck War Art
“…I’m more interested in using art as a way to make people care about things they don’t realize they want to care about.”
By Andrew Cox
Scottish-Canadian artist Richard Johnson has traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan to tell the everyday stories of life in a conflict zone through drawing. He embedded with U.S. Marines during the invasion of Iraq and has patrolled with the...
4 tags
Afghanistan Opens Your Eyes
“The technological differences in capabilities are tremendously extreme. For anti-coalition forces, it must be like fighting aliens from the future.”
By Andrew Cox
U.S. Marine Corps Captain Colin Harman deployed to Afghanistan from June to December 2010, primarily in Helmand and Kandahar Provinces. He served as an advisor to the Afghan National Army Counter-Improvised Explosive...
9 tags
The Godfather of Modern War Art
“Part of what an artist tries to do is wake people up. The Joe Bonham Project is a group of artists saying wake up to these guys and their experiences.”
By Andrew Cox
Michael Fay is a retired Marine with two tours in each of Iraq and Afghanistan. He was the official combat artist of the Marine Corps from 2000 to 2010. Recently, he has been behind the creation of Still in the Fight...
5 tags
War Correspondent Michael Yon Can't Stop Embedding
“Most of the hardcore war reporters burned out years ago. The war has been going on for nearly a decade.”
By Andrew Cox
Michael Yon is a war correspondent and former U.S. Special Forces soldier. He has won numerous awards for his reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan and according to the New York Times he has spent more time than any other journalist embedded with combat units in...
9 tags
Drawing For the Bros with LCpl Rob Bates
“If the closest they’ve been to combat is playing Call of Duty, then no. No amount of literature in the world will teach an individual about war until they’ve experienced it.”
By Andrew Cox
Rob Bates is a Marine infantryman, Combat Artist, member of the International Society of War Artists, and has two combat tours in Afghanistan. He graduated from Art Instruction School in 2006....
7 tags
SSgt Payton's RPG
“After it hit I woke up and could not breathe. I thought, wow, I am going to die for real.”
[[MORE]]
By Andrew Cox
Staff Sergeant David Payton of 3/8 Marines was injured in a rocket propelled grenade attack in 2005 in Al-Karmah, Iraq. Located in Anbar Province, it was one of the most dangerous and deadly parts of the country for U.S. forces after the invasion. I spoke with Staff...
5 tags
Interview with Artist Christina Habibi
“I know I break the hell out of the rules and people, who are taught, see that.”
By Andrew Cox
I met Christina Habibi at the spring 2011 St. Paul Art Crawl. It was the end of an eight-hour shift on day two of the crawl. Everyone around me looked exhausted but when I saw Christina, who had been busy speaking with people all day about her work, she was still energized and enthusiastic. She took...
4 tags
Interview with Photographer Muir Vidler
By Andrew Cox
I first saw Muir Vidler’s photography while looking at images of the war in Lybia. Somewhere along the way of clicking through endless links I found a picture Vidler had taken at a Libyan beauty pageant. It was a strange picture because the women were wearing military uniforms. I found his website and had a look at his work. It ranges from the Israeli Death Metal scene to strip...
4 tags
Interview with Artist Brian Stewart
“I think everybody looks but not everybody sees and I think artists tend to see more.”
By Andrew Cox
Brian Stewart is a Minnesota based artist specializing in Plein Air painting. He is known for his paintings of funk, junk and antiquity and his work has been featured in Fine Art Connoisseur, Southwest Art and The Artist’s Magazine among others.
When did you begin...
5 tags
Interview with Author Linh Dinh
“I’ve always been interested in so-called losers, because that’s the general human condition, if not now, then soon enough.”
By Andrew Cox
Linh Dinh is a Philadelphia based poet, author, and teacher. He currently runs State of the Union, a photo blog that documents the homeless in the U.S. and explores the relationship between the economy, advertising, society and poverty. He...
