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Talks

SMITHS: Arts & Skills Service: On Ammunition and Ornament

Saturday, May 1, 2010

4 p.m.

Participants

Tia Christopher, Swords to Plowshares
Nan Rohan, straw & wheat weaver
Allison Smith, artist

Image: Red Cross Arts and Skills program promotional brochure, 1942. SFMOMA Archives.

With Jane Kimball’s Thursday night lecture on trench art in mind, we turn to arts and objects made by soldiers. Allison Smith hands over her own trench art collection for group polishing and flower arranging—the latter a long-standing program hosted by the museum for nearly 35 years. Nan Rohan demonstrates different types of straw and wheat weaving, which were daily activities common to soldiers in earlier, pre-handheld-media conflicts. We cap the evening with Tia Christopher discussing art being made by soldiers today. She’ll look at two exhibitions of SHOUT! Art by Women Veterans and also discuss her larger work with women veterans through Swords to Plowshares, a San Francisco nonprofit that has supported all aspects of veterans’ lives since 1974.

Time Activity
4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Drop-in, hands-on activities
6:00 p.m. Dinner (rsvp to smithsgeneral@gmail.com)
7:00 p.m. Tia Christopher on SHOUT! Art by Women Veterans