The spindly skeletons of three rats stand in boxes stacked atop one another. News stories trumpeting the Iraq war wallpaper the frames.
Look closer, and you'll glimpse the title: "The Rat Pack: Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld."
"For me, the Rat Pack is Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld," Santa Fe artist Kawana Edwards explained. "There's the symbology and they're rats; they get away with things. They nest and they multiply."
Edwards is one of 25 artists displaying their work in "Voices Against the War," opening on Friday at New Concept Gallery. Co-curators Dee Ann McIntyre and Dan Anthony selected about 100 pieces from the submissions of 40 artists. Ten percent of the proceeds will go to Veterans for Peace.
Edgy, jarring and often downright disturbing, the work ranges from sculpture to oil, collage, cartoons, photography, mixed media and glass. Pat Oliphant, Naida Seibel, Jon Richards, Tony O'Brien and Marty Horowitz are among the artists represented. The seed for the show was sown about a year ago when McIntyre drove by the regular protesters picketing at the intersection of Cerrillos Road and St. Francis Drive one afternoon.
"Last year, when they started the surge, that was the last straw," she said. "There were people carrying placards. I thought, 'Where are the artists in Santa Fe?' ''
McIntyre started searching for a gallery to host the show, but discovered most were booked six months in advance. She postponed the idea until her friend Ann Hosfeld opened New Concept last October. The two women placed a newspaper ad for artists and called those they knew. A few turned them down— not because they favored the war, but because their work didn't fit the theme, McIntyre said.
"They are working artists and people don't buy this kind of art," she explained. "It doesn't go over the sofa."
Show almost prescient
For painter/sculptor Naida Seibel, the show seemed almost prescient. The Santa Fe artist had been working on a "general" series for about two years. Draped in camouflage, these soldiers wear flip-flops and shades, many balancing a drink in one hand while their fingers drip blood. Their epaulets glint with craft-store stars.
"At the beginning of the war, they told us a lot of lies," Seibel said. "Some of them have big noses like hawks. They're either hawks or Pinocchio.
"They're just standing around talking and sending our men off and they're kind of pathetic," she continued.
Seibel had always wanted to show the series as a group, but they stayed stashed in her home studio— commercial galleries were leery of offending potential customers.
The artist was quick to separate her love of country from her feelings about the war.
"I'm very patriotic," she said. "I have a flag that was flown at the Capitol. I love America and I'm just sick about what's going on. I had to do something. I just believe we were told so many lies and there wasn't any planning done."
'Had to say something'
Former Life photographer Tony O'Brien submitted a print taken during the first Gulf War. The scene shows an Iraqi prisoner of war, his arms upraised in prayer. An American marine stands behind him cradling an M16.
"It was the first day of the Gulf War and it was out in the middle of the desert," said O'Brien, who was covering the war for Life magazine in 1991. "That was when we realized everybody was surrendering and the war was ending really fast."
No longer a war photographer, O'Brien recently returned from Afghanistan, where he was working on a children's book.
"We seem to go to war a lot," he said. "These are scenes that are probably going on in many places across Iraq today. We need a lot of prayers. It seems that everybody's praying, but the war goes on."
Connie Fernandez usually confines her colcha embroidery to traditional scenes or saints. "Las Madres Dolorosas— Irak" ("The Grieving Mothers— Iraq") emerged from a torrent of grief over the deaths of eight of her family members in nine months, as well as the war. The wool stitches depict veiled and robed Iraqi women grieving over a coffin.
"I made it because of my concern with what was going on politically throughout the world," Fernandez said from her Taos home. "A tremendous amount of sorrow, a tremendous amount of grief on all sides. It was my way of expressing grief on many levels."
The images reflect TV and newspaper accounts of the fighting. A "mistake" in Fernandez's color choices proved serendipitous.
Fernandez, who demonstrates her art at the Millicent Rogers Museum, worked on the piece at night. In the morning, she noticed the stitches on the face of one of the women were darker than the rest. She planned to rip out the thread. Then she took a second look.
"It was meant to be one of the women," she said, "But I said, 'No, 'La Muerte,' that's death.' ''
Edwards' "assemblages" include "The Last Flight from Guantanamo," a dead bird lying in a rolled-back ham can. The title could be a reference to a jailbird; it also hints that detainees only leave the military prison in a box.
Edwards says she has always been fascinated by nature. All of the creatures used in her pieces were "pet shop casualties" or expired animals brought to her by friends and acquaintances.
"I was the kid that took the dead bats to show and tell," she continued. "People love it or hate it. Americans have an issue around death."
"I just feel like we all had to say something," the largely self-taught artist said. "And I do support the troops— that's why I'm excited about the show."
"Voices Against the War" runs through April 20.
If You Go
WHAT: "Voices Against the War" WHERE: New Concept Gallery, 610 Canyon Road CONTACT: 795-7570
WHEN: Opening reception 5-7 p.m. Friday, March 28 through April 20.
6 p.m. Sunday, March 30, anti-war poetry and prose readings by actor/writer/cartoonist Jon Richards and screenwriter Bronwen Denton-Davis.
6 p.m. Tuesday, April 8, former Time magazine correspondent Bill Stewart, "Two Wars— Afghanistan/Iraq."
