When Dads Drove Army Trucks

 This photo has been bouncing around on my studio wall. It was scanned and printed small but never made it into any art. But it stayed in my sight (and brain). I scanned it large and played with the color. It was a black and white photo but I decided that the truck should be a weird color between teal and loden green. Have Pantone book will play. So I did an airbrush coat in photoshop and masked out my dad. I printed it out a little larger than planned. It happens sometimes, sort of your eyes are bigger than your plate as my mother used to say. It's ok, I can work with it. The girl (me) popped up and got printed in some empty space on the fabric. Actually she was printed 3 or 4 times. She will be the statement that dads drove army trucks so little girls could ride bikes. 

I had 2 older brothers so the bike was a hand me down. I think it was a little big for it at the time. I definitely couldn't sit on the seat and reach the pedals. Didn't stop me from riding obviously! The other piece is a photo of an old fence in our backyard. It just seems to fit there. 

The red, blue and white is a reference to the bronze star my dad was awarded. We didn't know about the bronze star until he died and the army contacted us about providing a head stone. I contacted army records but due to a fire at the records facility we will never know why he got the award. I know he was overseas in New Guinea building army hospitals. Some of the reading I have done talks about how the field hospitals were bombed, so I can guess that's how the bronze star came about. My dad would not talk about World War II except to say the enemy was mean. When my brothers wanted to go camping he told them they would have to join the army, he had camped enough for a lifetime. Dear old dad.