The Iraq War: An Artist's Journey

A New Series

2010-01-18T18:30:00.000-08:00

Above: Violet, Oil on Masonite, 24"x48", $250.00

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the long time - no post period but now with the new year I hope to keep posting more material. In the news for Dana & I we now have a new website up! It's www.frechstudios.com and you can access our blogs and see our work and resumes online there! We are very happy about this new development!

Please feel free to take some time and check it out!

Also, I am working on a new series about horses!

I know that animals and horses haven't always been my favorite but lately I have been drawn back toward animals. It started with a commission of a pet portrait for a girl at my school and then I decided to make my sister a Christmas Present for her and her family to enjoy. I did a horse painting and the horse is just blazing by! I loved the movement and powerful excitement one gets from watching a horse run by at full speed!

I was invigorated that now I'm doing a small series of them this week I hope to get more done and so far I'm really liking this new set of paintings!

"Opening" Reflections

2009-11-13T17:59:00.000-08:00

WHAT A NIGHT!

The Iraq War: An Artist's Journey at the Bea Paines Gallery has become quite a sensation for me. I have never recieved such a large crowd for an opening, we had somewhere between 80 to 100 people! I know that Jody and Vicki Queen - who sponsored the opening reception - prepared food for about 100 people and most of it was consumed! The Gallery floor was filled with people and there was a point where I didn't even know over three-quarters of the crowd! It was such an exciting night. Now that the buzz is wearing off I can finally give a clear reflection on the night and my feelings about how the show went.

To begin with, if you are an artist and you have a show opening for a specifically advertised date you better get your ducks in a row before then otherwise you'll be like me! :) LOL! I am probably the only artist who was still hanging placards for the paintings as the show was in full swing. Yet, it was not fatal or bad but that just illustrates how stressed out and busy I was throughout the day.

Luckily I have a great team of supporters and a wonderful wife, Dana (danafrech.blogspot.com), who pushed me and encouraged my show. Members of the art club - Joey Waltz, Jessica Looney, Bethany Blankenship, Katie Peters, my wife Dana and Mr. Shroyer all ran around trying to do last minute details! I really want to make a shout out to Bethany and Jessica for their awesome advice for the layout of the show! I thought their advice was spot on! We got to the gallery around 3:30pm and didn't finish hanging until 5:00pm about one hour before the opening started!

Just after getting the last piece up we had started getting visitors! I quickly rushed home to pick up some last minute items and Dana as well - thanks Jessica for taking her home! After running around we made it to the show at 5:47pm and WVVA - our local NBC affiliate - was already there. As I walked in I saw Pete Sternloff, a Bronze Star Recipient in Vietnam, in tears! He was crying and said that he was "moved" and that "this show could be hung up in New York or anywhere" and that it needs "to be seen by everyone." I've never heard such a great compliment. Next was Debbie Bowling who hugged me and then Gary Bowling, both said they were deeply moved and tears were welling up in their eyes!

The reaction of my viewers to the show had moved me and made me realize that I had done something that I haven't done with my shows before: move an audience. So why this time? I think the answer: I worked from my heart first to tell a message that I kept bottled up inside of me.

Pete Sternloff and I at the show in front of the painting "Young Lovers"

Then WVVA interviewed me! I was so excited and the video above gives a great view of the show and the pictures below tell the rest of the story:

WVVA interviewing me at the opening!

This show was packed!

To a successful night!

Last Night's Opening at the Bea Paines Gallery!

2009-11-12T10:11:00.000-08:00

I don't have a lot of time but I wanted to write about how great of a show we had last night at the Bea Paines Gallery! The show was a success and a lot of people turned out to show their support and talk about the work.

Mr. Shroyer, the Bluefield College art Professor, said that he never ever had the President of the College actually show up for any art show so for me that was a great honor. Also, the Queens - Jody and Vicki, did a great job on the food and I want to thank them for getting me in the gallery and sponsoring the show! They said they've never seen such a great opening for a show in Bluefield which means so much to me!

Thanks everyone! The link below is to the WVVA segment will be posted soon!

An EXPLOSION of Art and GROWTH!

2009-10-06T21:29:00.000-07:00

Over the past several weeks I have been Blessed with the time and the gifts to produce 17 paintings! I think the biggest factor has been the emotional and passionate drive to not paint "pretty" pictures but to create powerful moments of my life in Iraq. Once an artist hits a point where they are personally involved in their work then the results are powerful and moving.

Over the last three years I've come to accept a few things:

1. Techniques are great but on their own they do not make a painting.

2. Having a message is a start but the execution of the message from point A to point B is crucial!

3. The message that you wish to convey must be done with enthusiasm and a strong conviction to tell your story. On the flip side of that, think about it, if you work when you're bored and out of it then your end result will end up in the manner.

A New Portrait!

So as I went through my Iraq War Journals I thought about the things that aggravated me and the ideas that sparked interest long ago but later died out. I found in my personal Journal (IV - Kirkuk, Iraq 2003) that I had a lot of resentment towards our leadership. The passage really illustrates my frustration with the way things were being done. I could spend all giving examples but lets not.

As I finished reading through the passage I thought about everything thathas transpired over the last three years since leaving Iraq. I thought about the presidency and the leadership change since then and as I started researching more I became inspired to do a piece on one of the War-time leaders. Now ironically I am not one of these raging liberals who hate Bush - I think he has a pretty bad life from here on out and I am not going to be one in a million trying to pin him down even more and a lot of those works are starting to become cliche. So I opted to do the man who I thought was really responsible for a lot of the problems in Iraq. In this case I did a portrait of:

DONALD RUMSFELD 30 x 40 inches Acrylic and Paper on Canvas

Yes the infamous Donald Rumsfeld, aka Architect of the Iraq War. I recall in 2004 his smug remark about how "You don't go to war with what you want, you go with what you have." Now the original quote had the army in it but with limited space the wording was condensed.

But in this painting we have techniques I learned about before and never used until now, this includes: fingerprinting, drip painting and paper mache.

I used old headlines to help throw his statement back in his face and these are from creditable sourse and top magazines. I also utilized a finger print method where each one represents 4 servicemembers who died in Iraq and there are close to 1200 fingerprints on this canvas. The drip painting is to help indicate a bloody warzone feel.

When the viewers look onto this piece I hope that they will experience my own angers and frustrations. I read of stories where a father spent $10,000 on his son's body armor to make sure that his stayed. I find it sad that we're willing to go attack a country but we inadequate supplies to keep our troops safe!

Summer Paintings

2009-08-23T12:50:00.000-07:00

Admittedly I have been lazy this summer and have been relaxing more than working. However that did not mean that I achieved absolutely nothing. While sitting back sipping coffee and watching a lot of soccer games I managed to get some journaling in and came up with some ideas for three new paintings, well at least two are but the third one was a re-attempt to make the original idea better.

Down Time, Oil on Canvas 16 x 20

The above painting is called Down Time and I did this painting as a way of show the general public that even in a growing secular society that troops still turn to God for guidance and protection. This is not intended to be a sweet little picture but a portrayal of an event I witnessed and would like make tribute to.

During my seven months in Iraq SrA Jared Moore and myself created a Bible Group/Life Group that was intended to help us and our other airman to unify in God's Word on a weekly basis. Some mornings we would gather to pray outside of the armory off to ourselves. This painting is meant to capture one of those mornings. In most other paintings like these you would see a dove, a bright light from above or some other Religious object but I did not want to include these because I want you the viewer to see it as I did. The dark background is there to help bring focus to the airman and to help accentuate the feeling of "darkness" around us. This is what we did in our Down Time.

Dear Rose Marie, Oil on Canvas 16 x 20

One of my best friends in Iraq was SrA Fidel Nunez who was from the Dominican Republic and I took a photo of him writing a letter home to his wife Rosa Marie - hence the title Dear Rosa Marie. I wanted to not only just show an airman writing home but again I wanted to create a contemporary spin on it.

In past paintings done by famous painters I usually find a lot of these "heroic" images and these super macho types who either win a battle or if they are doing a simple "letter home" they are either crying or they look like a typical soldier with blonde hair and blue eyes writing home to Sally. I don't know why but I get tired of those and think we are in a new era where other ethnicities are left out of the loop.

In this image I wanted to portray Nunez of the Dominican Republic to show that there are other races involved in this war and they, too, have people at home who love them. They are also fighting for this country and everytime I hear people cry "send them home" I want to show them this image.

Out of the Ashes, Oil on Canvas 16 x 20

This painting has been attempted before by me and I was happy with the original concept but I was not pleased with my execution. So I wanted to try this again and I wanted to use a background that indicated a dark past and a better future. With a title Out of the Ashes I think it is clear to see that in this image the viewer will get a sense of a man who once went to war and through it all came out being a better person.

For me that statement couldn't any further from the truth. I once was a person with a secure job at a fortune 500 company making a good income while serving part time in the National Guard. However that part time job was becoming something of a full time position with six call-ups to Active Duty between 09/11/01 to 06/28/07 for a grand total of three culmulative years of active service.

The left side of the painting represents a point in my life where I had surrendered my dreams and left my ambitions aside so that I could maintain an income, keep my job and work for retirement. However, I hated both jobs: the military and working in sales. Yet it took seven months in a war zone for me to 'wake up' and see what my true potential, ambition and passion for life really was.

The right side is who I am now and indicates a sense of direction and more life. I have more red in my cheeks and sunlight on my face as I leave the ashes in background behind as I head towards where I am suppose to be: practicing art in a studio!

2009-06-20T00:40:00.000-07:00

The above image was done in oil on canvas and measures 24 x 30 inches. As far as technical issues I think the blue tends to clash with my person but my first impression was to go with blue because the walls of the mods were blue.

Anyhow, I painted this painting as a way to communicate, or show rather, the moment a letter arrives in the mail. When an airman, soldier, marine or sailor get a letter the feeling can be so exciting that you don't think about where you're at. The terrorists could be launching a rocket attack and yet you would not even bother to worry. Simply because for a moment you are touching the same letter that a loved one from home touched, it is so close but so far away.

I wanted to convey that moment where he just got the mail and is opening it up. I want the viewer to be silent for a second because you don't want to disturb him. This is a private moment.

Titled: "Letter from home....quiet"

2009-06-14T20:38:00.000-07:00

This is my latest painting here to the left. It is 16 x 20 inches and done in oil. At first glance one may only see a an agitated man talking on the phone. Yet he is wearing a camoflauge jacket with military insignia on it. Then one may notice the phone is not a cell phone - which is rare these days. At this point I hope that the viewer will see that he is not stateside and will make the connection that this man is in Iraq.

This painting for me is about a man that I witnessed on the phone to his spouse. It was my first time in the Media Center and I was anxious to call home. We were allowed two calls home a week for only fifteen minutes at a time. I didn't know how much they enforced this rule - but in any case I didn't want to waste a minute on the phone with my wife.

As I waited to get on the phone this guy's voice just kept getting louder and louder. I tried to ignore it but couldn't. "You bitch!" He shouted. "I oughta get your credit cards destroyed!" I couldn't hear what she said but it sounded like she was trying to reason with him as to why she had to spend money. Then finally he stated "I don't give a fuck about kid's school supplies, doctor visits or shit like that! Don't you know where I'm at BITCH!?!"

As my turn to get on the phone came up I just couldn't believe that someone would waste their time yelling at their true love - I had just married four months prior to my deployment. That image of the man yelling at his wife just stuck in my head as I tried to talk to my wife, Dana. As soon as I heard her voice my voice trembled and the thought "I hope I never do that to Dana" came to mind.

Only a few weeks later I called home and the next day I had to go back to work. I was posted with a guy who I couldn't stand, I was stuck with the M240 B for the twentyninth time in a row and I had issues with homesickness and loneliness. Then as Dana started to talk about her day I couldn't hold it any longer and I found myself repeating what the man on the phone earlier said. It hurt and I couldn't deal with it that night.

In the end I suppose that marriage is filled with examples like this but in this sense I didn't know if tomorrow would be my last. During my first four days their we had a rocket attack and I was on a detail for a ramp ceremony for four guys who died in a humvee attack. This was all reeling in my head at the time. At the time I had no idea as to how "relatively" safe we were.

The title of this painting is "Phone Calls Home"

New Series of Paintings with the Iraq War

2009-05-16T15:34:00.000-07:00

Over the last school year I have been reflecting on my time in Iraq and it is interesting to look back on my time there. During the last 100 days of my tour I recorded in 5 moleskin volumes: sketches, thoughts and my opinions of the war, the people I worked, the poeple I met and my troubles. It is painful to read these entries as I remember these feelings associated with each journal entry. But not eveything was a sad story, there were times of joy and inspiration as noted in my last entry on this blog.

So recently I decided to do a series of paintings on the Iraq War and try to put a "human face" to it. All too often I see war paintings, not just the Iraq War, but I see paintings that reflect these "super human" and over "romantic" scenes of war. Undoubtedly these painters are just taking their compositions off of the masters where it was imperative to showcase the glory of their home country's victories in battle. I am not opposed to these painting but I do not feel that people get a "perversed sense of war."

In this new series of paintings I want to showcase a war that illustrates the simple things that are sometimes joyful - like getting a letter from home. Or that can intringue you, like how I witnessed a man yell at his wife over the phone in the media center. In a sense I want to show the war from a point of view that is often overlooked because it may not be news worthy.

In any case I am looking to hear from all of you and your opinions on this series of work! Thanks!

Jerry

The Green Beans Coffee Shop

2009-05-11T10:09:00.001-07:00

Over the past three years I have been following my dream - to study art - and I am among the fortunate who went through the Iraq War unscathed, yet I am by no mean unaffected by it. I have lost a childhood friend and I have found a new direction in life. The experiences that I went through have only made me stronger and more determined to get the most out of life. One of these experience - actually several experiences - took place at a little place called the Green Beans Coffee Shop.

The Green Beans Coffee Shop is just a little shop set up for troops to unwind. It is similar to a Starbucks and I still remember sitting in the corner doing my work. I spent long hours just reflecting on my past and trying to figure out who "I am" and asking "where am I going?" In the following story I reveal how this little shop was more than a watering hole. It was my "America, 6000 miles away."

"My America 6,000 miles away"

Everyone has a place they feel safe and comfortable, I am no exception to that. For me that safe place was a small coffee shop that radiated with the smell of coffee beans and everyone knew me. I would sit off to the right in a little corner with my “battle gear”: a triple white mocha; drawing pencils laid out in order from 4H to 6B; and my favorite music playing over my headphones. I loved this place! Every time I start to tell people about this place the first reaction is always “oh yeah I’ve been there” or they ask “is it Starbucks?” I smile and say “no it is about 6,000 miles away in the middle of a war zone!”

Every soldier, sailor, airman and marine must find a way to cope with being away from home, the stress of war and depression. Everywhere you would go there was sad news. At dinner time you could hear a group of soldiers talking about the loss of another. At the Chapel, you can count on seeing someone inside crying about another loss while another prayed for peace. The medical center was definitely not a place to visit. Even if you had a cold you did not go there out of respect for the dying. Yet, everyone had their favorite spot to escape: some would hang out at the activity center; some would be in the Chapel Lounge; some would relieve their stress at the gym; and I was one of a few who found the coffee shop to be the perfect escape. For me this place was America 6,000 miles away.

The workers inside of the shop were not American but “third country nationals” from various countries who came to know me all too well. As soon as I would walk in the door they knew what to get me! They came to Iraq as contractors working for small wages ($8.00 an Hour) to send home money to their families. There were two from india: Krishna and Safaras. The other three were Prashad of Nepal, Taj from Pakistan, and Basna of Thailand. Their English was not the best but their humor made up for the barriers! They would have me laughing and excited about life when I was down. We would talk about families and we would share pictures with each other. In fact, I think I had a better bond with them than some of my fellow airman. Some may think that I am wrong for feeling that way, yet I disagree. Regardless of the flag we wore or how different our culture was, we were all a part of the same family: the human race.

So what made this place home? The place was nothing more but a single wide trailer with plain white walls and simple decor. There was a hole in the ceiling from the fire that happened and two posters about coffee facing each other hanging on the two long walls. When you first walked in you saw everything in the building all at once. No hidden corners or doors leading to somewhere secret. There was just a counter to the left, three tables on the right and two speakers hanging in the two corners just above the tables. There was not a single design element that matched anything of an American Coffeehouse, like beige colored walls with curvy lamps adorning the walls. So what made it home? For me, it was not the décor but the illusion it provided. I recall writing in one of my journals after getting home that “I would get so into my artwork and journaling that I would forget that I was even in Iraq.” The aroma of coffee brought back memories of sitting in Starbucks and the music reminded me of sitting at open mike night. But more than anything else, there were times were I fooled myself. One night I actually believed that my wife, Dana, was sitting next to me and I said “hey honey look at what I did.” Yet she was six-thousand miles away.

Despite Dana’s absence and support, there were people that made my stay memorable and enhanced my direction in life. There were several people who varied in rank and position in life who would just walk in and say a few kind words of encouragement and advice. I can’t pin-point one guy who did the most but between each of them I observed a common message: “life is short, so don’t waste another day.” One of those gentlemen was a twenty-year master sergeant who stayed in for the retirement benefits and was on his third tour of Iraq. He said loud and clear “it’s not worth staying in” and “get out when you can!” He was echoed by another man, Specialist Williams, from the 101st Airborne Division who told the most gruesome story ever. He talked about a cold Christmas Day patrol and how a young girl from supply wanted to go. So as a gift they let her go! Of course nothing was supposed to happen and an ambush took everyone by surprise. The end is too much to repeat. Yet, his words remain with me to this day “you got talent don’t waste it here.” The messages that I kept receiving from those men sent shivers down my spine as I thought “what if tomorrow is my last?”

That question was always in the back of my head. However there was an even more important question that weighed on my mind: “Let’s say if I get through this, then what?” One evening while sitting in my corner I finally put the answer to that question in writing – I’m going back to college! This little corner of the Green Beans did more than just provide a home it brought about a decision that would change my life forever.

After I returned home I woke up one morning aching for the chance to go back to the Green Beans and sit in my little corner. I didn’t care if it was in a war zone, I just wanted to be around my other family. My America, six-thousand miles away.

Who am I and what is my blog is all about...

2009-05-06T17:05:00.000-07:00

Hello, I am Jerry Frech and I am an artist and a veteran of the Iraq War. I served in the United States Air Force Security Forces and in Iraq with the 506 Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron in Kirkuk, Iraq from Feburary 18, 2006 to August 25th of 2006. It has been three years and since then my life has changed and believe it or not, it has been for the better.

My story is perhaps like none other. I never had to fire my gun while there. I never lost a friend while there. Yet I did lose a close child-hood friend during the war, just not while serving with him. But my story is about a guy who had everything. At the time (2005) I had just married my best friend, Dana, working for a Fortune 500 company, making great money and was serving in the 192D Fighter Wing (Va. Air Guard). The Iraq War seemed distant - until I had lost my friend - prior to that I never thought of the war. I never thought that I would be involved in the war considering the fact that no one from the 192D was being deployed on a regular basis, and to my knowledge no one from the 192D had gone to Iraq. All of that would soon change.

On a sunny morning in Janurary while at drill weekend I was called to deploy to Iraq. I couldn't believe that this was happening to me.

Now all of this happened three years ago and in this blog through the use of my sketchbook/journal I wish to share with you my experiences and how my life took a sudden turn. How I went from Fortune 500 Company employee/ Air National Guard Security Forces guy to a college art student.

I feel motivated to do this after reading through my old journals and realizing the story they tell. In all of this you will see a change from who I use to be to becoming a free-spirited artist looking to live life to the fullest!