ATOMIC BABYON: STILL GLOWING
Into the Mythic
18"w x 24"h |// oil on canvas |
INTO THE MYTHIC
Through a broader lens I have begun to better understand the experiences of our U.S. Atomic Veterans, the Marshallese islanders and the Cleanup Veterans, whose decades of suffering and abandonment is tragic in its face.
"The mornings of the two suns" is a term I have often heard about the test blasts, whether they took place on or off-shore. The ship depicted is the U.S.S. ESTES, command ship in the Pacific Proving Grounds for most test series, from which most Lookout Mountain Productions films were produced. The image of a women walking though life, dragging her broken DNA behind here, blowing in the wind like a concussion blast blowing your future apart. Ionizing radiation leaves a ghost in the genes of those exposed for their families future generations to worry about. And they are worried. She stands as a symbol of the documented escalated risks to women from ionizing radiation that continue to go under-recognized in industrial risk charts serving both the energy and weapons sectors, including their fuel and waste chains. The U.S. military servicemen men that were sent to clean up the radioactive debris in the 1980's from 66 atomic tests in the Pacific (from 1946-1959) were put at even more intensified risk. The shear concept of burying tons of radioactive debris with a 27,000 shelf-life in shorts and shoes mostly, without basic protection gear is beyond comprehension, but it happened. We have been as invisible as the ionizing radiation that has blown so many families apart with transgenerational health consequences. |
