"Support Our Troops"

I’ve chosen to create and display this piece not out of frustration or disagreement with the individual troops that have found themselves in the predicament overseas, but to criticize those of us still at home.  I find it fascinating that in a time of strife and paranoia, we have crawled further into our own personal worlds than ever before.  The idea of support for one another has transformed from the personal to the generic. The most common form of support for the war in Iraq has revolved around magnetic ribbons.  They are placed on the back of a vehicle ordering others to “Support Our Troops”.  Conveniently, they are magnets; so the owner of the object may remove and place it at will, depending on various situations that could occur in our country’s climate.  Sixty years ago, support meant tire drives, food rationing, and complete career overhauls.  It now means displaying an impermanent object ordering others to do the supporting for you.  By creating a life-size, 12-foot B-61 Nuclear Missile out of 500 of these magnets, I am hoping to demonstrate the absurdity of what we call support in this day of passive and selfish demonstration.