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Final
Statements
Honoring
Our Fallen Soldiers
Artist
Karrie Hovey is likely alive today because her father was stationed
in Korea, not Vietnam, during the 1960s. Most of his Army training unit
went to Southeast Asia and returned in caskets, or never returned.
In part, this explains why Hovey, who is pursuing her M.F.A. in sculpture,
created the public installation, "Diamonds in the Sky," a
24-foot-by-6-foot-long corrugated tin wall of 1,262 magnetized porcelain
stars, each one representing an American casualty suffered in Iraq from
March 2003 through October 2004.
The installation is a memorial, not a protest, Hovey says. "But
I do hope that it serves as a reminder of the tragedy that is taking
place in Iraq daily. Unlike with past wars, we at home are not rationing
our daily needs. We are not recycling old fabric for bandages."
The three-inch stars, each painted with the name, age and date of death
of an individual soldier, were unveiled on Veteran's Day in November
at the San Francisco Civic Center.
In an effort to spread the message, Hovey asked passersby to remove
the stars from the display, take them to other public locations and
report their whereabouts on her Web site.
"Each of these stars represents a person who has touched and impacted
the lives of many others," she says. "I want the stars to
remind people that the individual person for whom the star was made
has left many loved ones behind."
And their lives, she says, will forever be changed.
For more information: www.karriehovey.com
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