Images of the Courageous

Recently, at the suggestion of an Army Chaplain one of our artists, Diane Robinson, created two images that the Chaplain felt would provide comfort to his fellow soldier's (he is in Iraq) and the families that anxiously await their safe return.  But there was one thing the Chaplain wanted most, believing in the power of prayer, he wanted us to help compel others to pray for the troops.  We weren't sure how we, merely a group of artists, could use our talents to do this.  Diane painted two separate images of our courageous soldiers, one of a soldier with Christ at his side and another one of a soldier with his guardian angel watching over him.  Our artists group, with the help of others of all faiths, then sought verses of inspiration and comfort to accompany the images.  The original paintings are very large and we wanted to find a way to reproduce the images on something small that the soldiers could tuck away in a pocket or somehow carry with them.  Our owner offered to purchase dog tags and have them printed on dog tags and tiny cards that would easily fit into a pocket for the Chaplain.  We printed the images and verses on dog tags and cards, then sent some out to the Chaplain in Iraq and some to families of soldiers left behind on bases around the world. 

We hosted a reception at the gallery kicking off an exhibition of the original images in an effort to honor our soldiers and we placed some of the dog tags as “Prayer Reminder Tags” at the event in hopes that when others saw them they would be reminded of our troops and thus compelled to pray for them.  At the reception, a little boy about 5 years old walked up to the artist and asked if he could have one of the tags to hang on his backpack to “mind me that God is watchin over my Daddy”.  This one tugged at our heartstrings, needless to say, he was given one.  Prayer groups, churches, and businesses began requesting the images.  We decided to make them available on our website and subsequently began seeing the images hanging on rear view mirrors, purses, and key chains as prayer reminders and we were excited that maybe somehow we had found a way to remind others of our soldiers and thus remind them to pray for them.  Children of soldiers, teens, and college students hang them on backpacks to remind them that God watches over the soldier's they love or simply to remind them to pray for our troops or show their support.  Prayer group members tell us that they hang them on their purses, rear view mirrors, and key chains as prayer reminders. 

Here, we've attached pictures of the tags so you'll get a sense of the style of Diane's work.  Because of the demand, the artist has decided to add to this series called "Images of the Courageous", so there is new and exciting work to come.  We hope to host an exhibition for the series next Memorial Day at “The Frame Up Gallery”, downtown on the square in Newark, Ohio in an effort to honor those veterans that have gone before us, those amongst us, and those serving today around the globe. We hope you can join us for the event.  We'll post more info here about the event as we continue to finalize the plans.