Jim Pollock Question and Answer Main Page
JIM POLLOCK INTERVIEW (copyright) Jim Pollock
6/27/2000
Indianapolis Art Centner Interview, part of the ART OF COMBAT: ARTISTS AND THE VIETNAM WAR, THEN AND NOW EXHIBIT, October 27, 2000 through January 7, 2001.
Questions revolve around the subjects of Vietnam Combat Art Program, the effeccts of the experience and other related questions. Questionnaire was sent to each army soldier artist that had an address was available for.
Q: HOW DID YOU HEAR OF THE COMBAT ARTIST PROGRAM?
POLLOCK: I first became aware of the Vietnam Combat Art Program through an acquaintance at Camp Ames, the base I was stationed at in South Korea. Working in the Camp Ames Post Office (APO 96321) I had contact with almost everyone on base. One day a soldier by the name of Sgt. Brooks came by with a STARS AND STRIPE article. He said, '"'Pollock, I hear you are an artist, you might be interested in this.'"' He handed me an article that announced the army was taking applications for Team IV of the Vietnam Combat Art Program. I was and have ever since been grateful to him for bringing this program to my attention.
Immediately I knew the significance and scope of the program because of my familiarity with artist Harvey Dunn.
Harvey Dunn was commissioned and sent to Europe to record activities through his art, of the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I. He was a native of South Dakota as I was. He also attended South Dakota State University, in Brookings, SD as I had. The Art Harvey Dunn produced for the Army went into the Smithsonian Institution, which at that time was custodian of the Army historical property and art. Harvey Dunn also was a well known illustrator and did work for magazines such as the SATURDAY EVENING POST. A significant body of his work eventually found a home at SDSU. Some of the pieces were war art. These must have been pieces he did after his return to civilian life. At any rate SDSU had many of these pictures at the time I was attending SDSU (1961-1965) hanging in the Student Union. Many times as I was studying I would be distracted from my studies to look at his paintings that surrounded me. From exposure to Harvey Dunn and these pictures, I understood early the significance of the artists role in recording historical events such as war.
In many ways Harvey Dunn was a role model for the experience that I went through in Vietnam. I did not try to emulate is artistic style, but by being exposed to his art and what he did during World War I helped prepare the way for me to record my account of my experiences in Vietnam.
Q: WHAT SPECIFIC UNIT WERE YOU ASSIGNED TO, AND WHERE WERE YOU LOCATED?
POLLOCK: My home station was 1st Base Post Office, which was support for 8th Army, and located in South Korea. Once accepted to Team IV to participate in the Vietnam Combat Art Program, I was assigned Temporary Duty (TDY) to the Office, Chief of Military History, Hq. United States Army Vietnam (USARV).
In Vietnam Team IV had a barracks to themselves located in the Long Bihn complex. One end of our barracks was sleeping quarters where each of us had a cot. This was our personal space area. I would estimate sleeping quarters were one third of the barracks, the rest was studio area. Much of the time we were out in the field, but the barracks served as a home base between field units visits.
After expiration of my duties as a soldier artist I returned to the 1st Base Post Office in South Korea.
Q: IF YOU HAD OPEN ORDERS, HOW MANY UNITS DID YOU VISIT, WHAT WERE THEY DOING AND WHERE WERE THEY LOCATED?
POLLOCK: Team IV had open travel orders. These orders were effective and allowed me to travel by any means available. To get from unit to unit, I traveled on an extensive variety of vehicles and aircraft. I am not sure how many units I visited. I kept a journal and it was lost after I was discharged and returned to the US. I did send a copy to the Center of Military History, I think there was some pages missing but it has details of much of my travels. At one time I had estimated that our team had visited over 50 units and traveled over 3600 miles. Regardless of the exact numbers, in a small country like Vietnam we covered a lot of ground and visited many units.
There was an itinerary put together for Team IV and submitted along with the art work. This itinerary was filled out by memory during the last days we were in Vietnam. When I compared this itinerary with my journal I found inaccuracies. The official time periods for Team IV was 15 August to 31 December, 1967. Members of our team were Samuel E. Alexander (MISS), Daniel T. Lopez (CA), Burdell Moody (AZ), James R. Pollock (SD), Ronald A. Wilson (CA), Technical Supervisor Lt. Frank M. Thomas.
Some units I visited (not complete listing)--196th Light Inf. Bde. (Search and Destroy operation), (?Co. C, 2nd Bn., 1st Inf.), 18th Engineer Bde., 45th Eng. construction Group, Boi Thai Hamlet (civilian area) and its Parish Priest, 199th Light Inf. Bdg., Revolutionary Development Program (R&D Teams), 11 Cav. (went on Medcap), 93rd Med Evac Hospital (med evacs), 199th LIB (night ambush patrol), MACV press camp (Qui Nhon ?), LARC facilities, 21st Signal Btln. (Pre Line Mountain ), 1st Infantry, 69 Sig Bn. (Tan Son Nhut A.B.), 1st Sig. Bde., Nha Trang area, ---
Normally while visiting a unit we would stay from 1-4 days and do whatever they were doing. If they were on a patrol tramping through rice paddies and jungle, that is what we did. If they were handing out soap to Vietnamese locals, that is what we did. Units enjoyed our visits and we were treated very well. Soldiers liked our visits because we were an outside distraction from the day to day tedium.
Q: HOW DO YOU THINK THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE UNIT(s) YOU SERVED WITH AFFECTED YOUR ART?
POLLOCK: For me, the unit visits were essential. I was assigned to Vietnam from South Korea. It was through unit visits and interaction with ordinary soldiers that I developed a feel for them, Vietnam and the war. Some of the other member of my team had been stationed in Vietnam so they already had an in depth soldier's perspective of Vietnam.
Q: WERE YOU A CIVILIAN PARTICIPANT, REGULAR ARMY OR A DRAFTEE? HOW DO YOU THINK THIS AFFECTED THE WAY YOU CHOSE TO PORTRAY THE VIETNAM WAR IN YOUR ARTWORK?
POLLOCK: I was drafted into military service. Being a soldier had a significant influence on the subjects I chose to portray. As I traveled from unit to unit empathy for the field soldier was the emotion that I most often felt. No matter the unit, I always admired the soldiers and how they faced field hardships and uncertainty. My heart was with the ordinary soldier and I tried to interpret honestly day to day experiences as I saw and experienced them at the time.
Q: WOULD YOU CONSIDER YOUR ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION OF THE WAR TO BE DIFFERENT FROM THAT OF OTHER COMBAT ARTISTS, PARTICULARLY THOSE ON YOUR TEAM? IF SO HOW/ IF NOT, WHAT SIMILARITIES DO YOU PERCEIVE AND WHY DO YOU THINK THE COMBAT ARTISTS WOULD INDEPENDENTLY CHOOSE THE SAME THEMES?
POLLOCK: There is as remarkable variety in style and subject matter of the artists who participated in the Vietnam Combat Art Program. From past experiences as artists and soldiers, each team member brought a different point of view. If one considers all of the more than forty artists who participated in the program and their work, one sees a remarkable variety of styles and subjects. Subjects and styles of our team were varied. It was my experience that there was too much to report visually and there just wasn't enough time to cover all themes encountered.
I have a WEB site that has several pieces of the art I did in Vietnam. Veterans write to me and ask why I did not do a piece of art on this subject or that subject. Usually it is a theme that they were involved with. One example of a subject that I did not cover was dogs and dog handlers. Specially trained guard dogs went out on patrols with units and the dogs would mark and warn of hazards that might be encountered. It is my understanding that these dogs were extremely important to units that had them and the dogs saved many lives. I did not do a dog subject because I did not visit a unit that used dogs. Augie Acuna on Team II did a dog related piece, so the theme was covered. When the art from all of the team members is taken into consideration, very few subjects were not covered. The art from this program is a remarkable addition to military history.
A foot note: Some themes, however, must be universal. One of the pieces I did was a soldier receiving a field haircut. At the time I thought it unusual for a soldier to be getting a haircut in the middle of the jungle, so I depicted such a scene. Just recently a gentleman in England, who has had contact with North Vietnamese soldier artists, sent me a copy of a drawing. This drawing, done by a Viet Cong soldier artist, portrays a North Vietnamese soldier getting a field haircut. I was astonished that a soldier artist on the other side had chosen the same theme for one of his pictures as I had.
Q: DID YOUR WORK UNDERGO ANY CHANGE BECAUSE OF YOUR COMBAT ARTIST EXPERIENCE? IF SO, HOW? (PLEASE CONSIDER SUBJECT MATTER, CONCEPT, TECHNIQUE, MATERIALS USED, WORKING METHOD, ETC.) IN RETROSPECT, WAS IT A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER?
POLLOCK: The media part is easy, in the field, I was logistically limited to sketching media such as pen and ink, pencil, watercolor etc. Pen and ink and watercolor were already my favorites and for me this worked out rather well. We also carried cameras, the Army issued our team a Kodak Instamatic, which I used to supplement my sketches. In Vietnam we had difficulty getting film developed.
Other parts of this question are difficult. As a soldier artist I was in my early 20's, just out of college. Very young in the world of art. I had not defined myself as an artist or with a particular style. At the time I did not really think about style, subject matter, technique, materials or things like that. I felt my job was to visually record what I experienced, like any reporter would.
There was no conscious effort to develop style or working method. I just went about my work on a daily basis. When I look back I can see a cohesion in the work I did as a soldier artist. I think this continuity was the result of the overwhelming circumstances that surrounded me and not any conscious effort on my part. In many way it was a young artists dream. I had all of the art supplies I wanted, I did not have worry about financial things, no one was trying to direct or influence what I was doing and the finished art would go into a permanent major public art collection. I felt completely independent and totally immersed in what I was doing.
My art has changed and it continues to change over the years.My views on art are in a constant state of revision. The vietnam experience, however, did solidify my belief that art can have an important role to play in history, even in an age where cameras and photography abound.
Q: IF YOU HAD NOT BEEN A COMBAT ARTIST, HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR MILITARY SERVICE, YOUR LIFE AND YOUR ARTWORK AFTER THE WAR WOULD HAVE TURNED OUT?
POLLOCK: Speculating on how things would be different if one had made different choices is like trying to drink water from an empty cup.
Q: LOOKING BACK, IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WOULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY DURING YOUR COMBAT ARTIST SERVICE? IF SO WHAT?
POLLOCK: I would like to have covered a wider scope of subjects. There were many soldier duties that I did not have an opportunity to depict. There is also one practical thing I would have like to done a better job at, my journal. I did keep a journal, but I would suggest to future artists that their journal have more details than mine did.
Q: IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD LIKE TO EXPRESS ABOUT YOUR COMBAT ARTIST EXPERIENCE OR ITS EFFECT ON YOUR ARTISTIC CAREER, YOUR ARTWORK, OR YOUR DEVELOPMENT AS AN ARTIST? PLEASE CONSIDER RELATING ANY ANECDOTES, THE CONDITIONS YOUR WORKED UNDER, HOW YOU FELT YOU WERE TREATED BY THE ARMY, AND ANY LASTING IMPACT YOU FEEL YOUR COMBAT ART SERVICE MAY HAVE HAD ON YOU EITHER PERSONALLY OR PROFESSIONALLY.
POLLOCK: We were treated well by the Army. The experience of being a soldier artist was rare and defining life experience. The influence for me was felt immediately upon my return to civilian life. AP did a story about my experience after my discharge and as a direct result of that story I was contacted by a book and magazine publisher and asked to go to work for them. My first civilian job as an artist came to me because of my service in the Vietnam Combat Art Program. The influence of my participation in the program continues to this day.
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