CF abandoning their war artist?

Things seem to have developed unfavourably for Karen Bailey since she was mentioned in this January 2009 post:

"A Brush with War: Military Art from Korea to Afghanistan"

Earl McRae of the Ottawa Sun is outraged:

Artist's Afghan works get the brush off
Military refuses to promote paintings they helped fund, of our troops in Afghanistan

A hurtful, cruel snub, but so bloody typical in this no-rate country symbolized by The Canadian Disease: Small, dull, dreary, half-dead minds shrivelled by a crippling apathy, inertia, and disinclination to dislodge oneself from life’s comfortable sit-but-do-nothing crapper.

Karen Bailey, war artist, has had to resort to self-exhibiting her magnificent paintings in the corridor outside her small studio in an old former school on Crichton St. because she can’t get Canada to give a damn about her work, including, most inexcusably, the Canadian military that flew her to Afghanistan because it was supposedly proud of the men and women doctors and nurses in our armed forces who’ve been attending sick, wounded, and dying soldiers and Afghan civilians at the Kandahar base hospital.

Artist Karen Bailey shows off her paintings of Canadian troops from her trip to Kandahar. DND paid for the trip but wants nothing to do with the paintings. TONY CALDWELL/Sun Media

But are you ready for this? The Americans, the Americans heard of Karen Bailey’s paintings of our brave Canadian doctors, nurses, and medical technicians at work, and the Americans will be proudly exhibiting her acrylic images for an entire month next year at the University of New Orleans’ prestigious St. Claude Gallery, part of the largest museum devoted to Second World War artifacts in the United States.

“We are very much looking forward to this show,” said A. Lawrence Jenkins, professor and chair of the UNO department of fine arts, in a letter this week to Karen Bailey. And any and all costs, including Karen Bailey’s flights, meals, and accommodation, will be looked after by the gallery.

God bless you, America.

Shame on you, Canada.

If, however, you are not one of the apathetic, inert, Canadian dullards, you can show your caring, your pride in our soldiers, by showing up for Karen Bailey’s exhibit from the 28th of September to the 9th of October between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. (closed Sunday) at 200 Crichton St.

“I hope people don’t mind that all I will be serving is water,” she says in her small, cramped, rented studio on the top floor of the old school, “but I’m putting it on myself and it’s all I can afford.”...

When Bailey got home she immersed herself totally in her war theatre paintings, 20 canvasses, and just recently finished the two-year project. But it wasn’t just recently that, disturbingly, she became aware of an appalling disinterest in her on-going work by the same military hierarchy that approved her trip. She was hoping it might have a desire to proudly show her work of its Canadian doctors and nurses, to proudly show Canadians, to help her in that initiative. Wrong.

“I thought the DND people would like to come and see my work, but there was no interest.”..

More in the Ottawa Citizen (different painting from one at story):

Ottawa artist Karen Bailey says the Defence Department is giving the cold shoulder to her attempts, in paintings and a book, to honour the work of Canadian medical personnel serving in a military hospital in Afghanistan.

"They're just not interested," Bailey says of the Canadian Forces leadership.

The issue does not appear to be the quality or content of Bailey's paintings showing Canadian military doctors, nurses and others working in the Kandahar hospital called Role 3 but the very attempt by Bailey to single out the medical crew for praise and recognition in a planned book about her paintings.

An email recently sent to Bailey from a senior military officer, purportedly quoting the views of Brigadier General Hilary Jaeger, the outgoing surgeon general and senior Canadian Forces medical officer, says headquarters does not see the work of the medical personnel in Afghanistan as "extraordinary" and consequently "efforts to showcase or immortalize the efforts of personnel in Afghanistan will likely not resonate with the CF leadership."...

"Mohammed and the X ray Tech" by Ottawa artist Karen Bailey.
Photograph by: Bruno Schlumberger, The Ottawa Citizen

More Images »

One really does not know what to think that might make this look not so bad.