MOSAIC (eBook)

War Monument Mystery

Louis Nelson (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021 | 1. Auflage
222 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-6613-1 (ISBN)

Infos

Synopsis. MOSAIC War Monument Mystery An Historical Memoir By Louis Nelson The Korean War is now America's seminal war. It was the first war conducted with the new United Nations, the first war fought against the Chinese Communists and the first war we didn't win. We've not had a win since 1945. Today, nuclear tensions between North Korea and the United States have heightened the uncertainty of lives in America, the Pacific Rim and throughout the world. I designed the mural wall at the Korean Veterans Memorial on the Mall in Washington DC; visited South Korea, talked to the people, lectured at the university and viewed the DMZ. Mosaic is my story about the Korean War today and its Memorial; a story of death, rescue and growth. This book examines how this war affected me and its veterans-then and now- leading to my design of its mural and a new addition. Here is a look into the uncertainty of this Nation's vulnerability and the stories few have known. Here are events of men and women, surrounding the commemoration of a great and nearly forgotten American war, with contributions from its neighbors, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln and Vietnam Memorials. Our need to remember hooks us to the core of what happened, to the essence of its participants, and prompts questions as to why. Least remembered of all our wars, Korea is the 'tipping point.'

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Synopsis. MOSAICWar Monument MysteryAn Historical MemoirBy Louis NelsonThe Korean War is now America's seminal war. It was the first war conducted with the new United Nations, the first war fought against the Chinese Communists and the first war we didn't win. We've not had a win since 1945. Today, nuclear tensions between North Korea and the United States have heightened the uncertainty of of lives in America, the Pacific Rim and throughout the world. I designed the mural wall at the Korean Veterans Memorial on the Mall in Washington DC; visited South Korea, talked to the people, lectured at the university and viewed the DMZ. Mosaic is my story about the Korean War today and its Memorial; a story of death, rescue and growth. The last memorials we built were World War II and Martin Luther King Jr.-one commemorating a distant war, the other honoring a person who faced the war within ourselves. With all the challenges, life has been a chaotic path-fraught with the drama of the democratic process, not always pretty, as democracy is not always sweet. But oh so beautiful, so full of human error, travail and triumph. This book examines how this war affected me and its veterans-then and now- leading to my design of its mural and a new addition. Here is a look into the uncertainty of this Nation's vulnerability and the stories few have known. Here are events of men and women, surrounding the commemoration of a great and nearly forgotten American war, with contributions from its neighbors, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln and Vietnam Memorials. Our need to remember hooks us to the core of what happened, to the essence of its participants, and prompts questions as to why. Least remembered of all our wars, Korea is the "e;tipping point."e; It is the firstmemorial dedicated to the service of the men and women in the war-not the leader or a president. The wall of faces and the statues of the soldiers, their eyes steady, bold and determined, facing towards the next battle, re-creates the moment and the space-one can almost hear the sound of that time. A mid-century cease fire-Korea was forgotten as Sputnik beeped overhead and overlooked by a distracted America enjoying a growing standard-of-living as a Cold War grew. Korea is a memorial to the common soldier, standing alone at the right hand of Lincoln with Vietnam to his left, the three together honoring our leaders, remembering service by our citizens, and healing a divided nation by those whose future was taken from them. On these pages are stories of the men and women, some hero's, a few devils. Frank Gaylord sculpted nineteen warriors, Richard Stilwell fought to his death to get them built and Rosemary McCarthy assured that women would be remembered in a memorial. Along this path, one man had created obstacles to impede building the Lincoln Memorial and another most unlikely man became the surprising champion of design quality as a national effort, insuring we would have a Lincoln Memorial. Not to forget the terror present in North Korea-a system run by a war mongering dictator in contrast to the South, a vital, working democracy where the results of the Korean War are more than apparent and not forgotten. Louis Nelson MOSAIC

Textauszug

IN PRAISE OF MOSAIC

Louis Nelson is as eloquent and heartful a scholar and writer about memorials to our nation’s wars as he is a masterful designer of one of the most evocative: the Korean War Memorial. The honoring of history; a sense of humanity, courage, sacrifice, united resolve—all the qualities we Americans have been proud to bear—resonate through these memorials, as they do through Louis’s words about them. We sorely need this beautiful book—this verbal and pictorial homage—at this, now, the most challenging moment in our nation’s history. Thank you, Louis Nelson, for reminding us of what we must continue to be.

—John Kelly, author of The Great Mortality and The Graves Are Walking; and Sheila Weller, author of Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge and Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon—and the Journey of a Generation.

Louis Nelson has written a memorable book—one aptly named Mosaic, one imagines, for the many pieces he has collected that found design expression in his rendering of the Korean War Memorial. Memorials can have a mysterious magic that are capable of changing how we see the world. “Blood and beauty” resides in our national memory he says—but there is also a substance Nelson brings to this forgotten war, an urgent power that is so articulately expressed in this book.

—Susan Eisenhower. Cofounder and Chairman Emerita of the Eisenhower Institute

“Mosaic” is a book with dimension and depth. It is a memoir of the Korean War by one who fought it at another time and place. The book traces the personal and professional development of a major figure in the field of America design. And it is a meditation on this place of monuments in our lives from the artist who designed and built the wall and mural at the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington DC.

—The Right Reverend Clifton Daniel III

Dean, The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine

I was enormously moved by MOSAIC. I hope this blurb will help others to find it:

“How do you create a monument for a war as ambiguous as the Korean War? Louis Nelson was given this difficult job. How it changed him and how it changed its spectators is a story he tells in MOSAIC, recounting his experience turning life and death into design. How wonderful to have his beautifully told story.”

—Erica Jong.

Author, Poet

Dear Louis,

I’ve spent an extremely rewarding day reading Mosaic. The pleasure I’ve taken in each of my visits to the Memorial, the emotional impact I’ve experienced, has been amplified by your book, a brilliant piece of work. Its title is spot-on: the cultural imagery of the Korean War is splintered, a series of fragments that fail to capture its consequence. You’ve brought cohesion to those disparate pieces. You’ve identified—and conveyed—the patterns that animate them. You’ve done so through contextualization, the frame that holds the pieces of your mosaic in place: U. S. history—cultural, social, political, military—rendered with deft strokes; a universal history of human conflict beautifully summarized in your Coda; an account of commemorative monuments that resonates against the planning and construction of the Memorial; a richly informative account of the design principles embodied in its creation. You overlay these accounts, brining texture to the Korean War, calling it into being much as the Memorial restores the humanity of those who fought in that conflict. In much the same way that the Wall and its photographs bring ghosts to life, the context that you create re-integrates the Korean War into collective memory. In your words, the Korean Conflict is “at once remembered and also forgotten”. For me, the genius of the book inheres in your rendering of both of those polarities.

Of course, the most important contextualization is the memoir that Mosaic inscribes. Your account of your life, and the relation of that experience to the War and to the Wall, is masterful. The Korean War is a ghostly presence in our histories because our connection to it is remote, impersonal, insubstantial. Your memoir serves as a ligament that binds us to the War, and illuminates its enduring consequence. You bring the ghosts to life, in other words, by animating them with your memories. At the same time, you foreground memory itself, its evanescence and its power. Memoirs that succeed transcend the narcissistic to achieve something of the universal; personal experience as a lens rather than as a self-portrait. And here, again, you succeed in spades.

All this and more, my friend. A real achievement. Your friend’s daughter’s response to the Wall mirrors mine to your narrative. I’m grateful that you shared it with me.

—William P. Kelly. The Andrew W. Mellon

Director of the Research Libraries, NYPL.

Louis Nelson is a Renaissance Man, creating everything from pantyhose packaging to the Korean War Memorial in Washington, D. C. His mind is fertile. His conversation scintillating. He now has reviewed his life and work in a significant memoir—a book that helps us understand not only his life and work but America’s journey during the past decades. A must read.

—David Black Scholar-In-Residence. Kirkland House. Harvard University

Mosaic illuminates how war memorials honor both the victims and survivors of war. Louis Nelson tells a moving story of the intersection of personal experience and design in the Korean War memorial. That design provokes our deepest reflections, not only of the past, but of a more peaceful future we can hope for.

Louis Nelson has written an important book that illustrates how the design of the Korean War memorial calls forth our determination to prevent war and work for a more hopeful, peaceful future.

Louis Nelson’s Mosaic is a rich tapestry of honest reflection and realistic hope which stimulates us to think deeply about the costs of war and benefits of peace. The thoughtful design of the Korean War memorial expands the meaning of those who sacrificed, who died but also those who live on with traumatic memories.

—Jonathan F. Fanton. President Emeritus. American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Louis Nelson’s memorial about bringing to granite life the storied history of a memorial to a ghastly war is a memorial in itself. It celebrates with painful candor the skill, stubbornness, and raw political talent necessary to commemorate with dignity the intricate pain and challenge of a national war. The lives lost cannot be restored but their fierce patriotism here finds its respectful and artful chronicler.

—Lionel Tiger. Charles Darwin Professor

Emeritus of Anthropology, Rutgers University.

Mosaic

Louis Nelson, an American industrial designer quickly became an expert in the meanings and responsibilities of monuments after winning the once in a lifetime commission to design the mural for the Korean War Veterans Memorial. He was humbled by the prestigious and revered occupants of the sites adjacent to the one where his design would be built on the National Mall: Washington, Lincoln, and Vietnam.

The mission of the memorial was to help American and Korean War vets remember their experiences in Korea, remind all of us of the enormity of lives needlessly lost, and to help them, their families and friends, to heal. Louis tells us some of the fascinating historical information he uncovered, and the vets’ stories he was told while researching and designing the memorial. The information and stories all took on new meanings for him, a Cold War Vet, as it did for me, and as it will for you.

—RitaSue Siegel

Strategic Design Consultant

A great story of how a helicopter pilot, a designer, and the Korean War came together to create a monument in Washington.

—Tucker Viemeister,

Industrial Designer

“Nelson’s Korean War Memorial—a national mantelpiece of portraits—broke the silence of a never-resolved cease-fire, forgotten war.

Mosaic invites us to connect threads Nelson remembers throughout his lifetime, “fixing into the grout” with others the search for what is right and the ability to change the future.

As a grateful veteran and scholarship design student, his long career has impacted our lives regarding food choices, transportation and entertainment, to name a few.

In this memoir, Nelson shows us that to remember is to be put back together, healed and restored for our next chapters. Then we build our best memorial of all—peace.”

—The Very Reverend Dr. James A. Kowalski,

Dean Emeritus. The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine

“Mosaic”, the story of Louis Nelson’s design of the Korean Veteran’s Memorial on the Mall in Washington DC, is enlightening, riveting and powerful. The book reveals the fabric of hidden mysteries about a war in which 2.5 million people including 37,000 American men and women, soldiers, sailors and marines died, as well as the seven decades since the never formalized cease-fire, in which nearly 4,000,000 American troops have served. Nelson’s life story—as designer, lover, husband (mine)—officer, helicopter pilot and gentleman in the US...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 14.5.2021
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• ISBN-10: 1-0983-6613-1 / 1098366131
• ISBN-13: 978-1-0983-6613-1 / 9781098366131