By Bob Considine/The Star-Ledger

April 10, 2010, 7:54AM

Matt Rainey/The Star-Ledger

The Newark Public Library is featuring artwork created by veterans in the exhibition, The Combat Paper Project: Healing through Art. The exhibition highlights art on paper made from military uniforms.

NEWARK -- Dwight D. Eisenhower once said that when you put on a uniform, there are certain inhibitions you accept. But now, some veterans are using their military garb to express themselves after they come out of active service.

An exhibit under way at the Newark Public Library features a collection of moving art pieces made by veterans using paper made from their shredded uniforms and fatigues. Survivors of distant and recent conflicts alike have channeled their experiences, anguish and frustrations into this cathartic and artistic process.

"There are a lot of different layers to it for different folks," said Drew Cameron, a former Army field artillery soldier in Iraq who, along with Drew Mattott, an artist and paper-maker, helped create the "Combat Paper Project" in Burlington, Vt. three years ago.

Matt Rainey/The Star-Ledger

The Newark Public Library is featuring artwork created by veterans in the exhibition, The Combat Paper Project: Healing through Art.

"It’s a way for us, as veterans, to work together as a community and attempt to convey the complexities of the military experience to our society and culture," Cameron said. "For the individual, it can certainly be a healing activity, beginning the long, hard process of coming home and using visual art as a way to convey things that are often difficult — or impossible — to articulate in language."

The exhibit, which runs through June 26, features about 60 works that appear on thick, grayish paper and incorporate drawings, photography, poetry and stencils. Some are subtle in their expression, but many are immediately powerful. Some are anti-war, while others are reflections of the people the soldiers protected.

One portfolio of six prints, created by Iraq war veteran Jon Michael Turner, shows a soldier’s identification tag falling in stages with increasing colors of red. By the last print, it has burned through an upside-down American flag with typed words reading: "And the government still glorifies the event."

Turner, 24, is a fourth-generation soldier who served two tours in Iraq. He has struggled greatly since his return in 2007, requiring continuing care for post-traumatic stress disorder. He had a drug and alcohol dependency and admits to "digging a knife into my wrist a few times." But, he says, this art form has been a very potent and important form of therapy.

"It’s hard because many times these things get triggered in your mind and you don’t know why they are, said Turner, who is also from Burlington, Vt. "They just come back and attack you.But this has given me the ultimate method of how to deal with my stress and anxiety and anger. It’s opened up all these doors and each day I ask, ‘Which one do I want to go down today?’

"I accept that I may have to live with this until I die. But I don’t want to be someone who’s on the side of the street begging for change or someone in a padded cell because of my war experiences. Doing this art helps me get there," Turner said.

Jared Ash, curator of the Newark Public Library’s special collection division, said he sought the Combat Paper Project exhibit because of its organic growth and ability to move people.
"I’ve been amazed by the number of people who come by and talk about their uncle who served in Vietnam, or the brother or cousin who might have been withdrawn before serving and now doesn’t talk about anything," Ash said.

For workshops that coincide with the exhibit, postage-stamp-size pieces of clothing are put into a machine called a Hollander beater that pulverizes the fiber into pulp and converts it into heavy paper.

Joe Harrell, a non-combat Marine Corps veteran and Rutgers student, will take part in the workshop because of its historical bend. He said ancient cultures would require their warriors to conduct various purifying rituals after war.

"In our society, being accepted back in society without harboring guilt and anger is half the batter," said Harrell, who lives in Atlantic Highlands. "I like the idea of shredding something that relate to the memories you might have from your military experiences and creating something new and putting your own stories on it. You’re creating something new, something positive from your military experience."

The three-day workshop, open to veterans of all wars and branches of service, will be held at Rutgers-Newark from April 19-21. It will be the Combat Paper Project’s 30th workshop.