original painting by Brooke Harker, 2011
Artist’s Description: Before I lived in Los Angeles, I worked as a civilian for US ARMY Europe in Germany. My goal was to have a “normal” job working with children and have weekends to travel, write and paint. In going to Europe, I wanted to get away from diving deep into emotional territory as I had been doing in theatre studies…or so I thought. However, taking a job with the military 2 weeks prior to 9/11 didn’t really create an environment free of emotional territory. I worked with 50-120 kids per day, children who were used to moving, all over the world and who were used to saying good-bye to their parents when they went to field exercises. It became normal that their
moms and dads were in Iraq. The majority of these families came from some
of the most impoverished environments in the US, making the military one of their
only hopes for a way out of their circumstances. This was not a relaxing experience,
especially as the military system for caring of children from single and dual military
dependent families was pretty broken. I can’t speak for how it is now…but the
system had a lot of regulations for the safety of the children that weren’t followed,
staffing issues, dilapidated facilities, and a whole list of problems that would make a
book or film if retold.
It was during my time in Germany that I met a little boy named Christopher. It was meeting him that eventually inspired this work and five more paintings of Hollywood. Christopher was two years old we met and he ran to me at the childcare center with toy cars in his hands and we became instant friends. His parents had their 4 year old daughter in my preschool class. Christopher’s mom became my supervisor the following year working with school age children. She was one of the select voices of goodness there, and her son was like a light bulb during my struggles. Each day he greeted me with a full speed run, toy cars or dinosaurs in hand, hugging my legs, calling “Ms. Brooke!” An instant smile filled my face and my heart calmed from the distaste I felt over military children being overlooked. I think the unconditional love that so easily flowed from him gave me the energy to keep going and remember what I was doing there: advocating for military dependant children in the first place.
When I moved away to Los Angeles, I stayed in contact with his family as they had
become like family to me. When Christopher turned 8 they started visiting LA every
summer, since his dream was to be an actor. It shocked me to discover that since I
had last seen him at age 4, he continued to greet me in the same way, with joy and
so much love, only now he was taller and hugged my waste instead of my leg…
He was not like many of the jaded LA kids I had come across. He remained
innocent…like a kid. During a visit with this now extended family of mine, I made
a sketch from their Hollywood Hotel room with a turquoise pen that became
3 paintings: Dreams in Concrete, Carnival of Dreams, and Hollywood Undressed.
Later that day we went walking on Hollywood Blvd. Christopher bounced, danced, and lit up as he took it all in. There was a part of me that wanted to let him know that this place was dirty, that there wouldn’t be any stars on Hollywood Blvd, only a lot of delusional people in bad costumes requesting money to have a photo with them. And then I stopped. Who was I to dash the dreams of this child, to tell him about the population of homeless drug users and prostitutes? So instead…I said to myself, “What if…for just one moment I could see Hollywood through his eyes? What if I could see the scene as he did?” And then it was like a new filter covered my vision. The lights sparkled, the shadows danced…it all felt magical and I quickly began snapping photos that became more paintings: Hollywood Innocents, Taxi 213, and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
The energy and joy I felt in that day went into these paintings and again, a child
helped me find a better version of who I get to be in the world.
Brooke Harker
