This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. This
interview is excerpted from Bomb After Bomb: a Violent
Cartography, a collection of drawings illustrating the history
of bombing by elin o’Hara slavick. o’Hara slavick is a professor
of art at the University of North Carolina. More of her
visionary work can be viewed on her website. AC / JSC Lutz:
Could you describe your drawings in Bomb After Bomb: a Violent
Cartography,and the process of making them and could you speak
about why you chose abstraction and the aerial view? Slavick:
One common formal element of the drawings is that each one
begins with ink or watercolor dropped onto wet paper like
bloodstains on damp clothing. When it dries this becomes the
foundation upon which to tell a violent story. I use this ground
of abstract swirling or bleeding to depict the manner in which
bombs do not stay within their intended borders. Depleted
uranium and chemical agents contaminate the soil, traveling in
water and currents of air for decades. Mines and