Karole Marois with Sargeant Manon Langlois and Corporal Julie Brunet in front of women's barracks, Harskamp military base, Netherlands, May 2005
Photo: Tara Scagnetti. Used with the permission of DND

Karole Marois: An artist in the Netherlands

I was selected as a CFAP (Canadian Forces Artists Program) artist in 2003 (the 2nd competition) and I was supposed to go to Kabul with 3 other artists. The Vandoos (22nd Regiment) were leaving for Afghanistan in February 2004, so I went to spend a few days in Sherbrooke so I could sketch and photograph them during their training before departure.

We did not go to Kabul finally. It was still a war zone, and the Army felt it was too dangerous to send untrained civilian artists to Afghanistan. Besides, obtaining insurance for the artists was practically impossible.

Instead, they offered to send me to Holland during the VE Day Celebrations last April and May. I was the only artist there, with a contingent of about 250 members of the Canadian Forces, which included the 3 services, Army, Navy and Airforce. I spent 3 weeks with the soldiers, sleeping in the women's barracks at the Harskamp military base, travelling with them in convoys of buses and vans in the Netherlands. It rained almost all the time. The dim light, the mossy trees in the wet flat landscape and the people of that area looked just like a Rembrandt painting. We were mostly in Gelderland, near the German border, where many battles took place. We toured battlefields with 2 historians from the Directorate of History and Heritage at the Department of National Defence who explained the battles. Then they took us to the cemeteries where Canadian soldiers are buried.

We can see hundreds and hundreds of white tombs against a background of groomed lush greenery and different coloured flowers. In one cemetery, the Dutch planted rows of Canadian maples.

The veterans arrived the last week and the celebrations started. Parades, tattoos, bagpipes, military bands, and Canadian flags waved by Dutch people everywhere. The crowds were so big that I was forced to walk in the parade, following the drum beat, trying to control my emotion. Emotion of joy and sadness at the same time.

I plan to have a personal exhibition of paintings based on this experience and in 2007, the Directorate of History and Heritage and the Department of National Defence will organize a travelling show of a few artworks of each artist.