{"id":1025,"date":"2015-04-17T14:00:19","date_gmt":"2015-04-17T21:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/?p=6640"},"modified":"2017-09-07T07:55:37","modified_gmt":"2017-09-07T15:55:37","slug":"survivors-confronting-deepwater-horizon-trauma-through-oil-on-canvas","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/survivors-confronting-deepwater-horizon-trauma-through-oil-on-canvas\/","title":{"rendered":"Survivors: Confronting Deepwater Horizon Trauma through Oil on Canvas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Artist Sara Lattis Stone, whose husband Stephen Stone escaped the Deepwater Horizon disaster alive, turned to her craft \u2014 painting \u2014 as a means of confronting the post-traumatic stress her family endured following the tragedy. In a victim impact statement submitted<\/a> to the United States District Court, Sara\u00a0wrote:<\/p>\n

I titled the ongoing series Survivors<\/i> because I believe that all of us, including our families, are survivors of this tragedy on some level or another. Creating these paintings was a therapeutic way for me to deal with the grief of this event. I have never been good with words so this was a way for me to speak to others about what is happening to us. I wanted to show them to you so that you could hopefully see the pain and anger and sadness that we all felt and that we continue to experience daily because of BP’s negligence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In early spring of 2015, The Great Invisible<\/i><\/a> filmmaker Margaret Brown\u00a0visited\u00a0Sara and Stephen to film\u00a0an update on their struggle to heal\u00a0five years after the Deepwater disaster. [The film premieres on PBS this Monday, April 20, the 5th anniversary of the tragic\u00a0event.]<\/p>\n

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Watch the video:<\/p>\n