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When I first walked into the military court at Guantánamo Bay in September, I was the first civilian artist in almost three years that the Pentagon had approved to sketch at the court on the base, and only the fifth ever.
I was there to make drawings for an article I worked on with Carol Rosenberg, The Times’s Guantánamo reporter, about the people involved in the Sept. 11 trials: lawyers, defendants and others. Specifically, Ms. Rosenberg would write about — and I would draw — what they chose to wear in court, in all its significance. No photography was allowed.
I had put all my Pentagon-approved art supplies in Ziploc bags to make it through two security checks and into The Gallery. That’s the viewing room where members of the news media and N.G.O.s, as well as law students and family members of people killed on Sept. 11, watch the trial, happening in the courtroom on the other side of triple-pane, soundproof glass.
The courtroom is about 60 feet deep — nearly as long as a six-story building is tall. My stomach sank. Ms. Rosenberg, who has been covering Guantánamo for 18 years and knows every corner and angle of the place, had warned me about the courtroom’s size. I’d brought opera glasses for the distance, but I was told I couldn’t use them. How was I going to draw portraits of people I could barely see?
I arranged my paints, brushes, pens, water and paper towels on a folding chair next to my seat, just like I had a million times. Except here, there were rules. A partial list of things I couldn’t draw: guards and certain people in certain seats and/or locations; exits, cameras; papers, displays on computer screens; walls.
And there was no redacting. If I slipped and drew any of these things, I wasn’t allowed to cover it up; they’d have to confiscate the drawing. While a redaction conceals the specifics of something, I was told, it also reveals that something classified exists in that location, which defeats the purpose. Instead, I was instructed to avoid drawing those things altogether, and to compose my drawing in such a way that a viewer couldn’t tell that I’d removed anything.
Final rule: Under no circumstances was anyone inside the spectators’ gallery to make eye contact with, or otherwise acknowledge, anyone on the other side of the glass. As an illustrator with a background as a social worker, this is in every way the opposite of how I work. I base my drawings of people on our personal interaction, on a real human connection. And while part of me was outraged, if I’m honest, I was also relieved. I didn’t know how to handle eye contact with the people on the other side of that glass.
I work with white space all the time. Every illustrator and visual journalist chooses what to include or exclude in an image. In the case of these drawings, however, some of these choices were made by the military.
I knew I’d have a limited time to draw, so I had been studying photos of the detainees online for weeks, drawing them to get familiar with their faces. The five men who walked into the courtroom looked nothing like the photos I’ve seen. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has grown a long beard and dyed it orange. And he’s tiny, just five-foot-four. In fact, every one of the five detainees was smaller than I imagined.
When I draw, time slows down. My thoughts stop darting about, and they become quiet and focused on what is in front of me: lines, angles, shapes and shadows that make up a person’s posture and expression. I stop making up stories about them or judging myself for doing so. I’m able to look closely at things I usually am afraid of or willfully ignore.
At Guantánamo, I drew in a notebook with a pen: No drafts. I looked hard and drew fast and hoped it would work out. After the drawings were finished, I painted. A picture of an individual might take 15 minutes; an entire scene might take two hours. When I finished one, I put it under my chair, hoping it would dry before I placed the next one on top of it.
While drawing, I listened to the court proceedings, but between my visual concentration and the legalese, I understood maybe a quarter of it. Later at night around the media’s picnic table over whiskey and beer, the reporters would decode for me what had happened that day. I was almost thankful not to know the details they shared while I was drawing: the very specific, horrific acts the detainees and the C.I.A. are accused of, and all the legal rabbit holes the lawyers are exploring. I stopped smoking 10 years ago, but after two nights in Guantánamo, I started again.
At the end of each day in court, I stayed behind and waited to meet with Jeffrey A. Lavender, a security officer whose job is to make sure no classified information gets out. One by one, I presented my drawings to him — much like showing sketches to a creative director for approval.
Mr. Lavender was stone-faced. After examining each drawing for several moments, scanning corner to corner and flipping each one over, he either nodded or shook his head. A nod meant the drawing was approved for public viewing. He’d affix a sticker onto the drawing, after which it was officially approved and couldn’t be altered. No Photoshopping off a stray line, no adding a little more color. He signed the sticker with a ballpoint pen. I told him since the sticker was such an important part of the image, and since we both signed the art, it was a true collaboration.
Of the 30-something drawings I presented, Mr. Lavender shook his head at only two. The first contained some classified items in the courtroom. That made sense. The second was a handwritten list of everything that I was not allowed to draw, which I’d made to use as a reminder while working. I wanted to keep it. He refused.
I argued that the information it contained had been disclosed elsewhere. But Mr. Lavender and his supervisor came to the conclusion that my handwritten list was indeed a drawing, technically containing things I couldn’t draw. My “No” list was a no-go.
That’s Guantánamo.
After a week of stifling heat, whiskey, cigarettes, talk of torture and the challenge of trying to accurately capture the courtroom, I flew home, clutching a stack of watercolor war court drawings wrapped inside a floral-scented garbage bag for protection. I scanned them in my studio, making sure not to alter the images, sent them to The New York Times, got into bed and didn’t move for two days.
Ms. Rosenberg had warned me that the gulf between the world back home and what I would find at Guantánamo was huge. She also told me a person can understand it only after being there. She was right on both counts. I’d anticipated the logistical and physical challenges of drawing there, but not the psychological and emotional ones: the grieving families, the killings and torture, the journalists reporting the horrific details year after year, and the bizarre banality of daily life in Guantánamo Bay. There was no way to prepare for those. Those I’m still processing.
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