Prize for Christmas Decorations, 1954, Declassified

Digital painting based on photo from the government's "Hanford Historical Photo Declassification Project"
20 w by 15.79 in h
2005

For my "Remixing the Hanford Declassified Project" series of images and essays.

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That the plutonium dropped on Nagasaki was made at Hanford in southeastern Washington State, or that Hanford is said by some to be the most toxic site in the western hemisphere, and one of the most polluted sites in the world, is still, I don’t believe, known by many. One hears a lot about Los Alamos but not so much about Hanford, though leaking tanks have contaminated the groundwater and created a plume that will eventually reach the Columbia River if not contained.

I grew up in Richland, a town that was built by the Manhattan Project to house workers at Hanford and which remains so proud of its heritage that the mascot of the Richland high school is a bomb, the students are known as The Bombers and the emblem of the school is a mushroom cloud...