Susan was the mother of the Energy Dragon. Not everyone knew the Dragon but those who knew him, couldn't help but love him. I actually built the Dragon as a goofy New Years Eve Chinese Dragon surprise at Esther's Follies in 1978. But when Susan saw him she immediately recognized his true identity. He was soon renamed and dragged off to demonstrate at the not-yet-built South Texas Nuclear Project. He would then become an occasional visitor to Austin's City Council meetings, where his was a strong anti-nuke voice. The Dragon lives on in our attic but he will emerge, as needed, to continue Susan's work. Ric

Susan was always a good sport. Whenever we needed someone to climb inside one of those uncomfortable heads, she would volunteer. I think she enjoyed the ability to be expressive and yet anonomous. She also enjoyed making the heads and was responsible for the lion on the right and the monkey below.

Below is another, more dangerous form of political theater - one in which Susan engaged on more than one occasion - a lock-on. That's her, second from right on the ground.

Pied Piper that she was, Susan was always organizing children to participate in theatrical actions. Her daughters Pamela and Camille fondly remember being inside the Dragon. Here, a couple of kids handle some "radioactive waste".

We don't know who her young Radiation Ranger friend was but Susan looked pretty happy here, didn't she?

This just came from Jenny Clark. It is a proposal that she and Susan wrote in 1999 for further museum funding. They never got the funding but it prompted several people to send checks and helped lead to the museum's current incarnation under the care of Healing Ourselves and Mother Earth (see the entry on the "Causes & Links" page).

Proposal for Mobile and Virtual Museum to End the Nuclear Age Project

BACKGROUND: The Museum to End the Nuclear Age, a convened RV with a solar electric system and an original interior which permits changing exhibits, was funded originally by Genevieve Vaughan as an extension of the work of the Foundation for a Compassionate Society in the area of radiation and health education and organizing. It was inaugurated in the summer of 1995 as a memorial to the 50th anniversary of the nuclear weapons test at Alamogordo and the bombing of Japan.

The museum was used in conjunction with grassroots anti-nuclear groups extensively in Texas and along the Mexican border; for one tour deep into Mexico; in New Mexico, and in seasonal gatherings at the Nevada Test Site in conjunction with allies of the Western Shoshone, as well as around the Goshute reservation in Utah. Thousands of people of all ages have visited the exhibits, signed petitions and postcards and taken literature on the impact of all aspects of the nuclear chain. It has been featured in dozens of major city and smaller town newspapers, and on radio and TV news programs in the U.S. and Mexico, including an hourlong show on a Mexican border TV station

The vehicle was used to fight the Sierra Blanca and Ward Valley dumps, and to educate about nuclear reactors and their emissions, and about the resumption of weapons testing and plans to send high level reactor waste to indigenous land in New Mexico, Nevada and Utah. The museum co-designer and curator, Susan Lee Solar, also videotaped historical events and interviews with persons impacted by or resisting the nuclear chain encountered during the museum’s many trips. At one point the museum was driven up the steps of the plaza facing the governor’s mansion in Jalapa, Mexico, where the Madres Veracruzanos had been protesting weekly for 12 years against a nearby nuclear reactor. The museum (and the Foundation) was credited with helping to stall the passage of the nuclear waste Compact bill in Congress for several years by the nuclear industry at a national meeting in 1997.

PROPOSAL: Now the museum needs about $1500 of physical work to make it roadworthy again, for a final year in Texas and New Mexico to publicize new developments in uranium mining, nuclear weapons production and national nuclear waste dump sites in both states before a trip to the Healing Global Wounds gathering in Nevada in spring 2000, where the museum would be left as a gift ftom Vaughan to the Western Shohone who continue to feel the effects of nuclear weapons testing and nuclear waste dumping.

We also seek funding to update the exhibits to reflect current issues along the nuclear chain and to seed ideas of the "green" economic initiatives that could replace nuclear-related jobs and projects; to translate the visuals and studies and stories accumulated over the years into a virtual museum web site and CD, to be globally accessible; and finally, to edit the videotapes containing valuable current and historical material. The project is modular and presented in the order of importance; projects will be initiated as funding is received.

BUDGET:

work on exterior chassis - repairs to structure and paint $1,500

salary, supplies, printing, etc. to renovate exhibit $ 700

gas and salary, supplies for winter/spring 2000 Southwest tour to end in Nevada $2,000

salary fur Solar and web designer to create web site for virtual museum $4,000

salary for Solar and fees to AIM, video firm to edit videotapes for web and CD $4,500

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Even before the Dragon was born there was the Short Circuit Circus, a "live multimedia extravaganza" that we mounted at Interartworks, an interdisciplinary arts group, of which Susan and I were members. It was then that we both learned about making giant puppets and started using them for our political messages.

Here she is again in the giant hippo suit, marching down Congress avenue in the circus parade.

Yet another theatrical way to get her messages across was Susan's creation, the Women's Peace Caravan. With the support of the Foundation for a Compassionate Society, Susan built out an old RV into a traveling, anti-nuke museum, which she drove around the country to anyplace she could find a forum for its information. Below is the museum in Juarez.

The inside was rich in information - text, photos, video.

While she was almost always the shortest person in the picture, Susan always stood tall for what she believed in. We are proud to have been this giant's friends.