What Do You See? "D Is for Dismay", Moral Injury, and the Power of Art
Sometimes a piece of art catches your attention because it is beautiful.
Sometimes it catches your attention because you cannot quite explain what you are looking at.
And sometimes you look at something created by a complete stranger and somehow see part of your own life staring back at you.
That is what happened to me when I first saw Tatsuki Hakoyama’s D Is for Dismay. https://www.tatsukihakoyama.com/
I encountered the original painting in person at the Extinction exhibit at AVA Community Art Center in Gillette, Wyoming. Among all the pieces in the exhibit, this was the one that stopped me.
At first glance, the image is strange.
A stuffed dog.
A party hat.
Confetti.
And a protective mask covering its face.
Those things should not necessarily belong together.
A party hat and confetti suggest celebration, innocence, and happiness. The mask suggests danger, protection, restraint, or survival.
But what caught me more than anything else were the eyes.
I stood there looking at them and immediately saw something vulnerable behind everything surrounding the dog.
I saw a kid.
More specifically, I saw myself at 19 years old.
The Kid Under the Armor
I joined the Army young and deployed to Iraq when I was 19.
When people picture a soldier in a combat environment, they often see everything on the outside first: body armor, a helmet, a weapon, equipment, training, confidence.
Those things make someone look prepared.
They make someone look like a soldier.
But underneath all of it, I was still a 19-year-old kid trying to understand the world around me.
That is what I began to see in D Is for Dismay.
The protective equipment surrounding the dog reminded me of everything we put around ourselves in dangerous environments. The eyes reminded me that the person underneath all of that protection does not suddenly stop being human.
You can prepare someone to survive an environment.
That does not necessarily mean they walk away from it unchanged.
Years later, much of my work revolves around veterans and moral injury, and that probably shaped what I saw in the painting.
Moral injury can emerge when someone experiences, witnesses, participates in, or fails to prevent something that conflicts deeply with their values or understanding of right and wrong.
Sometimes the question people carry afterward is not simply:
“What happened to me?”
It becomes:
“What does what happened say about me?”
Standing in front of that painting, I found myself thinking about that difference.
What Do You See?
One of the things I appreciate most about D Is for Dismay is that it does not hand you an explanation.
It makes you participate.
I later showed the artwork to another veteran.
His reaction was completely different from mine.
Where I saw innocence, vulnerability, protection, trauma, and survival, he saw something much simpler at first:
A dog wearing what looked like a Hannibal Lecter mask.
Same artwork.
Same dog.
Same eyes.
Completely different interpretation.
That conversation ended up becoming almost as important to me as seeing the painting itself.
Because neither of us had changed the image.
What changed was the person looking at it.
We each brought our own experiences, memories, assumptions, sense of humor, and history into the room.
That made me think about how we approach difficult conversations with other people.
It is easy to look at someone’s circumstances and begin interpreting their experience for them.
We see what happened and assume we understand what it means.
But what if we started with a different question?
What do you see?
That question leaves room for the other person.
It asks instead of tells.
It listens before interpreting.
And for someone carrying experiences involving guilt, grief, shame, loss, identity, or moral injury, that distinction can matter.
Reaching Out to the Artist
The painting stayed with me after I left the exhibit.
Eventually, I decided to reach out directly to Tatsuki Hakoyama.
I told him what I had seen in the painting.
I explained how the image reminded me of being 19 years old in Iraq—looking prepared on the outside while still being incredibly young underneath everything I was wearing and carrying.
I also told him about my current work with veterans and why I believed the painting could be meaningful in an office where conversations about moral injury, identity, grief, guilt, and healing take place.
His response meant a great deal to me.
Tatsuki told me that it meant something to him that his artwork had connected with me even though we came from different backgrounds and experiences.
Then he offered to make and donate a print of D Is for Dismay for my office.
He hoped it might resonate with other people as well.
Not long afterward, that print arrived.
And suddenly the story of this painting changed again.
It was no longer only something I had encountered in a gallery.
Now it had a new home and potentially a new purpose.
From Gallery Wall to Veterans’ Office
The print now hangs in a space where veterans can see it.
Some may see what I saw.
Most probably will not.
I actually hope they do not.
Because the value of the piece is not in getting everyone to agree with my interpretation.
The value is in the conversation.
Maybe someone sees fear.
Maybe someone sees innocence.
Maybe they see danger.
Maybe protection.
Maybe humor.
Maybe confinement.
Maybe absolutely nothing that I have described.
That is okay.
The question remains:
What do you see?
In my work, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to create environments where veterans can talk about experiences that are difficult to put into words.
Sometimes asking someone directly about the hardest moment of their life is not the best place to begin.
Sometimes the doorway is something else.
A story.
A question.
A photograph.
A piece of art.
There is something powerful about being able to point at an image and talk about what you see before realizing you may also be talking about yourself.
What the Artist Intended—and What I Brought to It
Learning more about Tatsuki Hakoyama's work made the experience even more interesting.
Hakoyama has lived in Japan, Samoa, and the United States, and his work frequently examines the ways culture, community, and environment shape identity and values.
His paintings often use symbolic figures, unusual combinations, and surreal situations to make people reconsider things that might otherwise appear ordinary.
That lines up surprisingly well with what drew me to D Is for Dismay.
But there is also an important distinction.
I do not believe Tatsuki created this painting specifically about veterans.
I do not believe he painted it specifically about combat, PTSD, or moral injury.
Those meanings came from me.
I brought Iraq into the painting.
I brought the 19-year-old version of myself into it.
I brought years of experiences since then.
I brought the veterans I now work alongside.
And I think that makes the piece more meaningful—not less.
An artist can create something from one set of experiences, and another person can encounter it through an entirely different life.
Somewhere between the two, meaning develops.
My conversation with Tatsuki reinforced that idea. He did not tell me that I had discovered the “correct” interpretation.
He valued that the artwork had connected with someone whose life was very different from his own.
To me, that is one of the most powerful things art can accomplish.
A Different Kind of Leadership
This experience also changed the way I thought about leadership.
When we hear the word leadership, we usually picture someone standing in front of other people.
Giving direction.
Making decisions.
Speaking.
Teaching.
Leading from the front.
But leadership is also influence.
Sometimes leadership is creating something that causes another person to stop and think.
Sometimes it is asking a question instead of providing an answer.
Sometimes it is creating a space where someone else feels safe enough to explore their own story.
Tatsuki could have simply thanked me for the message and moved on.
Instead, he chose to send the artwork into another community.
A painting created by an artist with one set of experiences was displayed in a gallery in Wyoming.
A veteran from Montana stood in front of it and saw part of his own story.
That veteran contacted the artist.
The artist listened.
Then he donated a print.
Now that print hangs in a place where other veterans may encounter it.
Some of them may walk past it without thinking twice.
Others may stop.
One of them may see something entirely different.
And maybe a conversation starts.
That is influence.
That is leadership without authority.
The Lesson I Keep Coming Back To
The most important lesson I took from this experience is one I need to remember constantly in the work I do:
My interpretation of someone else's experience is not their experience.
When I looked at D Is for Dismay, I immediately saw part of myself.
Someone else did not.
Neither reaction made the other one invalid.
The same principle applies when sitting across from another veteran.
I can listen.
I can ask questions.
I can provide structure.
I can share experiences when they are useful.
I can create space for difficult conversations.
But I cannot decide what another person's experience means for them.
Sometimes leadership means resisting the urge to provide the answer.
Sometimes the most important thing you can do is ask:
What do you see?
And then listen.
Author’s Note
I want to personally thank Tatsuki Hakoyama for taking the time to hear what D Is for Dismay meant to me and for generously donating a print for my office.
When I first stood in front of the original piece in Gillette, I had no idea that experience would eventually lead to a conversation with the artist himself, much less to having a print of the work sent to me. That gesture means more to me than I can probably put into words.
The print will be properly framed soon and given a permanent place in my office, where I hope it continues doing exactly what it did for me—making people stop, look a little longer, and think about what they see.
What started as my own personal connection to a painting now has the chance to become a conversation with other veterans about identity, experience, moral injury, healing, and the different meanings we carry with us.
Tatsuki, thank you not only for the artwork, but for listening to my interpretation of it and being willing to let the piece continue its journey into a completely different community. I hope the conversations it creates in my office honor the spirit in which you donated it.
If this piece speaks to you, I also encourage you to explore more of Tatsuki Hakoyama’s work on his official website. His portfolio includes many pieces that explore identity, culture, community, memory, and the human experience.
And if you ever find yourself standing in front of D Is for Dismay, I hope you take a moment before reading anyone else’s interpretation and ask yourself one simple question:
What do you see?
About the Artwork
D Is for Dismay was created by artist Tatsuki Hakoyama. Hakoyama's work explores themes involving identity, culture, community, environment, symbolism, and the human experience.
I first encountered the original painting at AVA Community Art Center's Extinction exhibition in Gillette, Wyoming. After I later contacted Tatsuki and shared what the artwork meant to me and why I thought it could resonate with veterans experiencing moral injury, he generously donated a print for my office.
Sources
Tatsuki Hakoyama — Artist BiographyHakoyama's biography discusses his experiences living in Japan, Samoa, and the United States and how culture, community, and environment influence his exploration of identity and values.
Saginaw Valley State University Art Gallery — Tatsuki Hakoyama: Searching for the Middle PathHakoyama's artist statement discusses symbolism, multilayered narratives, cultural identity, and the ways community influences people's perceptions of the world.
AVA Community Art Center — Extinction ExhibitionInformation about the exhibition where I first encountered D Is for Dismay and its themes of loss, change, adaptation, memory, and rebirth.
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