The Good News at 6:14 a.m.

by Lisa Rosenthal, Vet Art Project facilitator

The excitement and the work rattled my bones awake this morning. Again. I walked up to my Studio to get some work done, to meditate, and hopefully soon, to get more than 4 hours of sleep. Before beginning my journey back to bed I checked the DCA Box Office for the number of tickets available to the Vet Art Project performance this Monday. Two days ago the DCA Theater staff offered us the magnificent venue of Preston Bradley Hall because we sold out the maximum number of seats that would fit in the Studio Theater space (99). Two days ago the set up of 200 seats showed 99 were available. Yesterday it hovered around 60-seats remaining. Now, at this early morning hour, there are 34 seats remaining. The word is spreading. The people are coming. We will have a fine and large community gather together to witness the stories.
I’m so proud of all of us--the veterans, the artists, the community members who have gathered together over the past month to witness the stories of those who serve us in the armed forces. We gather in their name. We gather in our name. We gather together to remember those we have lost and to honor those we are fighting not to lose. This is testament to people waking up and realizing that war affects us all and it the warriors who will lead us to peace if we give them our time and attention. We are a community. And we are growing ever stronger. Now I can hear the drums calling us not to war, but to peace. Now.

My Dad’s stories

By Dani Brzozwski, Vet Art Project collaborator

My dad and I only rarely have fruitful conversations. When we do, they’re frequently, morbidly, pragmatically, about his mortality, and the steps I (and my expert opinion--honed from WebMD and Reader’s Digest) suggest to delay said mortality. It is out of the ordinary for us to discuss much beyond the trans fat content of a bag of pretzels. I occasionally call him out on his erratic behavior, and even more occasionally, he responds with less an explanation of the cause of his behavior and more a reminder that he loves my mother, he loves me, etc.
He knows he has PTSD and we all know, too. But none of us knows what it means for him or for any of us. It’s less an elephant in the room and more the room itself, all of us living in it, unsure of ourselves, in the cavernous confines, echoing space PTSD opens up.
Dad has been a soldier ever since I can remember and, as his retirement draws near (he swears this time it’s for real, this time he won’t chicken out), he’s turned reflective, opening up in a way that is at once fascinating and uncomfortable.
His stories are my stories, and hearing these stories is essential--it’s how I build out my personal history, the sage of my family. As a writer, being denied these stories has always pained me. I (selfishly) thought it was unfair for them to be withheld, thought he was being cruel by keeping from me the secrets that I thought held the key to his identity and subsequently my own.
Working with the Vet Art Project gave me the opportunity to confront some of those secrets, to discover things about my Dad I didn’t know. It gave me a chance to have a fruitful, honest conversation with him , and it forced me to be honest with myself. His stories do not belong to me. They belong to him and him alone, and I know now that this, not selfishness, not cruelty, is why he hasn’t shared them before.
I know there are hundreds of secrets he clings to, dozens he’ll probably never let go of, but I’m grateful to have witnessed the stories he’s been willing to share, and I’ll continue to keep my ears perked up, just in case he decides to share again.

Caretaking Our Personalities when Encountering PTSD

by Janis Clark Johnston, Ed.D., Licensed Psychologist and Vet Art Project collaborator

Caretaking Our Personalities when Encountering PTSD

“…for the structure that we raise Time is with materials filled;
Our today’s and yesterdays are the blocks with which we build.”
—Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, All Are Architects

We build our personality story-house of memories one story at a time, and throughout our lifetime, we keep plastering our story-house walls to remodel certain aspects of our personalities.  Our personality story-houses are not set in “hard plaster.” Research supports a “soft plaster” personality that can change throughout our life, and we may expect more personality changes after the age of 30. We keep gathering stories everyday, but something interesting happens to our story-house of memories when we face trauma. 

When we face scary terrain, we may bury the details of the painful stories we gather; we stash them away from our present awareness in our personality story-houses.  There is a biological explanation for why we cannot focus on the immediate terrible details.  When we perceive our life, or even our well-being, as threatened, our immediate attention goes into survival mode. Later, we may not think about any problem solving for our emotional well-being, as we may experience confusion and/or anguish when we confront such traumatic events. 

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Dana, age 8

by Dana, 8 year old Vet Art Project participant

**Dana is 8 years old and is a student at Kanoon Magnet School. Dana came to the Vet Art Project with her father David who is a Iraq Veteran. David now works at Auburn Gresham Out Patient VA Clinic and is founder of the Fallen Angels organization. Fallen Angels connects returning veterans with the VA. For more information on the Fallen Angels you can contact Auburn Gresham VA Clinic.

Dana’s Blog:
I like making this picture because it’s really fun, using the string it make lots of designs. The picture is called designs. I gave the picture to the people who were teaching to put it on display for the performance night. I feel happy that people will see my work. I want the people to see my art and be happy.

I think art is important because it makes people happy and I like making art.

My favorite art is the big scribble page we made as a group that day because all we had to do was scribble It made me happy because everyone was having fun. I liked that everyone was making art. Making the art together as group made everyone happy. They were smiling.

At the class we had cupcakes for my dad because it was his birthday. Mine was chocolate. I think me, my dad, and my brother Erik had fun because we made art together and made new friends.

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Midway Reflections

by Lisa Rosenthal, Vet Arts Project facilitator

The Vet Art Project is about midway through our time in the Studio Theater and the gifts are many. Some incredible things are happening. Connections among the veterans are being built and between veterans and artists, between veterans and those who are still active in their service. Decades may separate the veterans yet many elements of their journeys are the same: estrangement from self, from others, a shattered self, the loss of one’s soul. We paint it, we draw it, we create collages based on it, we discuss it, we write about it. The artists are learning a great deal, too, and we share it and will continue to share it, as we receive the blessings of community and connection. This experience has changed the lives of many--not just the veterans but the artists as well.
We look forward to sharing the results with the wider community at the performance on 2.23 @ 7:30 p.m. followed by a talkback.