Two weeks ago, John Fisher of Soldier’s Heart told me about a woman in Chicago named Lisa Rosenthal, who founded Vet Art Project.  The Project organizes workshops across the country that use different art forms to help veterans heal from war’s wounds. As I learned more about Lisa’s work, I became both inspired and amazed. Inspired because of what she has been able to accomplish in a mere eighteen months, amazed because her work deeply connects to and echoes my journey and goals.

Vet Art Project is based on the belief that art not only is capable of healing the traumas of war but creates a community in the process: a community of veterans and a community of veterans and civilians, even if those civilians have no experience that begins to approach those of soldiers.  Because art creates a bridge of understanding.

Though Lisa only got the first workshops off the ground in Chicago in mid 2008, Vet Arts Projects now exist in Seattle, Phoenix, Texas, Santa Fe, and DeKalb, IL.  The reason, I think, is that people across the country are not only becoming aware of the consequences of war for the returning warrior but want to help.  We have come to recognize that peace will not be possible while war still rages within the veteran, and that as a society we have amoral duty to be present for the people who sacrificed their innocence in our name.

This coming weekend I and another artist from Denver travel to Santa Fe to be a part of a Vet Art project weekend. We will create stories with words, images, and movement; share stories and perspectives, and witness the veterans’ truths.  I will be eager to share the weekend on this website.

The Multigenerational Ripple of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)