Aug 12 | 5-7 p.m. | Deco Lounge
Join us for a reception in celebration of the Wounded Warriors’ creative processes with stories and artwork from the Military Creative Expressions program at the Fine Arts Center.
The Military Creative Expression class grew out of a partnership between Bemis School of Art at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center and Pikes Peak Behavioral Health Group. It’s designed to help a new generation of American soldiers returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan with hard-to-treat symptoms of combat stress.
The soldiers are part of the Warrior Transition Unit at Fort Carson and suffer from a variety of physical and invisible wounds, including post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. The Bemis School of Art provides professional studio space and supplies, but the greatest contribution is a change of environment for the soldiers and therapists. Meeting in a studio instead of an office is less clinical, and naturally encourages creative expression.
“The culture as soldiers, especially as men, is not to express their emotions,” said Pikes Peak Behavioral Group Art Therapist Kim Nguyen. In her art course, “art becomes a third party,” an intermediary that can give voice to bottled-up feelings.