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player ready...For years after he served in the Army during the Iraq War, Bryon Crawley felt a level of panic few others have known.
He once froze in traffic when he approached a pile of trash because it reminded him of the bombs hidden in trash on the streets of Iraq. Police had to be called to get him out of the predicament.
As a way to deal with his struggles after he returned from war in 2004 and lived alone in a small apartment outside of Ft. Hood, Texas, awaiting his retirement and return to his family, he turned to alcohol.
“While you’re over there, you don’t know if you’re coming home and any time you go outside of those gates, you don’t know if you’re going to make it back to camp,” Crawley said. “We were in the city of Tikrit — Saddam’s hometown — and we were hit with mortar rounds daily.”
Crawley and other veterans are finding some healing through CreatiVets, which has a three-week Visual Arts Program in Chicago designed to help them express their pain through art. Crawley had already taken part in a photography program with CreatiVets in Dallas, which helped him through some of his PTSD.
The Chicago program is run conjunction with the Art Institute, which gives the nonprofit a discounted rate for veterans’ stay in its dorms, classes, and use of facilities and labs.
Their work is on display through Dec. 8 at the Christopher Gallery at Prairie State College in Chicago Heights, in an exhibit Veteran Art from the Battlefield: Healing the Wounds of War Through the Arts.
Crawley, now sober, is exhibiting a piece that is a representation of him when he was in that small apartment with empty wine bottles strewed across the floor while his family stands nearby watching him “drink my life away.”
But the piece also shows him standing on an empty bottle, representing his triumph over his addiction and trauma.
Creating art and then talking about it during a showing last summer at the Art Institute, “brought it to light and I didn’t have to hide anymore,” said Crawley. Though he had told his ex-wife, current wife and late mother about his struggles, he hadn’t explained them to his children.
“When I was doing the show, a number of people told me ‘I’ve been there, I’ve had my struggles with alcohol and drugs … it’s OK to talk about it,'” he said. “Before this program, I thought it was taboo.”
The exhibit also includes paintings, sculptures, letters and poems and other art media by veterans.
Beth Shadur, gallery director, started showing military art about eight years ago in an exhibit from the veterans’ art group, “Dirty Canteen.”
“There’s some really interesting work and the concept of this CreatiVets program is fantastic,” said Shadur. “When you look at art done by vets, for them there’s a real healing component.
“When people go through any kind of trauma, they have to find some type of outlet for processing it. The process of making the art was cathartic for them and that’s very valuable.”
Air Force Master Sgt. Georges Sanon, Prairie State College’s Military Affairs coordinator, was wowed by that first exhibit and suggested doing the shows every few years.
“If we could have this type of art in more of a permanent display of sorts, where it could have changes as to what’s being presented, that would be great, but this could be the next best thing,” Sanon said.
Kyle Yepsen, deputy director of Nashville-based CreatiVets, said veterans are chosen for the program based on their level of trauma. They can do ceramics, painting photography and even metalwork, and the program can also involve free travel, lodging, supplies and a stipend for entertainment.
“Lots of them don’t want to leave their houses because of their anxiety,” he said. “We help them by giving them an experience like a student.”
Yepsen’s brother was in the Marine Corps in Iraq, where he died beside Richard Casper, co-founder with Linda Tarrson of CreatiVets in 2013. Casper suffered a traumatic brain injury in Iraq.
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Yepsen, who also helps lead a Songwriting Program with the organization, joined in 2017 at a time when he was looking for “something more meaningful.”
“We are a means of offering veterans a way to tell their story,” Yepsen said. “You open up that line of communication, you break down that barrier many veterans put up around themselves because concerned people don’t understand them. You give them a new method of conveying that story.”
Janice Neumann is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.