Donna introduces you to her long-time friend, Tim Gagnon, who has an incredible journey from the military to an artistic career. Together they unpack the therapeutic value of art and shine a spotlight on the Patriot Art Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing free art classes and supplies to veterans.
So, join us on this journey of art, healing, and camaraderie. Trust me, you don't want to miss it.
Visit the www.patriotartfoundation.org to learn more.
Tune into our CHW Streaming Radio and the full lineup at cominghomewell.com
Download on Apple Play and Google Play
Online-Therapy.com ~ Life Changing Therapy Click here for a 20% discount on your first month.
Donna’s Links
Website: www.rebel-llc.com Consulting/Coaching
Book: Warrior to Patriot Citizen (2017)
Blog: Taking Off The Armor
IG: @thetransitioningwarrior
Twitter: @wtpc
FB: The Transitioning Warrior
Jay’s Links
Website: https://j2servantleadership.com/
Book: Breaking Average (2020)
Thank you for listening! Be sure to SHARE, LIKE and leave us a REVIEW!
Donna introduces you to her long-time friend, Tim Gagnon, who has an incredible journey from the military to an artistic career. Together they unpack the therapeutic value of art and shine a spotlight on the Patriot Art Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing free art classes and supplies to veterans.
So, join us on this journey of art, healing, and camaraderie. Trust me, you don't want to miss it.
Visit the www.patriotartfoundation.org to learn more.
Tune into our CHW Streaming Radio and the full lineup at cominghomewell.com
Download on Apple Play and Google Play
Online-Therapy.com ~ Life Changing Therapy Click here for a 20% discount on your first month.
Donna’s Links
Website: www.rebel-llc.com Consulting/Coaching
Book: Warrior to Patriot Citizen (2017)
Blog: Taking Off The Armor
IG: @thetransitioningwarrior
Twitter: @wtpc
FB: The Transitioning Warrior
Jay’s Links
Website: https://j2servantleadership.com/
Book: Breaking Average (2020)
Thank you for listening! Be sure to SHARE, LIKE and leave us a REVIEW!
Welcome to Beyond the Frontline podcast, where your hosts, US Air Force veterans Donna Hofmeier and Jay Johnson, will help you transition from the front line to the home front. Listen every other Wednesday, as they will bring great conversations, resources, tips and feel good stories that will resonate and relate. Now here's your hosts, Donna Hofmeier and Jay Johnson.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody. This is Donna. I am Sand Jay. Today, Jay's out for some family health issues, so I'm wishing him and his family well while he gets through that. But in the meantime I'm hanging out here with a very, very long time friend of mine, Tim Ganyo. Hey Tim.
Speaker 3:How you doing Great to see you.
Speaker 2:I have to be honest. I'm very transparent, so I'm just telling everybody this is take two, because we tried the first time and then I looked down two minutes in and realized I didn't hit the record button. So here we are, take two.
Speaker 1:So I have to go back.
Speaker 2:Little history. Tim and I have known each other for upwards of 40 years. My lord, I cannot believe I say that number. But here we are. Tim and I have known each other since we've probably been 10, 11, 12, 13 somewhere in there 10 years old problem.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and then we used to go to camp. Our families are friends. We know his whole family, I know all his brothers, I know his parents, I probably know aunts and cousins that I'm just not even thinking of right now. And yeah, we've known each other forever and within those years we even dated, when we were like 13.
Speaker 3:You were my first real girlfriend.
Speaker 2:I was, you were. I'm feeling special now but he has a very, very, very, very nice wife, lisa, right now, and I adore her. So shout out to Lisa. But yes, we've known each other super long time. So today I brought him on because our like I was saying in the first round, our lives have kind of touched and go over the years. We always kept in touch with him and one of the things that we both did is we both joined the military. So Tim joined in 91, 92 ish, and then I joined in 94. So, tim, why don't you repeat how you ended up joined the military? Because it's kind of cute.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I was not planning on joining the military. I was going to be an artist my whole life, and that my dad and I kind of butted heads in that area. He just couldn't wrap his brain around. You know, you, we grew up in very small town. Oh yes, in in northern New Hampshire there's more moose than people.
Speaker 2:Yes, true story.
Speaker 3:And my dad could not wrap his brain around making a living as an artist. He just couldn't do it. And it was very we butted heads quite a bit. And one day he said Monday morning you're coming to work with me. And I said in my brain I didn't dare say it out loud I said oh, no, I'm not. And so I marched down to the recruiter and I said Sign me up. And I meant now, and the recruiter was looking at me like it doesn't work that way. And I'm like why not? Why not, let's go, I'm ready. No, it's, I'm like.
Speaker 3:So after a little bit of back and forth arguing, he flabbergasted. He just said I can get you on a bus on Thursday. And I said works for me. And so I went home and my mom said you know how has worked today? And I said I didn't go to work, which threw dad into a rage. And I said I joined the Air Force, I'm leaving Thursday. And then, after we picked them up off the floor, and a few days later I was on a bus down to Boston MEP station and then on a plane to Lackland Air Force base, and that's how I started my military career.
Speaker 2:Well then you ended up in a unique situation because you were just telling me that you never went to tech school, which I was like who? Who do you mean?
Speaker 3:I bypass tech school, which is kind of a very unique thing. So while I was in basic training I went in open general. They could have made me anything they wanted, which anybody with a brain knows. That's a bad idea.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's more to worry about. That's food services.
Speaker 3:Anything they wanted, the worst job in the world. They could just said here you go, kid. But while I was in basic training we went to the career counselor and this lady, this tech sergeant, she was just, she was like a God sent for me. She was looking through my paperwork and she said it says here you're an artist. And I said yes, ma'am. And she threw a picture of her dog and a yellow notepad at me and she said draw that dog. And so I drew the dog and handed it back to her. And then she said don't move. And she left me in her office for 45 minutes.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I'm not going on. I'm sitting in her office all by myself trying to fit, and she comes back in and she has another picture of a dog and she says draw this dog, this time like a cartoon. So I dropped and I handed it back to her and she leaves me again Don't move, yes, ma'am. So I'm sitting in her office again now, about 3040 minutes go by and I'm like what is going on? I have no idea. She hasn't told me anything. She comes back in and she says the colonel liked the picture of the dog that you drew. And I'm like the colonel.
Speaker 3:I can barely hear you. So then she says come with me, you have to take a test. And I'm like what is going on? So I go into this giant room with hundreds of desks and she hands me a test, you know, with the fill in the dots, yeah, and I'm like it's an art test. And I'm like what? What is going on? You're clipping the art test and I'm like I'm asking basic training, you just do. So I take this test. Two hours later she says all right. She says sit here in my office, I'm going to go grade your test. So two hours go by.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, I was there all day. And so she comes back in and she's all excited. She goes you passed, you passed, you passed. And I'm like what is going on? And she says that was the final exam to the graphic specialist tech school.
Speaker 2:Holy crap, and you just took it and passed it. Yeah, and.
Speaker 3:I'm like well, what does that mean? She says it means you're going to be an artist for the Air Force.
Speaker 2:So you were like the only person that's clipped tech school. That's what you just did.
Speaker 3:Pretty much. But it got even weirder. Because she goes to find me a job and so I'm sitting in her office again. Hours go by. She comes back, she's literally crying and she goes there's no jobs, there's no openings, you're gonna have to, we're gonna have to figure something out for you. And I'm like, what does that? So now I'm like got the rug pulled out for me, so I have to march back. It's 10 o'clock at night. I hit the march all the way across Lackland Air Force Base by myself back to my dorm and I get in there and I hear the dreaded thing no one wants to hear your drill sergeant scream your name. And so I'm like, oh no. So I run in his office.
Speaker 3:Yeah yes, yes, sir. And he says tech sergeant so-and-so from career counseling wants you to call her right now. I'm like okay. So I ran downstairs, down the three flights of stairs, to the old pay phones and I called her up. She said there's one job on the planet. Do you want it? And I was like yes. She says don't you want to know where it is? I said I don't care.
Speaker 2:I'm here, let's go.
Speaker 3:And so it ended up being Tindall Air Force Base here in Panama City Beach. And he's still there and I'm still here. I got the sand in my toes. I said I'm not leaving.
Speaker 2:Well, the choice between Northern New Hampshire and the winter and Florida is there's no comparison. There is no comparison.
Speaker 3:Panama City Beach is truly the world's most beautiful beaches, and I absolutely love it here. Yeah, you've been here, yeah we visited you.
Speaker 2:Actually, tim, there's another. This is, I guess this podcast will be like how our lives crossed and how we got where we are, because there is something we're going to talk about halfway through this that he's involved with. That again we crossed paths on. But for our fifth anniversary my husband and I's fifth anniversary Tim actually painted us a picture oil painting of Venice where we got engaged, and he did the Rialto Bridge and he did the. It's gorgeous. It's up in our house. It's been there for years and years and years, and so that's very, very near and dear to me. I mean, I love that picture and so, yeah, that was one where we've met. You've met my family. You've met my kids. I've met your kids, my goodness.
Speaker 2:And so we scroll ahead, because you go down to the military in 94 and you were living your best life down there in Panama and I was traveling all over the place because I was still in the military all those years. And then one day, out of the blue this is years ahead Tim reaches out to me and says hey, donna, I'm looking for you were looking for a like a secretary, right? Yeah, and so I'm like a secretary. What do you need a secretary for. And then he tells me about the Patriot Arts Program and I'm like wait, what is that? And so then, that was how many years ago.
Speaker 3:Two that was about two years ago and well, actually part about a year ago. Yeah, how about a year?
Speaker 2:So we talked about it. I threw some names at them that might be a potential and they did what they needed to do and it always stuck in the back of my head. I love art and it's definitely therapeutic. I've done art in different ways. I've done pottery painting. That is nowhere near Tim's painting, trust me, and I know the benefits of it.
Speaker 2:So we've talked in the past and then here I am setting up a season two of Beyond the Frontline and I'm looking at all this stuff and I had talked to a lot of people and Tim and I had talked and I said, Tim, you should come on the podcast. And he's like heck, yeah. And so we're here and, of course, what do I find out in the middle of that? Tim also has two podcasts that he does. So we're going to talk about how you got into or found out about Patriot Art Foundation, what the Patriot Art Foundation is and what they're doing and all the cool things about the Patriot Art Foundation. So how did you find out about it? First of all? I guess that's the next step.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the Patriot Art Foundation is. It's absolutely phenomenal. It's probably one of the greatest joys and honors of my life. Now I really enjoy working with them and the mission that we accomplished there. It started I was at another organization's annual conference, the Portrait Society of America. I'm primarily a figurative and a portrait artist, and so I'm at the annual conference hanging out with a bunch of other portrait artists and there was a particular artist named Mary White. She's one of the top artists in the world today. She is just the elite of the elite of the elite, and she was one of the keynote speakers and she was giving a talk on her recent exhibit. That at the time was at the Marine Corps Museum and what it was called is we, the People, and she painted 50 veterans, one from every state, and these are just everything from a homeless guy to an astronaut and everything in between.
Speaker 2:So I listened to the beginning of Mary's podcast with you. That was the first podcast you did with Patriot Art Foundation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was episode one, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was listening to it Her story on how that came to be. Can you just share a little of that, Because it was very interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she just started traveling around because she's not even from a military family and so she just started getting wanting to paint some veterans and she just started traveling. But she would basically look around and say I want a trucker, and she'd go and call around the VAs in different cities and she'd find the. She would find somebody and she would paint them. But she would do that state to state to state, finding these different people and through that journey of meeting veterans and hearing their stories and talking to them and spending. When you paint somebody's portrait, it's intimate, it's extremely intimate. The relationship that develops between the artist and the model. It's hard to describe. It's very intimate. And she just started getting this. It was very powerful and it was very moving for her and so she was just like I've got to do something about this. And from that exhibit you know these are in the paintings my gosh, they're some of the most beautiful pieces of art.
Speaker 2:I've seen them. They're stunning.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she's one of those artists that's so good it makes you mad.
Speaker 2:The fact that you're saying that it's like love a way like ugh. But Tim has an MFA, he has a Master's in Fine Arts too and he is amazing I'm just gonna say so for him to say that and he looks up and on somebody. That is some extreme talent. But Mary went to all 50 states and she said she did a lot of it secretively, like a lot of people did not know this was, she wasn't doing anything, she spent all her own money.
Speaker 3:She traveled seven years.
Speaker 2:She worked on this. Yeah, I mean, that's insanity. And then when they opened up the art show, right, that's when things started to. You know, that's when things started to happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so she's in Charleston, which is where the Citadel is located. That's also where the Yorktown is, like her house, she can like look over the water and the Yorktown is docked right there, oh wow. And so you know she's very close in.
Speaker 3:You know Charleston's got a very big military community and so you know she made a lot of connections with that and the portraits that she did just resonated with so many people and so many veterans and this and that, and then, through those talks, she started to realize, you know, we've gotta help these veterans, we've gotta reach out to them and use art to help them tell their stories. You know, every veteran has a story to tell. Yeah, we've all been through it. We've all got things, and especially, you know, combat veterans and veterans that have gone overseas and things like that you know they've got a lot of things that that can help others and can also help them process things, and art is-.
Speaker 2:Without having a talk I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, but it just hit my head but without having to talk about it and I'll tell you there is.
Speaker 2:I have seen it. I mean my you know my background's a nurse. My last eight years was taking care of a lot of Garden Reserve, a lot of PTSD, a lot of combat, you know, mental health issues and the one thing I'd seen some people not everybody, but some people it was so hard. Their body responded so strongly that they couldn't talk about it. Talking about it was just exhausting to them and physical. We literally had somebody the therapist had to stop the session because his blood pressure was going through the roof. She saw him changing colors and they took his blood pressure. He had to go on blood pressure medication because of that. So when you can find modalities that have nothing to do with talking but they can still express themselves and process it, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the power of the arts. And visual arts are very primal, you know, it's extremely, it's just innate. You know Pablo Picasso said every child is an artist. The trick is to stay an artist when you grow up. But that's how innate art is in people. We naturally want to draw, and you may not be very good at it, but we naturally tend to go that direction.
Speaker 3:And the visual arts is a great way to communicate. A picture's worth a thousand words, so you can communicate emotions in a much deeper, primal way than you can with words. It's just, it's a fact, and when you're processing things like that, it can be very, very therapeutic and very powerful. And the other side of that is the process of creating the art. You know just the hot word now, asmr. You know just the sound of the pencil or the charcoal scraping across the paper your mind stops, the entire planet stops rotating and it's just you and a piece of paper. And that is one of the greatest ways to just diffuse that I've ever found. And when I see people that have never drawn before in their life they've never even thought twice about art and they start working with us and they start creating art for sometimes the first time in a long time or ever, it unlocks something in them and it's powerful to say.
Speaker 2:You know when you were talking, you know what was coming into my mind your fire art. So Tim does this incredible. It's fire art, right? Is that what it's?
Speaker 3:called. I mean, yeah, I guess I call it fire painting, but really what it is is it's speed painting, it's performance art.
Speaker 2:It is, but it's still incredible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, now, and that was the thing when it comes to like speed painting, there's a lot of people out there that do speed painting. I'm not first, I won't be the last. You know, and you've got a big giant canvas and you paint a painting in like two minutes, you know, on a big giant canvas and the crowd watches you do it, you know, and it's performance art. But to separate myself from the pack, I light my paint brushes on fire and I breathe fire While I'm Cause, why not?
Speaker 2:I mean why not If you know. Tim, that's not even chucking, actually, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm afraid not, but you know, you know what it actually shows.
Speaker 2:in a way, though, Speed painting right Cause I mean, you're an accomplished artist and you do this, but what you can show people is that even in a small amount of time, you can create, so you don't need these huge, enormous blocks of like six hours or whatever you know. Here you are and what do you do those in 30 minutes?
Speaker 3:It depends, yeah, sometimes five minutes, sometimes 30 minutes, sometimes it just depends.
Speaker 2:Depends on the gasoline's on his brush.
Speaker 3:You know it's, it's, it's actually lamp oil. Lamp oil from Walmart, nothing special. And then what I put in my mouth to breathe fire, that's a trade secret, but it's not whiskey.
Speaker 2:Oh, I did. You took the mystery. I was like, oh, I bet you a Twisky or bourbon or something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I used to do. I used to do a lot of a lot of elementary schools, and when you're breathing fire over the kindergarten students, you know probably was not a good idea. Well, there's that. And then the first question they always want to know is how do you do the fire? They don't care about the painting, they don't care about how do you breathe fire? I want to go home and breathe fire and I'm like I was just going to say.
Speaker 2:I'm sure every parent's like I'm going to just choke him out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I always yeah, because it's a very common household item.
Speaker 2:Hilarious, oh my God.
Speaker 3:In America. So like no, we're not going to tell the kids what I'm using.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why you have to keep it a trade secret. You don't really want that out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a lot of parents are not thanking you, right. Well, so you know you're bringing up some really good points like the therapeutic value of art. You don't you know when people are like well, I'm not good at it. I'm like. I remember my I took an art class in college. We were required to take an elective and I picked this art class and I remember my teacher saying the only bad art is art that does not invoke an emotion, and that stuck with me all these years that I think that the worst thing that you could say to an artist is yeah, does nothing for me, like there's no emotion. So if you look at something like what's a famous one, like the screaming man you know at this base there, it's one that a lot of people probably identify with and you look at that, some people be like oh my God, that invokes terror, that makes me afraid, that scares me, or whatever it is. You invoked an emotion, right, and that is an artist's goal, right, to bring some emotion out of the observer, the person looking at this.
Speaker 3:So yeah, there, you know, the relationship between the artist and the audience is an emotional one. Right Again, all your board primal again. People see a piece of art and they connect with it in a very deep way because it's hitting your emotions. It's an emotional response, it's making you feel something and that's really what art does. And going back to what you're talking about, about, you know there's a lot of people that are like, oh, I can't do art. You know, the best advice I ever got about art, but also about life in general, of all places, comes from I got a lot of kids, so we watch a lot of cartoons and there was a cartoon called Adventure Time.
Speaker 3:And there was a little dog character named Jake. Jake the dog, very famous cartoon character. Best advice I ever got about art and life and he said don't be afraid to suck at something, because sucking at something is the first step to being almost pretty good at something.
Speaker 2:So that, well, that's sage advice.
Speaker 2:That's a good advice, it's huge advice and you know what? It's very sage advice for people that are getting out of the military, because we get out like say, you do a whole career. Even if you don't do a whole career, you do any extended amount of time and you get good at what you're doing. So whatever fields you're in, you've learned how to navigate it. You might be the subject matter expert, the go-to person. You are valued in some sense and the longer you're in there, the more you have that sense of purpose. Maybe you're special ops out in the field getting it done in there before everybody else, whatever it may be, and then you literally hard stop, you go, you're out. You know it's like one day and like I was out during COVID.
Speaker 2:Yeah and so you have that hard stop and then you are now in a world that you don't know. You have now had some kind of trauma. There is nobody that gets out of the military without some level of trauma. That's just what it is. Why, because of the jobs that we do, and so we're trying to process all this trauma or the stress or whatever it is we're trying to come off all that and we're out in this world and we don't trust anybody and we don't know where to start, because we're really good and so we almost have some expectation, like okay, well, whatever I do, I gotta be really good, and I'm like, no, you're kind of gonna suck because you don't know.
Speaker 3:Because you're new.
Speaker 2:You're new at it, yeah you're new and you have to go back to being new. And so when we're in our 20s, like if we don't care, we're just like, yeah, get out there and do whatever, we're just trying to figure it out. And then you get eight years and 10 years and 15, 20. And now we're wiser and we have experience. Now we know, and I always said one of the best things about the last years of my career was like I could help guide and I could just give reins to other people and go oh, you should go to the left, you should go to the right, you should, hey, pull that rain a little and help guide them and watch them succeed and watch them do great things. Cause I didn't have to do that anymore, cause I knew, so to speak. I mean, we're always learning, but I'm just saying in that sense.
Speaker 2:And then you come out and you're like I don't have my uniform, I'm dealing with some trauma, mental health, whatever's going on, and I don't know this whole sea of people that I'm in with, holy crap. So when you have something like art, right, and you going back to this art where you can block the world out, like I took a pottery class, I fell in love with it and one of the things I learned was you have to let go to be in control. So speak to that like on the painting side of that. When you guys are doing this with the Patriot Art Foundation, how are you engaging these veterans? Like, what are you guys doing to kind of teach them this stuff?
Speaker 3:Well, we have lots of different programs. I am the one that there's myself and another artist that teaches. I do the drawing classes. There's another artist that does painting classes, and then our founder, mary White, has a program called Watercolor Boot Camp, because she's a water colorist, and so for me, I teach live Zoom classes at the VA hospitals around the country.
Speaker 2:Very cool. So, like all the VA's that comes up when you do it, or a certain one, no, so individual VA hospitals.
Speaker 3:they contact us and they say we wanna have some of your art classes, and then we work out a time with them and then, like I, teach an eight week drawing course. And so, like this Thursday, I'll be Salt Lake City's VA hospital and I'll be teaching a drawing class. I think we're in week five of our eight week course and it's a two hour class and I'm over Zoom, I can see them, they can see me. They're emailing me their art homework and I'm critiquing it. Oh neat. And we take them step by step from how to draw a circle and at the end they're drawing a portrait of a person sitting in front of them.
Speaker 2:That's so cool.
Speaker 3:And we take you step by step and the bottom line is is that anybody can learn to do anything? It's about Technique, proper training and practice. Yeah, and that's really all it is. And so we're getting rid of the mystique. A lot of people think oh, you were just born with art, you know no, well, you kind of were. So I'm glad. Well, you said that. But you know, if you, like Michelangelo said, if people knew how hard I worked to attain my mastery, they wouldn't think it was so wonderful that's true.
Speaker 3:And so when all you other kids at Littlefield the campground were playing, where was I? I was drawing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you were, we're out the rock. I mean we were everywhere.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, that's true, you know, but the point is is that I would draw every single day at least two, three hours.
Speaker 2:Well, it's funny too. You say that, right Cause now I'm thinking back right, because remember, jeff used to draw heavily, so that's my cousin, right? So Jeff drew. I remember we'd be at camp, You'd be drawing, jeff would be drawing whatnot, and then you kept with it. Right? Jeff became a police officer instead.
Speaker 3:And so that's like you know. When you see an artist that has a high skill level, there's a lot of hours involved.
Speaker 3:You know no one ever said to the concert pianist oh, you were just born being able to play a piano. We just recognize they've been practicing playing the piano probably since they were three years old, Right, and they never stopped. Hours and hours and hours. Anybody can learn to draw. There's a mystique about it. Anybody can learn to paint. What we do at the Patriot Art Foundation is we tell people anybody can do this. We're going to teach you some basic skills so that you can. Then, the better you are at your art, the better you'll be able to share your heart through that art and communicate who you are on the inside for other people. And that's really what we're doing is.
Speaker 3:The motto of the Patriot Art Foundation is helping veterans to tell their story through the arts. That's really what we're doing. And so we have classes over a Zoom, meeting with the VA hospitals. And then we have there's a company called Terracotta that we work with. That does our watercolor boot camp, which is a very, very intense course with Mary White. I mean this is like an absolutely amazing opportunity to train with the best watercolors probably in the world, intimately training with her. And we offer these things absolutely free to veterans. All they have to do is go to our website and sign up for these courses and they can take these courses. We even send you the art supplies.
Speaker 2:So I always Are you guys? Sponsored. I mean, do you guys have sponsors that I'm?
Speaker 3:raising. We have donations. You know anybody can donate. We're a 501C3 nonprofit organization so we have donations. We have sponsors, we have all kinds of things. Terracotta is a big, big sponsor for us. They're one of our partners and we do classes. There have been events where we're teaching art classes literally right on the deck of the Yorktown aircraft carrier.
Speaker 3:Oh that's so cool and it's super fun. You have all these veterans sitting down taking a painting class and the cadets at the Citadel are helping out and being our gopher's making sure we've got their supplies and stuff. But there's so many events that we offer to veterans. Plus, we have our podcasts where we interview. We interview some of the top artists in the country today who also happen to be veterans Everybody from photographers to painters, to illustrators, sculptors, everything in between.
Speaker 2:I met one in Savannah. So we were there it was. I did not know this my when a couple of my veterans told me like hey, ma'am, did you know that the biggest St Patrick's Day party the third biggest is in Savannah? And I was like no, because I found out my birthday was St Patrick's Day. And so we went and we went down, and then we're on the square and walked into this artist building and lots of different artists in there, and the first gentleman we met was a veteran in his artwork and let me tell you it was very telling. I could, even if I hadn't met him, I could see the stress in the art. And then when I met him, he was really intense, nice guy but really intense, and it totally matched what I was seeing in the art. It was crazy.
Speaker 3:It's amazing, and you know the arts and the military have had a very deep relationship for a long time. Anybody that's been stationed. Look at all the buildings that have murals on.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Everywhere right and every squadron has the squadron artist that does the party, oh yes, and does things like that. But there's actually like, had I known now what I knew, then I most likely would probably gone in the Marines, because in the Marine Corps they actually have a job, an MOS, called Combat Artist, where you go into combat zones with a sketch pad.
Speaker 3:You have a sketch pad and somebody's shooting at your back end Like literally literally and they go into these hot zones and they're drawing and painting and they come back and they do these great paintings and that's an actual MOS in the Marines.
Speaker 1:Combat Artist.
Speaker 3:Who are you doing that? I know and a guy named Chris Battles. He's like the head of that for the Marines and he is the artist in residence at the Marine Corps Museum and we interviewed him. He talked about it on our podcast. It was absolutely amazing. In other branches you have combat photographers, where you go into combat with a camera.
Speaker 2:And our second one. That is a no joke. If you're like, oh, you're just taking pictures, I'm like you know what a lot of those guys come out with PTSD because, guess what, they're taking pictures. And there is a psychological thing that happens when you're there, capturing the history visually and you're not helping.
Speaker 3:I interviewed a lady named Stacy Parasol and she's an absolute award winning, world class photographer. That was her job in the military and I asked her straight up. I said you know, you're in there, bullets whizzing by your head and people getting blown up left and right. How do you know? Cause she obviously had a firearm also. And I said how do you know when to shoot back with your rifle and when to stand up and take a photo? And this let me tell you. This is a woman that's been blown up twice. Okay, she finally had to get medically retired from military and she did miss a beat. I'm asking her when do you shoot back or when do you go click? How do you know what to do? And she did miss a beat. She said pucker factor.
Speaker 2:I was going to say depending on the height of the bullet.
Speaker 3:And now she said pucker factor. She said, basically, how clenched are you in the back? That tells you what to do. And I mean she did be bad and I when she said it, that is hilarious. She is an amazing, an amazing woman. Now that she's in the civilian, she works with with veteran hospitals. She takes photographs and portraits of veterans and she has a vet dog.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, like a service dog, yeah, and she is one of the biggest promoters of US vet dogs and things like that. Yeah, stacey Perthall, if you don't know her, you guys should definitely write her name down. And she has a show on PBS where she interviews veterans.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's cool, do you hey? Do you guys do? Do you guys do art shows with the veterans? Like you know, they're finished work. Do you ever do like any like gala fundraising?
Speaker 3:That's something that we're still pretty new, but that's something that is a very big possibility in the future Having like an art show with with the veterans from our art class and things like that.
Speaker 2:We need to talk. I have an idea I'll pitch later.
Speaker 3:Oh, sounds great, Sounds great. Yeah, I got it. I recently got. We just had our annual board meeting in Charleston, so so my wife and I we drove up to Charleston. Had never been to that city, so it was kind of fun. Beautiful there. Oh, it really was amazing Going to Patriots Point and seeing the York town and the battleship and then the Vietnam Park was. We were there for four and a half hours and it went by like that. We had such a what's, such a great time. But at that annual board meeting we were talking about things and I, my wife and I, we got a tour of the Citadel and they have a gigantic new building completely dedicated to art.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:And they gave us a tour of their facilities. They have a beautiful brand new art gallery in there. They have just it's top of all, I mean it's an. You know, their budget's a little bigger than most art organizations, yeah, and it's so amazing. But that goes back to what I was saying earlier about how the military's history with the visual arts is deep. Yes, and it's always been there. I mean think I mean it just not only the murals in every building, almost in the military, but then you have you know we were painting on the nose cones of aircraft, you know things like that, and our patches. You know those are some serious things to the military and all of that art has an effect and it's basically a way for us to tell our stories.
Speaker 3:Connect the story, connect the story yeah, you see that patch. You're like yeah, that's me, you know, and patches challenge coins, the, yeah, all of those things you know and that's all visual art and it's a powerful thing.
Speaker 3:So that's really. The Patriot Art Foundation is kind of like taking that and bringing it into. Now you're a civilian and you've got some stories to tell and you've got some things to deal with and you know, you call it art therapy, call it just trying to trying to figure things out, but again, it's about sharing who you are in here with the world and sometimes the mouth just can't pull it off. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It just literally cannot do it. I mean, that's a, that's a true thing. To try to form the words, to try to process what you dealt with or saw or whatever. It sometimes does not work and when I remember, you know there's things called um, was it CPT, which is a form of talk therapy, cbt, another form, and I have had veterans or service members tell me I couldn't do that, I can't. You know, I can't do post traumatic like talk, I can't talk about this. And so we've got.
Speaker 2:You know there's so many other modalities. You know there's equine therapy, the art therapy, like we've been talking about those, neurofeedback, anything that desensitizes the this, that nervous system down to get away from the fight or flight or fright. And then maybe this is just the world accord, nidana, whatever it's worth. Once that system is under control and calmer, then maybe it's a time that they could process it verbally. But it doesn't have to be a requirement to be like we'll talk about it, you'll feel better. Nah, dude, that's not necessarily the case, but to express it and have a product. You know my husband will always like. When I retired, he used to say to me you don't always need to have a product Like, you can do something without having a product, and I honestly, it's hard for me to comprehend that, like, if I do stuff, I want to see what I've done, I want to create however that looks right. And so here you are with art and you can express yourself, and you don't have to tell anybody what that means, right?
Speaker 3:That's the beauty of it. See, that's what I'm trying to, you know. You know, in the military we tend to have more realism, art. But art can be splashes of color, it can be all kinds of things, you know. I mean, just using this color versus that color can express an emotion. Or how you throw it on the canvas or how you sculpt with it, whatever it is that you're doing, it does, it expresses that inner, deeper, primal emotions, and there's a million ways you can do that without uttering anything Right.
Speaker 2:And you know the cool thing is, the other person gets to interpret it, because it's also therapeutic for the audience, right, they get to look at that and they get to interpret it and say this is what it means to me. This has meaning to me, so there is no requirement to you. Know, in some artists I've heard artists say what does it mean to you? What does it matter what it means to me, what does it mean to you, Right?
Speaker 3:And then it's like oh, that was the whole thing with the non-representational art movement, like Jackson Pollock with the splatter art. What does it mean? It doesn't mean anything. What do you think it means? That was how that art genre, that's what it was about. I'm not going to tell you what it means. You decide that for yourself and that's one of those powerful things. Other art is more like realism tends to be. You're trying to tell a story through art that way, but there's a million ways to tell your story and get. But a lot of times it's just the process itself of creating something you push. You're putting so much of your soul into that thing, Even if you're not trying to tell a story with your art, just creating the art. The process can be so taxing and so so much of your emotions go into that process that you have that release. Yeah, and that is very therapeutic, it's very powerful.
Speaker 2:I think, okay, now we have to hold for a minute, because now my dog's trying to go out. So see, this is just real talk. Here we are, so hold on, wait one second, okay, crazy dog, sorry, she's like behind me, like scratching, put her head in my lap. I'm like.
Speaker 3:God dang it. Oh yeah, she had. You know, your job means nothing to her. She wants what she wants. It's all about her.
Speaker 2:Right, Exactly so. We're God. We burn an hour almost, Listen to us. We could talk all day. You and I have always been talkers anyway.
Speaker 1:That's why we've done that podcast?
Speaker 2:That's probably right. So what so do they? Does Mary show her artwork around like where can she, where can you see Patriot Art Foundation work? I mean.
Speaker 3:Now, now her we, the People, exhibit. It was on display at the Marine Corps Museum for quite a while, and then it was most recently in the Army's Museum. Oh nice, and then now I believe I believe that that is not on display right now we're looking for the next venue for that.
Speaker 3:You should bring it to San Antonio Military military, military, military installation, any place that we have an audience. All they have to do is contact the Patriot Art Foundation and work with Mary White and she will. She will get that exhibit wherever it. Anybody that wants it can have it. We just have to schedule it. But it is an absolutely phenomenal exhibit. The paintings that she's done of these veterans you know some are, some are World War II veterans, Some are, you know, some are all the way to Afghanistan, you know, very recent, all the way to, you know, World War II and everything in between. But these aren't like small paintings, no, Some of the paintings are eight feet across and they're watercolors.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, you know watercolors are usually on paper and you paint, you know, flat Little, yeah, right, but she's painting straight up on an easel with these gigantic pieces of paper and, like I said, when you look at her paintings, they're absolutely, they're photographic, they're so beautiful in their realism. She is, without exaggeration, one of the greatest water colorists of this generation by far, if not ever. And also when it comes to her clout in the art world. But also, you know, just forget like we have skill level that is through the roof. But her reputation in the art world is absolutely. She is an absolute legend in the painting world and as a portrait artist, she's on the board of directors for the Portrait Society of America as well as other organizations, right, so to have her displaying her work anywhere is a very, very big deal, and I'm not even exaggerating a little bit when I say that she's a big deal. So to get the we, the People, exhibit would be a huge win for any organization.
Speaker 2:We need to get it down here. We have the McNay and then we have Audie Murphy itself. I don't know if there's room down there, but my gosh, we have many, many bases down here that might be able to support it. But yeah, we need to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and if your base doesn't have a spot on base, they can always sponsor it at the local art museum or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's our McNay. I bet you the McNay would do it. They bring in some incredible stuff. I love going down there. That is awesome. All right, so we need to wrap up, because we'll just keep talking, and talking, and talking and we haven't seen each other in forever, so then we'll just catch up and it'll be forever and bore everybody else, right?
Speaker 3:So all right, do you have a great story.
Speaker 2:We do. We have a lot of stories Probably can't say them on the show. So what's your last thoughts that you want to impart to veterans? You want them to know.
Speaker 3:You know, for the veterans that are out there, you know it's important for you to. You've got you've got things in you that other people need to see, they need to experience. You know we all have our stories and I'm going back to the Patriot Art Foundation thing, hoping veterans tell their stories through the arts. But it's it that, that's. That's so true. You know, when you're in the military you're looking out for the guy or the girl next to you. You know you're in the foxhole together, you're in the trenches together, you're just, you know, working side by side together. There's a brotherhood and a sisterhood there. Right, we're there for each other. You don't really think about yourself, you think about the people around you, sometimes more than you do yourself, and that's that brotherhood, that's that sisterhood that we all have. And then we get out and we don't have it anymore. And it's hard sometimes, and that's probably one of the hardest things that veterans have to deal with is that, that camaraderie and that family that they don't feel anymore. And so you've got something in you that can help other veterans and, whether that's art or something else, you need to be able to find a way to share your experiences with other veterans and just other people in general, help them to navigate. And so you are important and you can be a blessing to somebody else.
Speaker 3:And for the Patriot Art Foundation, we are there to help you find your way of doing that. You know, when you find your thing that you may never thought could have been your thing, like when you were talking about pottery, once you started playing with that we were like where's this been all my life? Exactly, some people get they pick up that pencil for the first time and they're like, wow, this thing is amazing and I love it. This thing is really just my thing now. Or a paintbrush or whatever. But when you find your thing, if it is a creative venture, my gosh, it can transform your life. But then that art that you create can be that avenue of communication to transform somebody else.
Speaker 2:So I've been at touch on this real fast when you just you said something that I strongly believe in, and when I actually do coaching with people, this is what my goal is is that you know how to navigate the military. You're looking out for your brother and sisters, you are you know. When you walk in a room where you stand, based on what uniforms are in there, you know where to dodge the oh shit, here it comes. You know, or you know? You know that world we don't know ourselves anymore because we are service before self. So we, you know, we are encouraging the audience to get out there and try something new.
Speaker 3:You know there are guys that you know, I mean they're working on a laid, they're creating bowls and candle mobbers oh yeah, woodworking is absolutely visual art.
Speaker 3:It's functional but it's still visual art and it's beauty. So there's all kinds of ways. I've got a friend that's a sculptor, you know, and he's chiseling and working with Clay and chiseling on a marble. There's so many different kinds of visual arts, but when humans are innately creative beings, we want to create things, and it's not just functional. Everybody can have a house, but everybody wants a pretty house, because we can't help ourselves. We want humans are drawn to aesthetics, we want to make things beautiful, and that creative process is so ingrained and you go all the way back to the cave paintings. Those are some pieces of art and you know it's like this. You know, if you think about this way, when man first discovered iron, they didn't create a weapon, they didn't create a tool. They used it to make red paint. Oh, that's a good point, because it was rustic. That's the first thing humans did with iron.
Speaker 2:You know what I was thinking of. I was thinking of the grocery store. When you walk into a grocery store and it's well laid out and the colors, like because you always see the fruit section first, right, Because it's colorful, and when it is well cared for, you are drawn in. And when it looks like just people threw it in there, you're like, even though that food's still good aesthetically, you're drawn to that nice and neat. You know you go to Whole Foods and that's their whole thing. You know it looks all amazing and you know, and then you pay five bucks more because it looks amazing, because they're creating art with it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's a good point. Like it is all around us. Art is everywhere, Every single thing that we do, the clothes that we wear, the looking over at my son's lunch box that he left over here and it's decorated, it's got design on it. You know we don't just walk around like Vera Wang and all plain black. You know what I mean, and even that that's a statement for her right. So, yeah, I think that's kind of what we're trying to bring to the table.
Speaker 2:Everybody is that it's all around us, it is in eight in us. As Tim said, it is who we are. It is what we are, and when we can get that out, it does a couple things. We get to process emotions through it, and then we get to share what we created with others. That may help them process emotions too. And how can you go wrong? Right, that's a win-win. There we go, All right. All right, everybody that's Beyond the Frontline with just me this week. So, from our parent podcast Coming Home Well, and us at Beyond the Frontline, we hope you guys have an awesome week.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Beyond the Frontline, a podcast of Coming Home. Well, join us every other Wednesday and if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with others, post about it on social media or leave a rating and review. Thanks again, and until all are home and all are well.