The Art of Coaching Teams and Building Resilient Communities Book Study

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Community Building Art Works brings Veterans together

Published On: April 29th, 2020 | 738 words | 2.6 min read |

Community Edifice Fine art Works (CBAW) is a Veteran service organization that builds healthy and connected communities through workshops led past professional person artists. Veterans and civilians share creative expression, mutual agreement and support. Their mission is to make certain that no Veteran bears the burden of service alone.

Borne out of a program started at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the team has held workshops and performances for service members across the country. A performance past x Veterans in one of their poetry programs was featured in the HBO Documentary, "We Are Not Done Nonetheless."

Artist and Veteran Rene Vincit attends CBAW workshops for interpersonal growth.

Artist and Veteran Rene Vincit attends CBAW workshops for interpersonal growth.

Now, through gratis online workshops held via video conference, Veterans and civilians from across the country and around the world tin can come together in creative expressive workshops to share an authentic connectedness.

Learning to Slow Downward Afterwards Service

FMF Corpsman Rene Vincit's service in the Navy took him all over the world—from Afghanistan to Camp Pendleton. While creating has been in his claret since he was sketching abstract figures as a child in elementary school in Springfield, Va., it was a skill he put abroad after joining the military. He had toyed with writing, creating his first web log when he was 25 years quondam. "Equally with [visual] fine art, I developed a passion for it just put it away to focus on [war machine] grooming." Vincit held no real expectations other than beingness excited to get away from group talk therapy, but experiencing the arts again in a grouping setting, his talent came dorsum naturally.

Exploring art and writing was difficult at start because he had never analyzed the emotions and questions behind what he created. "It was through the [art and writing] workshops that I learned to wearisome down and accept a conversation with myself about what I was feeling" in those moments of pen to paper or brush to sheet.

When asked what value he got from the CBAW workshops, Vincit said, "You tin't place a value on interpersonal growth."

No Experience Necessary

Over the past decade, tens of thousands of Veterans, service members and military family members with no prior creative feel take plant their voices through CBAW'south workshops. Even if you're not planning to exist a professional artist, creative expression, and writing in detail, can help anyone struggling to find the words for difficult experiences to name what they're feeling and ease the burden.

Each workshop begins with the introduction of a theme, oft through a poem that the group reads together.

"I often joke that 99% of my job is undoing whatever English teachers take done to make you feel similar you tin't write or collaborate with fine art. No creative writing experience is required–if you can talk, you can write." – Seema Reza, writer and co-founder of Community Building Art Works

Finding Your Phonation

In these workshops, Navy Veteran Guadalupe Gutierrez found her voice again. She learned to write "without judging myself. I learned to trust my thoughts and validate my feelings. I learned that it's okay to experience emotions." Gutierrez transitioned out of the war machine in July 2018. "I used to think the military was all I had, I didn't know who I was without the military." Writing every day has helped her proceed her self-discovery in a judgement-costless way.

She lives in California and journals every day. One time in a while she attends an open mic nighttime and reads ane of her poems. She encourages other Veterans to write and together, they share their writings with each other, as a form of healing.

Art helped Gutierrez notice a creative side that she didn't know she had. "I'm not a professional artist, but it's helped me with grounding when the world seems to spin. It also helped me find color when the world seems dull." Earlier the workshops, Gutierrez says she was merely going through the motions of life. "All three [art, music, and writing] helped me live again; helped me run into that life exists after trauma and that I am not defined by my trauma. Every time I engaged in writing a function of me healed."

Community Building Art Works offers gratis online creative workshops led by professional person artists every Wed, Thursday, and Friday. Check their website events listing for more info on workshops in April and May.


The sharing of any non-VA information does not constitute an endorsement of products and services on part of the VA.

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  1. Art speaks and reflection the emotion of people.

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Source: https://blogs.va.gov/VAntage/74185/community-building-art-works-brings-veterans-together/

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