Healing in Arts has run Art of Resilience for six years. This fall its exhibit was at Veterans Memorial Park, and the next workshop is for women veterans and their boots.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. Art of Resilience, the annual veteran art program run by Healing in Arts, showed this year at ArtPrize at Veterans Memorial Park in Grand Rapids. WOOD TV 8 covered the exhibit on October 2, and Yahoo News picked up the story.

The program invites veterans to turn their military experience into paintings, sculpture, photography, and mixed media. Veterans choose their own materials and decide how to tell their stories. The finished work goes on public view, with the stated aim of starting conversations and building understanding between military and civilian communities.

Healing in Arts is based at 3144 Broadmoor Ave SE, Suite B, in Grand Rapids. The organization says it serves more than 2,000 people a year through more than 50 workshops. It also reports that more than 80 percent of participants have improved well-being and more than 67 percent have less isolation. Those numbers are the organization’s own, drawn from its website, and Brush & Quill has not independently verified them.

The program describes its approach as trauma-informed, and it says plainly that the workshops are not clinical treatment. Veterans who want trauma care are directed to qualified professionals. The Veterans Crisis Line is available whether or not a veteran is enrolled in VA care: call 988 and press 1, text 838255, or chat online.

On October 12, Healing in Arts announced “Boots on the Fence,” a free workshop for women veterans on October 24 at SHero’s Corner in Kentwood. Participants will turn military boots into art.

Sources and linksHealing in Arts: Art of Resilience