LAKEWOOD, Colo. — This week, more than 100 veterans from around the country are in Denver for the National Veterans Creative Arts Festival.
The event recognizes the art veterans have created while giving them space to process trauma and heal in new ways together.
"For me, it's been a phenomenal boost physically, mentally and spiritually," said Felix Ruiz Jr., an Air Force veteran from Orlando, Florida.
As men and women came into the festival Monday afternoon, they were greeted with a wave of sound. Veterans including Ruiz had turned the main hallway into a jam session.
“The camaraderie that we build here at these events in such a short time, the bond is so strong regardless of what branch we served in – Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard. We’re all represented here and we’re all brothers for a long time to come," Ruiz said.
The music here, Ruiz said, feels more healing than medicine.
“Tremendously so, more than pharmacology, drug medicine," Ruiz said. "These moments that we've spent here, what you've just witnessed has brought my soul and my physical being to a higher level to where I can cope with the levels of pain and the other issues that I've been dealing with."
Ruiz said the art, the music and the creativity at the heart of this festival mean so much to him.
"It means healing. Because that's what it truly is, it's healing," Ruiz said.
"I think it's instrumental," said Nadene Stillings, a board-certified art therapist at the VA in Bedford, Massachusetts and Fine Arts Chairperson of the Steering Committee for the National Veterans Creative Arts Festival.
Stillings said art can be critical when it comes to healing.
"Especially for folks who language isn’t comfortable for them, talking about what’s going on in their lives isn’t necessarily going to be accessible," Stillings said. "And in the case of trauma, doing while processing whatever that trauma might be, is really instrumental in realigning our nervous system, in being able to really forward or move through or just sit with whatever that trauma or disability or difference might be. So yeah, I think art gives us ways to speak that doesn't involve words."
The veterans coming to this festival from around the country have already won national recognition for the art they've created. And throughout the coming week, they'll be celebrating one another's work while creating new pieces and memories together.
"This becomes like a huge community where people are really able to see that they're not alone," Stillings said.
With every brush stroke, every photo, every song, the work here is helping one another tear down the walls they've built surrounding their service.
"These types of events, programs bring us together so that we can help pull ourselves up and help pull each other up," Ruiz said.
The community has two chances to see some of the work these veterans have created.
On Thursday, May 16 at 7 p.m., the stage show will be held at the Newman Center for the Performing Arts on the University of Denver campus. Free tickets can be reserved online here.
An art and writing exhibition will be held at Stanley Marketplace in Aurora on Friday, May 17 from 4 to 6 p.m.
Both events are free and open to all.
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