The featured cover art this month is a product of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art’s “Art Therapy Access” Program. For the second year, the museum has partnered with a local organization, allowing participants to work with a professional art therapist. This year’s focus is “Hands of Honor,” a collaboration with the Veterans Affairs Medical Center at Memphis (VAMC).

Last year, the Brooks Museum worked with Alzheimer’s Day Services of Memphis. The program, funded by a grant from the H. W. Durham Foundation, has been administered by local art therapist Karen Peacock and includes art creation sessions, museum tours and an exhibition of participants’ art.

Based on the belief that the creative process helps people resolve conflicts and problems, manage behavior and reduce stress, art therapy is a mental health profession using the artistic process to enhance the physical, mental and emotional well being of individuals.

“The program’s goal was to provide opportunities for veterans to share life stories and develop meaningful relationships through the experience of creating art,” Peacock said.

The “Hands of Honor program” was tailored to two patient groups: one with mental health issues and one with physical disabilities. The program’s aim for mental health patients is to encourage emotional expression through art. For the physically disabled, it is to build self-confidence. Approximately 20 senior veterans from VAMC  receiving treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, physical or emotional injury trauma, substance abuse or chronic mental illness participated this year.

More than 195,000 veterans live in the Mid-South area and of this population segment, over 17,000 receive medical and mental health care services through the VA. Many veterans experience depression, anger, irritability, low self-esteem, problems concentrating and sleeping and have some difficulty leading productive lives. An April 2008 New York Times article reported an average of 18 suicides per day among American veterans.

“The exhibition reflects the amazing diversity that the veterans portrayed in our sessions together:  tranquil landscapes, war and military depictions, self-portraits, and spontaneous imagery,” Peacock said.
The image of the man and woman on the cover of Good Health was produced by Bernard Cannon, Air Force, Communications Squadron, enlistment 1973. The image was part of an exercise called “scribble drawing.”

“It was sort of accidental. The directions were ‘Close your eyes and use the hand you don’t normally use and scribble on the paper,’” said Cannon. “We opened up our eyes and looked at what we had scribbled and tried to make something. I saw two faces and tried to join the line – that was my first time ever doing something like that.”

Cannon served a total of six years in the post-Vietnam era. He does not have any formal art training but has always had a knack for it, doing woodcarvings in his younger years.

“Art serves as a relief valve that keeps me focused and my mind occupied, deterring me from aspects of my mental illness,” he said. “It aids me in my expression of myself and how I fit in with others in society, at being social and communicating effectively.”

“Hands of Honor: A Collaboration with the Veterans Hospital” Curated by Art Therapist Karen Peacock and Curator of Education Karleen Gardner will be on exhibit at the Memphis Brooks Museum from January 10 – March 8, 2009. For information, visit brooksmuseum.org or call 901.544.6200.

by Ginger H. Porter