ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the service members' sketch project elucidating an intervention by those artists and art therapists who do not work routinely with service members. One weekend each year, for over ten years, the church the author attends on the Bay area peninsula cancels worship service in order to serve their neighbors and their communities. The communities have submitted proposals for some interactive care services or property restoration service often located in senior residential facilities and local Veteran Administration (VA) hospitals. A group of artists, participating in the Joe Bonham Project, created portraits of service members recovering at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The proposal requested support for one day at the Poly-Trauma Unit and one day at the Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Unit, the cost of 50 frames for the portraits, and scrumptious lunches for the vets, staff, and artists. The vets appear to like what they see and make connections with their peers in the therapeutic environment.