Friend of the Vet Art Project: VetCAT

Greetings everyone!

Vet Art Project Chicago Co-Lead Artist Suellen Semekoski has been working to launch a collaboration and opportunity more centered on Creative Art Therapy. The VetCAT Program is facilitated by a group of credentialed professional art, dance/movement and poetry therapists who are trained as mental health counselors, visual artists, dancers, poets and writers to help service members with a wide range of mental health issues and to promote wellness practices. 
They have started programming and you can find more information at this link herehttp://apccchgo.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/vetcat-a-new-approach/

You can also register  here: 

Call 773-433-3252 or Email VetCAT@apcc-chgo.org with your name and a  phone number where you may be reached.
Please indicate:

SAIC, Sunday group (1pm to 4 pm)

-or-

APCC, Wednesday  group (6 pm to 9pm)

They have two groups/meetings times and locations. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Albany Park Community Center. 

Peace Through Art!

Call for Works: Vet Art Project Community Showcase: Intergenerational Trauma

Vet Art Project Chicago is gearing up for the November 2012 Community Showcase. Collaborating with the National Veteran Art Museum, and their third annual “IN WAR” event series, Vet Art Project Chicago is taking on this year’s IN WAR theme and conceptual lens: Intergenerational Trauma.
Traumatic events exact an enormous psychological and physical toll on survivors, and often have ramifications that must be endured for decades. This includes emotional scars, and in many cases standards of living are diminished, often never recovering to levels that existed prior to the trauma. These traumas can occur at a personal level or at a collective level, and the responses to such events are not identical. In the latter instance, there is now considerable evidence that the effects of trauma experiences are often transmitted across generations, affecting the children and grandchildren of those that were initially victimized. - Bombay 2009

Vet Art Project Chicago Showcases are an opportunity for veterans, family members, and artists from all disciplines to come together and share their story. This can happen through visual arts, theater, dance, poetry, spoken word, or any combination of media.  We are looking to exhibit two-dimensional and three dimensional work as space permits, as well as performances in either dance, music, song, spoken media or theater. In spite of the conceptual framework parameters, all work submitted will be considered for inclusion in the showcase.
If you are interested in participating in the November Showcase please contact Edgar Gonzalez at vetartprojectchicago@gmail.com  or call (815) 683-8278 with a short statement explaining either the performance, or submission, or an image file of the artwork you would like to exhibit along with dimensions, and any sort of specific requests. We will try our best to accommodate your work if it is selected to be shown at the showcase. 

Theater Production: A Piece of My Heart

At Vet Art Project Chicago, we try to keep an ear to the ground for interesting events and theater productions relating to experiences of veterans and of going to war. Chicago Park District's Hale Park Field House has a press release for their upcoming production of "A Piece of My Heart" by Shirley Lauro.
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The true stories of six courageous women sent to Vietnam and their struggle to make sense of a war that irrevocably changed them and a nation that shunned them. A work with the music and soul of a tumultuous era in our history.

The living memorial for stage, which debuted in New York in 1991, not only commemorates veterans of the Vietnam War, but it especially focuses on its quietest heroes -- the women who served there. Based on firsthand accounts of nurses, Red Cross workers and entertainers who volunteer

 ed to enter those distant jungles in the 1960s, the show has been praised by critics as “heart-wrenching,” “cathartic” and “a work with the music and soul of a tumultuous era.”

This kaleidoscope from Vietnam is not always reverential. It is, however, always real. A Piece of My Heart is a tumultuous look at the late ’60s, but also looks at the heartwarming comradarieof the group, with the nurses laughingly sharing memories of the escapism of drinking, drugs, lovemaking and delectable Coca-Cola from home.

Less delectable are the flashbacks of first days in surgery, their "baptism by fire" indoctrination into the hell that was a medical unit in Vietnam. The all too serious moments are lightened with songs from the period which help tell the tale of these unsung heroes.The indelible music of the 1960s is so essential to this show that it is often interspersed with lines. Everything in Lauro’s memorial – music, dialogue and monologues – are straight from the record books and record albums, and that, the cast says, makes this production special. These are actual accounts.

CAST
Meg Collins
Deborah McLaughlin
Michelle Ho
Dionne Hawkins
Jenny Hogan
Felicia Faizer
Michael J. Murphy

The production is directed by Lauren J. Polenske.

A PIECE OF MY HEART will be presented Thurs-Sat. evenings September 27th - 28th & 29th, 2012 at the Hale Park Fieldhouse, 6258 W. 62nd Street, Chicago, IL 60638. Tickets are just $8.00 for Adults and $4.00 for students & Seniors. Seating is limited and reservations are suggested. To reserve tickets, call Hale park @(773) 229-1032. Tickets will be held @ the Box Office until 15 mins. before curtain.

***A PIECE OF MY HEART contains MATURE LANGUAGE AND SUBJECT MATTER. Younger and more sensitive patrons are strongly cautioned.