The Annual Healing Arts Exhibit opened October 16 in the America Building pavilion at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC) in Bethesda, Maryland.  The exhibit, jointly sponsored by the John P. Murtha Cancer Center and ground-breaking Creative Arts Program of WRNMMC, featured poetry, and music, accompanied by the artists explaining the role that art is making in their recovery.  The show is given each year in “memory of those who lost their battle or were lost in battle; and in celebration of those who continue on…”

The Walter Reed Chorus opened the show followed by Chorus founder, and arts in healing advocate, Captain Paul Andreason, Attending Psychiatrist, WRNMMC Trauma Recovery Unit.  U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) Captain Andreason said, “art, which is from our emotional selves, can give words to both the joy and pain we feel, so we may bear each other’s burdens and share each other’s joys.”

Past and present members of the USAF Strolling Strings and the USUHS Dermatones, an a cappella group of future military physicians in training at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences also performed during the show’s reception. USPHS Cmdr. Cynthia Nielsen-McArdle read a poem written by an Army nurse who worked in the Warrior Clinic at WRNMMC and served as an intensive trauma unit nurse while on deployment in Afghanistan. Her poem described her experiences serving there and the tragedies of war. USPHS Capt. Moira G. McGuire, assistant chief for Integrated Health Services at WRNMMC and an organizer for the show, welcomed visitors to the Healing Exhibit and added that, “We have had the fortune and joy to showcase the transformative power of the arts to our hospital community and family for 11 years.” Also speaking on behalf of the John P. Murtha Cancer Center at Walter Reed, where the show has its roots, was Director Colonel (Dr.) Craig Shriver who said there is an undeniable connection between healing, science and art, and quoted French artist George Braque, stating, “Art is a wound turned into light.”

The visual arts ranged from glass fusion, mixed media collage, to paintings and quilting, the artists present at the opening explained the process of healing by creating art.   Navy operations specialist 1st class in recovery at WRNMMC, Kimberly N. Harper, pointed out the stages of her art and explained that art has provided an outlet for her anxiety as she heals and rehabilitates at the nation’s medical center.  Harper and fellow artists all expressed the desire to continue helping other recovering soldiers through art after their experiences.

Also on exhibit were pieces from The Combat Paper Project, haunting collages created through papermaking workshops where veterans use their uniforms worn in service to create works of art.

Guest speaker Kristin La Flamme, narrative textile artist and Army wife, spoke to the experience of the military family and how it drives her artwork, allowing her to express challenges and frustrations through art.  La Flamme exhibited a Quilt and three aprons from her “Army Wife” collection. The quilt, “Suck it Up and Drive On” is created from her husband’s uniforms and his army issue “wubbie”, used by deployed soldiers to cover and camouflage themselves in the field.  She identified with the Healing Arts exhibit as “deeply personal and meaningful art of all types” and pointing out that “it’s a lot easier to express one’s feelings, or to work through things, by creating something with our hands rather than trying to craft just the right words. This healing arts exhibit is just about that — the importance of having art as one of the tools in our resiliency toolbox.”