American Veterans Art Wall January Spotlight

This month, The American Veterans Art Wall (AVAW) spotlight honors Jim Zenner and the Volunteers of America. Zenner is the head of the Hollywood Veteran’s Center (HVC). For the lucky few, the Hollywood Veterans Center is the first step back to life from life on the streets. HVC is a sober dormitory in the heart of the non-glamorous part of Hollywood that gives veterans with readjustment problems a chance to reclaim their humanity, their identity and then rejoin society.

Too often, even among veterans themselves, men and women on the streets are written off. To write people off you must first stop seeing them as individuals. As a group it is easier to shrug and say, “What can be done?” Society then makes plans to gentrify the eyesore of skid row, pointing to higher real estate values and forgetting there were people there, and not just people, individuals. The neighborhood becomes trendy and those who lived on the streets are gone, once again invisible.

Skid Rows are inhabited by veterans and non-veterans, but not to see the difference is not seeing. Accused of having the problems and of coming from the fringes of society before they entered the military, their plight is met with “What can be expected?” And the military and what they experienced cannot be blamed.

The Volunteers of America has been serving the needs of the homeless for more than 119 years and the needs of homeless veterans since WW I. The Volunteers of American is a service ministry that uses the talents of its volunteers to reach veterans. VOA has been able to adapt to the changing needs of those in need.

The Hollywood Veterans Center (HVC) is a facility that can house and give shelter to as many as 48 men. HVC’s steward, Jim Zenner has family military roots dating back to the Revolutionary War. He returned from Iraq with a desire to start his civilian life and attended graduate school at USC. But like too many who returned, he brought back more than he had bargained for from Iraq, and at first he did not know where to turn for help.

Getting help is probably the hardest part of recovery. But he looked at his son and he knew what he had to do. He found the help he needed at VOA and the Veterans Administration (VA), and being a man of service soon began to donate his time.

Upon graduation he was offered the job of running the Hollywood Veterans Center, a thankless job. The truth is, not everyone can be saved. Even after long periods of making progress, some just can’t make it, and if these cases cannot be let go they will drag those around them down as well.

Homeless means not just doing without, it means that much of what makes us human has been taken away. Privacy, dignity, respect, the ability to be clean and dry and warm; eventually the ability to wake up believing today will be better is gone as well.

To be seen as “other,” not worthy, is frightening. To not have one moment, day or night when the fight or flight mechanism is not engaged is exhausting. The drug that was once an escape is now the master from whom escape seems impossible.

Then for veterans you add training that taught you to kill, to not think for yourself but follow commands and to “man up” and not seek help. For many veterans, when you add Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), the hill one needs to climb to get back into society becomes very, very steep indeed.

David Hahn, President of AVAW was introduced to the men at HVC. Suddenly he felt he was the zoo animal. Older, a non-veteran, talking about “art,” there seemed no point at which their lives linked. He perceived at first just one face, steeled against emotion, polite, angry, scared, and reticent to be open about anything.

There was frat house joking and teasing, but it had none of the joy of a frat house. In many ways they offered one face, one personality. There was interest, but not one person said, “Yes, I will do this.” And David knew that no one checked out the AVAW website when he left – but he also knew they did not expect to see him again and they were surprised when they did.

David returned for four weeks before he got the first person to do an art submission. Every week he would get promises that it would get done but it didn’t.

He heard about their art and poems and stories but never saw them, and only heard excuses. The fourth week he brought his laptop and said, “Where’s the art? We will do it now.” Adding, “I won’t do it for you, but I will help you get it the way you want it.” It was a matter of trust and openness on both sides.

The first offering was a simple crayon drawing of a sailboat on a sunny day. A sweet, innocent drawing that could have been done by a child. I looked quizzically at the large former ultimate fighting competitor. “This is where I go when I meditate, I wanted to share it,” he said finally.

David knew the space where veterans could write about or explain their pieces was a good idea, and for the first time I knew why. Doing the piece was good, and sharing it was important.

After four weeks David no longer saw the monolith of homeless veterans but saw individuals. They had come from all walks of life and their stories were as different as the men themselves.

As soon as the first man posted his art on the website there were more faces at the door. Men who had said they had nothing brought in portfolios of work. For weeks their faces and expressions had said they had no feeling for these things yet one of these men had a wrinkled self-portrait from when he was young. “I always carry this so I remember what it was like when I was happy,” he said.
When people have been stripped of almost everything and still feel the need for art among those few possessions, David knew art was the answer.

It was then David saw the genius of Jim Zenner. He saw his charges as individuals, treated them as individuals and did so in a way that commanded respect without demanding it. He carried hope for each man HVC and knew he might loose each one. He would help them, but not do it for them.

David never heard Jim raise his voice with his charges, but said, “On a one-to-one level he will call you out just as easily as praise you. His expectations of his men are high, but was always focused on behavior and not personalities.”

When David learned that, he was suddenly able to mine for the jewels that are up on The AVAW. Over half of the residents at that time posted their art onto the website.

Turning skid row neighborhoods into upscale haunts for wealthy youth or arts is not a great trick. It has happened in Seattle (some say the original skid row), San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, Los Angeles’s Skid Row, and New York City’s Bowery.

Cheap bars have given way to expensive bars and galleries. The cities pat themselves on the back for doing it. Real estate upgrades take very little. Upgrading the people who inhabit Skid Rows is difficult, often-thankless work, which will only reward the soul and not the pocketbook.

American Arts Trust and The American Veterans Art Wall is very proud to be associated with the Volunteers of America who have been doing the hard work of upgrading people for more than 119 years.

Some of the men have stayed in touch to let David know where they are and how they are. Some good, some not, but all have reiterated that The AVAW meant something to them.

Soon, David will be heading back to HVC as the residency has mostly turned over. Jim has been promoted to the Skid Row facility and David will go downtown Los Angeles to work with him and the men there.

In the search window of the AVAW Gallery, type in “HVC” to see all sixteen submissions done by men with names, men with histories, men who served this country.

American Arts Trust salutes and honors the Volunteers of American, Jim Zenner and the men of the Hollywood Veterans Center for their service, for their care, for the courage not to give up. Bless you.

If you have art you would like to share, go to the AVAW now. Check it out, submit, and then take it easy. The hard part is really over. Get “it” out of your head and onto something you can deal with, and then share with your brothers and sister who love you.

http://americanartstrust.org/art-is-the-answer/initiatives/american-veterans-art-wall.html