PopUpMendocino

‘Epilepsy’ by Robert Louis Permenter

Pop-Up Mendocino / Lake Community Arts Café coming to Ukiah June 3

article by Karen Rifkin | for The Ukiah Daily Journal PUBLISHED: May 29, 2023 “There are a lot of us who need help, and art might be the way for some. – Robert Louis Parmenter, artist/disabled veteran  The…

article by Karen Rifkin | for The Ukiah Daily Journal

PUBLISHED: May 29, 2023

“There are a lot of us who need help, and art might be the way for some. – Robert Louis Parmenter, artist/disabled veteran 

The Veterans Art Project is bringing a Pop-Up Arts Café to Ukiah on Saturday, June 3 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Alex Thomas Plaza, featuring works of art by those who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces, current active duty and their spouses and caregivers.

The local Scott Forbes Band will perform from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Schat’s Bakery will be catering. There will be Art Car decorating, a drum circle and a medicine bag workshop.

Steve Dilley, MFA, executive director of the Veterans Art Project, founded the non-profit “through a deep sense of artistic responsibility” in 2009. It is now a 5,000-square-foot art-making facility in Vista, California, dedicated to veterans’ mental health and wellness through the arts where they teach process intensive arts classes

“Art making is something I’ve always used to survive,” he says.

“After 9/11 we saw the vets returning home, buying motorcycles and 30 packs of beer. I always thought it was a bad outcome to put someone in harm’s way, get them out of harm’s way and back home and then, lose them.”

The Pop-Up Cafés began with the VAP’s three-year innovation project funded in 2019 by Mental Health Services Oversight & Accountability Commission to increase veterans’ mental health/wealth and veteran advocacy, demonstrating how the arts have improved health, sense of community and belonging; restored a connection to having hope and purpose; and created a means of expression for the healing journey. These events are designed to engage dialogue, foster networking and speak to the unique experiences and mental health challenges of this community.

The Cafés are popping up all over California.

Dena Watson-Krasts, adjunct associate professor at Mendocino College in Dance, Communications and Psychology soon to be teaching psychology, full time in the fall, has extensive training in working with trauma victims and an artist herself. She is affiliated with the VAP and the event planner for the art show.

“I wanted to bring this here to Mendocino, my home,” she saTonya Savice is the director of Advocacy & Peer Support Specialist at the VAP and after serving 10.5 years in the Air Force, retired in 1992. Her artwork will be at the Pop-Up Café.

She was misdiagnosed early in her military career causing chronic pain and, through prescription medications, got into alcohol.

“That was my only way out of the pain during my service years,” she says.

Leaving the military, still in chronic pain, still on meds and still drinking, she attempted suicide twice.

“I had to figure out something else to help me with my pain. I moved to art. I now consciously choose daily not to take medication because it puts me in a dark place and I don’t want to go back to that dark hole. I choose instead to get involved with art — ceramics, raku, watercolors, woodworking — instead of staying home isolated on drugs and alcohol. Art doesn’t take me away from my pain but it takes me away from that mental space of anguish and isolation and depression. I always advocate for other sources of therapy beside medication.”

Amanda Lopez is the coordinator with Community Engagement & Partnerships Suicide Prevention, a community-based intervention for suicide prevention covering Lake, Mendocino and Sonoma Counties based at the VA Clinic in Santa Rosa. She partners with the VAP.

“There are a lot of isolated rural veterans and their families in Mendocino, and events like these create community, decrease isolation and help get vets connected. All of this provides a very strong protective factor in suicide prevention“We meet veterans wherever they show up to support events like this that foster creative ways of bringing them together; we can come at suicide prevention not with a crisis response but with a preventative approach.”

Veteran Robert Louis Permenter and his wife/caregiver Gabee live in Willits and will be showing their works at the Pop-Up Café. He is a veteran of Desert Storm, served in the Army in reconnaissance from 1989 to 1991.

“The things that keep me alive are my wife and art.”

From a young age he wanted to be an artist but after telling this to his mom, she told him he needed to join the military like the rest of his family, do something with himself.

“For me art helps financially, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, for sure. My wife has always encouraged me, and my art has been growing. It’s a continuous therapy for me; I feel like I’m doing a lot better with myself and my life because of it.”

His wife and caregiver Gabee says, “I’m blessed that the VA has recognized me as a caregiver for my veteran. Art has helped me personally. Because of the commitment to the relationship I have taking care of Robert, a disabled veteran, I need to have an outlet and I had to learn what that was.

“A human being is going to go through all the emotions and when you finally come out the other end, you realize you can create what it is you want for yourself. I do ceramics and mosaics. I crack up pottery and glue the pieces back together again. I take my time. It’s a way of relieving my stress.”

Lake County resident Mark Rothrock is a Cold War veteran who served from 1975 to 1982, was injured several times and is now 50 percent disabled. He will be showing his work.

He found art at a very young age; it was natural for him. While serving, he learned rope tying and knots from boatswain’s mates and began making hammocks and chairs out of rope and wood.

“I still do the same kind of thing today. Rope tying is very therapeutic, easy to learn and the things you create are highly individual. It’s a wonderful outlet for tension or any concerns you may have.”

The Pop-Up Café is sponsored by the state Mental Health Services Oversight & Accountability Commission and The Arts Council of Mendocino County.