The “Exploring PTSD – Healing Through Art” Exhibit is on display at The Highground Museum July 24-September 28, 2021.

This important exhibition seeks to provide education about PTSD – the history and current thoughts on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – along with the primary goal of offering ideas and workshops to Veterans and families that may help them with their personal PTSD journeys.

Healing through art has been established as an effective means of allowing a Veteran (or civilian) to express their thoughts and experiences through a creative process, thus encouraging them to be more open to sharing their experiences with fellow Veterans and loved ones. Healing through art also allows the viewer, even civilian viewers, to better see and understand the complex depths of thought and emotion that veterans managing PTSD are experiencing.

Creative arts are almost limitless in their variety and composition. To be able to transfer memories and thoughts to objects made by hand, freeform art, words written in a journal, and an endless number of other expressive activities can start the healing process, allow the person to focus on the creation, and build a sense of direction along with a sense of release and freedom.

Together, The Highground and Veteran Artist Shawn Ganther have created this “Healing Through Art” exhibit as a central part of the “Exploring PTSD” exhibition. It’s an incredible collection of items created by several Veteran artists from across the United States. These items, accompanied by the artist’s biography and vision of how finding art has helped them and others through hard times, invite the viewer to realize the power of what is possible through art.

Veterans and loved ones are also invited to visit a workshop space in The Highground Museum to sample and experience art projects they can work on there or take home.

The “Exploring PTSD” exhibition will also feature interactive space for Veterans and families affected by PTSD to leave written messages – to share their own struggles and to support others who are struggling. It has been said that loneliness can be the greatest struggle of PTSD. For them to see that they are not alone may help them more than we realize.