While veteran Michael Rioux says he doesn’t have an artistic bone in his body, a colored pencil sketch of him and a rescued dog in Afghanistan begs to differ.
Rioux said he began sketching from a photograph of him and the dog, Connie, but was told by an instructor to turn the photograph upside down and draw from that. This art piece and others are now available at the Unexpected Art Gallery in downtown Phoenix.
“Every time he looks at the photo and thinks of Connie, he thinks of peace during wartime,” said Pat Bell-Demers, executive director of the Sonoran Arts League. “It was an opportunity to escape the situations of war when he was in Afghanistan and he would just focus on the dog.”
The veterans’ art exhibition was opened earlier this month by the Sonoran Arts League, which is a nonprofit that provides art classes and workshops for veterans.
“We wanted to provide an opportunity to actually have a show, and to reach out to other veterans in the community,” Bell-Demers said.
The exhibition includes paintings, drawings and sculptures. A collaborative monument that was unveiled one week before Veteran’s Day is a 10-foot tall decagon with five hanging metal panels, each representative of a branch of the military. On every five panels is a hole that represents the MIAs, according to Rioux. Those represent the unknown stories, he said.
“On the inside are the individual stories, but you don’t know that until you get on the inside. That’s how the military is,” Rioux said. “The outside looks like one vast unit working together. On the inside you realize that it’s made up of individuals with individual stories. The blank plates are the stories that have yet to be told.
The sculpture will likely be built upon as time goes on, said Ben Smith, CEO of the Unexpected Art Gallery.
“The idea is this will keep evolving … and eventually we’ll expand upon it and make it multi-layered,” he said.
Rioux’s involvement in the Sonoran Arts League began after his return from Afghanistan in 2010. He heard about the Sonoran Arts League from his sister who works at the nonprofit.
In addition to the colored pencil drawing, Rioux has a painting in the exhibition and is working on a marble sculpture.
“It has helped him with his healing journey,” Bell-Demers said. “We have some veterans that couldn’t even finish any kind of a project… but can actually finish a project now because of the focus and what the visual art does for transitioning back. [It’s] very healing.”
Classes are offered free for veterans twice a month at the Unexpected Art Gallery in Phoenix and at the Sonoran Arts League in Cave Creek.
“Veterans should consider art therapy even though they don’t feel that they have one artistic bone in their body, and that’s how I felt,” Rioux said.
The veterans’ art will be displayed in the Unexpected Art Gallery through Nov. 23.
Contact the reporter at shane.crowe@asu.edu
