VETART Mission

The Veterans Art Project (VETART) is a community based arts organization serving Veterans, Active Duty, Spouses, dependents, their caregivers, and the community through process-driven, Deep Arts Engagement, D.A.E.(c) and Art Therapy.  Providing a process-intensive arts encounter proven to help Veterans and Active Duty (some with post-traumatic stress, TBI, and MST) find their voice and work through the life-changing process of transitioning from military to civilian life.

 VETART offers free classes in the process-heavy art disciplines of Ceramics, Glass, Woodworking, and Bronze Casting. We work tirelessly to connect military families and civilians through sharing, art-making in a safe, welcoming, relaxed, and fun environment. This engagement is also equitable: we offer open enrollment access to free art classes that take place in state of the art facilities, taught by artists of all cultural/social backgrounds with and without MFAs. We offer artistic support, development, and dignified display of completed artworks. These dignified displays help include the greater civilian community through artist/participant presentation.

Through on-site community arts classes, demonstrations, and exhibitions across San Diego county and the country, VETART provides space for Veterans to connect with others and discover an outlet for expressing their experiences through the art-making process. By identifying, encouraging, and promoting all artists, VETART has a proven record of being an inclusive organization dedicated to promoting a spectrum of voices. By amplifying these voices through promotion to instructor level while working with Veterans, leadership is demonstrated and becomes a model for new participants.
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VETART continues to engage the larger community through the promotion, development, display, and amplification of many voices, lived experiences and backgrounds. For people and experiences not readily visible in the contemporary Art milieu.  This VETART model has always been and is the basis of our ecosystem as a See One, Do One, Teach One Organization. Through participation VETART students have a clearly identified path that is easily followed for increasing arts engagement and discovery. Our force impact is to create leadership opportunities to lead the arts, wellness, and community development, at the local, regional, state and national level. At VETART we listen to images, so we may lead by actions.

VETART Team

Steve Dilley, MFA
​Executive Director

I believe as an Artist is it my responsibility to help people in our community. The Veterans Art Project is an outgrowth of my personal sense of Artistic responsibility. From my time teaching Art at the college level, I have observed how powerful Artmaking in community can be for individuals. VETART started as a passion to share skills and my love of Ceramics. from this humble beginning I have seen
The Veterans Art Project to grow into a nationally recognized program supporting Veterans, Spouses, dependents, caregivers and active duty personnel. We currently live in a 5,000 sq ft industrial building in Vista Ca. This space is laid out specifically for the Ceramic or Glass Artist in mind. From this space we continue to share our passion of Art making in community for mental health and wellness. Our community collaborations have grown to include MHSOAC, The Mental Health Services Oversight & Accountability Commission, a California state agency, NEA Creative forces, Intrepid Center of Excellence MCBCP, San Diego Veterans Coalition, PEH, Physical and Emotional Health subcommittee among many others. 
Our proudest collaborations have been with the many Men and Women of the United States Armed Forces who are a joy to work with.

David Pirl, MFA
​Ceramics Instructor 

David obtained an MFA in ceramics from Arizona State University in 2000. He taught  ceramics at State Center Community College Fresno for 14 years, but is currently an associate professor for ceramics at San Diego Community College. He will be an instructor of ceramics at Mesa College for the Spring 2022. David is one of VETART’s ceramic instructors. He provides hand-built and wheel instruction for both functional and sculpture pottery.
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Reginald Green
VETART Instructor 

He is a 15 -year, medically retired Navy Veteran.  Reggie is a VETART participant and after volunteering for a year and a half with the organization, showing his dedication, willingness , passion for art and helping Veterans, he was hired as an VETART instructor and taught classes at the ASPIRE Center and The V.A. in La Jolla.



 

Maria Ysela Galvan

Women Veteran Ambassador and Bilingual Advocate

Maria served in the Army as an Army Medical Service Core Officer. She retired after 23 years. Maria is a dedicated VETART participant and an emerging artist. Her art pieces have been presented at local art shows and are featured in art displays around California. Maria has received awards for her artistic displays and continues to artistically thrive through the mentorship of VETART. Her medium is mostly sculpture and mostly works with Black Mountain (MTN), Porcelain, and Polymer Clay.  Maria has published stories of her era while serving in the United States, Army. She is Bilingual and proud of her Mexican roots, and her 23 years of military service. She finds Mental and Spiritual healing in her art. Maria suffered a heart attack in 2019 and has found VETART to be inspirational and a significant emotional prescription for her healing. Maria enjoys art and spending time with her adult children, extended family, fellow brothers and sisters in Arms, and friends. Maria has a calling to advocate for Veterans. A big part of her advocacy is using her talents to provide Art advocacy as a form of healing. She has a Masters in Counseling Psychology. She retired from San Diego County Mental Health, The Chula Vista VET Center, which entailed provided counseling for combat Veterans and military sexual trauma (MST) victims.

Jill Brenegan, ATR-BC, LCAT  
Art Therapist / Instructor 

Jill has been an Art Therapist for over fifteen years receiving a Master’s in Professional Studies in Art Therapy from Pratt Institute in New York. She is a Registered Art Therapist (ATR), Board Certified (ATR-BC), as well as a Licensed Art Therapist in the state of New York (LCAT). Jill has a B.A. in psychology from C.S.U. Northridge and several years of extensive coursework in ceramics, painting and drawing at institutes such as School of Visual Arts and Art Students League in New York.  Jill has worked with a variety of populations, but over the last ten years has been working with the military active duty and veterans suffering from PTSD and TBI.

Terah Drent, 
JD, Grant Writer & Publicist  ​

 Terah joined the Veterans Art Project to use her legal writing skills to help attract funding for the Project’s Art Therapy and Deep Arts Engagement “D.A.E.(c)” method to serve San Diego’s military and first responder community with trauma-informed care and mental health awareness. Terah earned her Juris Doctor from the University of San Diego, School of Law and received her Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of California, Irvine. The majority of Terah’s experience comes from real property law and she is particularly sensitive to the housing needs of homeless Veterans in San Diego County.

Avalon Salvadore
 Executive Assistant 

Avalon Salvadore is a student at California State University San Marcos. She works with VETART as an executive assistant to the Director and founder Steven Dilley. Avalon helps plan our Pop-up café events around the state and also helps with administrative work. She hopes to graduate from Cal State San Marcos with a degree in criminology and justice and pursue a career in Environmental Law. Avalon has a passion for art and helping others fight their battles with mental health through the use of creativity, VETART is the perfect way to promote artist and help the community through art and art therapy. 

Tonya Savice
Director of Advocacy, & Peer Support Specialist 

 Tonya is an Air Force Veteran who served 1981-1992. Throughout her career, she struggled with anxiety, chronic pain, MST, PTSD and survived multiple suicide attempts. After her discharge, she became an advocate for herself and got involved with art as a way to heal. Finding success through art, she sought to make it a more realistic therapeutic outlet for others. As a participant and director of advocacy, she is dedicated to making art a mental wellness tool for other Veterans.

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Cultural Equity Statement

To support a full creative life for all, The Veterans Art Project  aims to create a space that promotes cultural equity, supports all of our members and staff, and provide accessible facility in which Veterans, Active Duty, Family Members and Care-givers from all nationalities can create Dignified Displays of Art.

DEFINITION OF CULTURAL EQUITY
Cultural equity embodies the values, policies, and practices that ensure that all people—including but not limited to those who have been historically underrepresented based on race/ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, socioeconomic status, geography, citizenship status, or religion—are represented in the development of VETART programming; the support of artists; the nurturing of accessible, thriving venues for expression; and the fair distribution of programmatic, financial, and informational resources.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & AFFIRMATIONS

• In the United States, there are systems of power that grant privilege and access unequally such that inequity and injustice result, and that must be continuously addressed and changed.
• Cultural equity is critical to the long-term viability of the arts sector. 
• We must all hold ourselves accountable, because acknowledging and challenging our inequities and working in partnership is how we will make change happen.
• Everyone deserves equal access to a full, vibrant creative life, which is essential to a healthy and democratic society. 
• The prominent presence of artists challenges inequities and encourages alternatives.​
  
  

MODELING THROUGH ACTION
To provide informed, authentic leadership for cultural equity, we strive to…

• Pursue cultural consciousness throughout our organization through substantive learning and formal, transparent policies.
• Acknowledge and dismantle any inequities within our policies, systems, programs, and services, and report organization progress.
• Commit time and resources to expand more diverse leadership within our board, staff, and advisory bodies.​​​