So unfortunately, I’ve been so busy lately and caught up with life I can’t even find the time to do any writing for my own personal enjoyment. But even though I’ve been so into the news lately, I’m in the process of getting some good feature stories published, so hopefully I’ll get that out soon enough.

So, I decided that, although I can’t do as much writing as I would like to, I decided to try and start doing “video journals.” I’m working on this print piece for the National Veterans Art Museum and Art Director Joe Fornelli (That’s going to be published next week!), and after taking my photos, I decided to shoot some video as well.

So while I was working on my piece, I had a really nice talk with Anjalee Verma, special projects coordinator at the museum, and we discussed how amazing art is when it ascends to a higher level of communication, especially when it’s created for reasons greater than just, “art for arts sake.” She really put it into words better than I ever could:

“It seems that with [some veteran] artists, something has been stripped from within them after experiencing the trauma of war. But art helps them reintroduce themselves to their individuality, regaining what was lost.”- Anjalee Verma.

Now I can write for days on how art has affected my life- being a military veteran, writer and actor- but that’s just time I don’t have at the moment. But I’ll take note of it for later. Let’s just say art and my passion for creative expression is something that has really become a part of me over the past few years. It’s given me the ability to think deeper within myself as well as outside of my own perspective towards life and the world of my existence. And although it seems I sometimes can’t allocate the time for it, It’s something I trust I can always turn to when needed.

Here’s a little video montage of the museum, something I whipped up in like 5 minutes with whatever footage I had. Whoever lives in Chicago should really visit this gallery at 1801 S Indiana Chicago, IL 60616 .