Tatara is a graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington and holds a master’s degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology, School for American Crafts in New York. Using her undergraduate degree in ceramic and glass and her graduate degree in Fine Art with a concentration in glass, she has not only written, developed, and launched art programs, but she also teaches them, records data, writes reports, applies for grants, and then starts the process all over again. In a nutshell, she develops community outreach programs that change people’s lives.

Photo courtesy of SiNaCa Studios

During a chance meeting at one of their Veteran Days (the studio offers a free day to veterans and their families to come create glass works), she met a veteran who, while in school to become a doctor, was interested in developing art therapy programming at SiNaCa. Together, they had the idea to develop an art therapy glass program to address the needs of veterans with PTSD. During a 12-week course called Identify and Ignite your Creative Voice, six veterans of the United States Armed Forces participated in the program and were transformed just as the elements silicon, sodium, and calcium (the Si, Na, and Ca of the studio’s name) are when they are put through extreme heat to become beautiful works of glass art.

While traditional art therapy has been proven to be successful in treating veterans with PTSD, working with a medium like molten glass can be very cathartic. According to Tatara, this cathartic work is very apparent in those who have moved through the program and found healing. When Tatara speaks of her personal journey as a facilitator, you understand that she is not only driven by this work, she is guided by it. It almost feels divine when you hear her talk about her role and the relationships she has built through this program. These are men and women who sought out a new healing path through art. As well as learning how to create beautiful works of art, they found themselves intertwined with each other, and now their stories of healing have been joined – fused.

Photo courtesy of SiNaCa Studios

A similar program to Identify and Ignite Your Creative Voice was called A Million Tears. Unfortunately, many women in the armed forces are survivors of sexual assault. A Million Tears was a collaborative project to represent the struggles of these women. In an 18-week program in partnership with The Art Station, these women created a visual representation of their struggles as survivors of sexual assault in the military. The glass tears, hanging purely by tension, represent the years of abuse and the weight of these veterans’ tears. The tears are connected to each other with paracord as these women are connected to each other. The few pink strands amongst the dark green strands signify the way women in the military are outnumbered by men. The creation of this haunting work of art allowed the women to connect to other survivors and heal.

Unfortunately, due to the always uncertain and often unjust nature of public and private funding, SiNaCa has been unable to keep these programs going. However, Tatara informed me that when the time comes and Ignite Your Creative Voice can continue, the same men who participated in one of the programs are ready to step up and help the next crew move through the program. A new team, a new community, a growing connection for those who have fought valiantly and bear the scars for our nation will result – it’s just a matter of time and resources.

Fortunately, a program SiNaCa continues to offer is Courage Through Fire. This program is a 10-week (40-hour) course designed for veterans and active-duty members of the armed services, introducing several hot and warm techniques of glass art creation, providing amazing introduction to the work of the studio which fosters a new appreciation of glass as an artistic medium. It’s not an art therapy program, but rather, it’s a place where veterans and active-duty military can meet and learn to create works of art in glass. The members of this program find community through shared experiences, both past and present. The members of the program make the same type of item; the beauty lies in the fact that each member’s work is completely unique, reflecting the artist and their experiences.

Started in 2008 by a group of glass artists and teachers from the University of Texas at Arlington, SiNaCa’s purpose is to be a safe place where people in the community can come and discover a new and exciting art form. While we are fortunate to have SiNaCa in our community, it is difficult to find the funds to keep the studio creating. Private and public funding keep the kilns hot and the lights on. Grants help defray the costs of programs like Ignite Your Creative Voice.

Photo courtesy of SiNaCa Studios

The studio is divided into three parts which correspond to different glass techniques. Classes are offered for people to learn these techniques. Kiln forming is a process which works with glass in its solid state, cutting and layering glass sheets with frit (ground bits of colored glass) and stringers (thin filaments of glass in varying colors) to create designs. Flame working uses a gas torch to form glass into beads and other shapes. Glass blowing is what you most likely thought of when you first started reading this article. Glass blowing is an art form that uses one of our most basic human functions to breathe life into molten glass.

Anyone interested in taking a class can visit their website and sign up. As for Tatara, she is committed to the mission of this nonprofit and is determined to continue with programs that serve Fort Worth. She’s committed to our community, and she’s committed to the lives she has changed and will continue to change. Anyone lucky enough to know her knows her courage and her shameless commitment to making this world a better place, one glass bead and one heart at a time.

The post Shameless Courage: Tatara Siegel and SiNaCa Studios first appeared on Tanglewood Moms.

This truth would set Robin Ludwig free, but it would manifest itself through a very unlikely person: William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon himself.  

Photo courtesy of Amphibian Stage Productions

A proud, self-described “military brat,” Master Sargent Ludwig followed in her father’s footsteps and joined the Air National Guard halfway through college. She spent the next 18 years serving in medical services, supporting troops deploying overseas, and in disaster situations like Hurricane Katrina. Through it all, she learned an unspoken, dangerous skill: downplay your trauma.  While Robin’s position didn’t require as much combat training as many service men and women, she witnessed the effects of trauma on her colleagues. Soldiers must be hard-wired to defend with lethal force and neutralize targets. “They use your breath and psychology to respond to threats in a certain way,” she says. “It’s a necessary thing for a job you have to do, but when people leave the military, there’s no undoing of that.” When you add real-life combat trauma to the mix, the mental effects can be profound. According to a 2019 report from the VA, the veteran suicide rate is 1.5 times that of the general population, exceeding 6,000 each year from 2008 to 2017.  

Enter De-Cruit, a program currently sponsored in Fort Worth by Amphibian Stage Productions, which uses Shakespeare to help veterans unlearn physiological military programming and trauma response.  

Photo courtesy of Amphibian Stage Productions

A few years ago, Kathleen Culebro, Executive Artistic Director at Amphibian, went to a New York production of a veteran-written, one-man play, Cry Havoc! The writer and actor Stephan Wolfert (U.S. Army, ’86-’93) combined his personal story of leaving the army and pursuing a career in the arts with Shakespeare’s writings on war. He’s since performed it around the world, and subsequently founded De-Cruit in conjunction with NYU researcher Dr. Alisha Ali, who studies the healing effects of the arts in veterans.  

Kathleen brought Stephen’s play to Amphibian and hosted the first De-Cruit workshop in 2018. Amphibian has since expanded De-Cruit to a weekly meeting in the veterans’ pod at Tarrant County’s Green Bay Jail and has plans for four public sessions in 2020. “It’s been a whirlwind,” says Kathleen. “It’s like we opened a door, educated ourselves, and then couldn’t close that door back up because we knew so much.” 

The De-Cruit format is simple: about eight to ten veterans gather weekly for about eight weeks. Each participant identifies key words to describe the specific experience of his or her trauma and is matched with a corresponding monologue from Shakespeare. “Shakespeare wrote during a time of war,” says Robin, who spent many of her service years as a high school English teacher. “His characters were veterans. He was also surrounded by military veterans since it was a time of upheaval. He wrote war beautifully.”  

Veterans in De-Cruit are from all branches of the military and run the gamut of service in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Over the weeks, De-Cruiters work on their monologue in partner groups. They also write a personal monologue to reflect their individual experience. Physical training for performance is introduced, which works to de-activate the parts of the brain hardwired for fight-or-flight. “The iambic pentameter matches the beat of a human heart,” observes Robin.  

The workshop culminates in a public performance of both monologues in front of veterans’ invited friends and family. According to Robin, the practice of grounding one’s feet on the stage, making eye contact with an audience, and regulating your breath to perform Shakespeare, has transformative psychological power: “You get through it, and it’s a very empowering experience. It allows you to put a period on the end of your life that has up to this point been an ellipsis.” 

During her own De-Cruit journey, Robin worked on a monologue from Richard III, in which she was able to declare the iconic line, “Now is the winter of our discontent.” Much like Richard III, who in Shakespeare’s play suffered physical deformity, Robin felt a similar sense of being misshapen: as a woman in the military, she had endured regular degradation, even cruelty, from her male counterparts. Often belittled and humiliated in brutal ways, Robin learned to play along according to an unspoken code of female behavior. “I just took all that as normal,” says Robin. “But you get to a point after 13 years that THAT starts to impact you.”  

Photo courtesy of Amphibian Stage Productions

Owning her pain came slowly. After all, she was a well-trained airman who could adapt to adverse situations. It wasn’t until De-Cruit that Robin was able to access her own story in a productive way. “I was proud of my country, but in the midst of that love, there was a pain. [Shakespeare] put words to my feelings I didn’t know I needed justifying.” 

To any veteran out there who might be intimidated by a program like De-Cruit, Robin is quick to point out that the program is not meant to be an actor training program, and that you don’t need to have any prior knowledge or education in Shakespeare to benefit. She describes De-Cruit participants having “beautiful ah-ha moments” in the class as they collectively explore the Bard’s immortal words together, despite a wide variety of educational backgrounds and abilities. And, “You don’t have to memorize anything,” says Robin, who is now a co-instructor for De-Cruit. “For those vets who have suffered traumatic brain injuries, memorization may be problematic.” Amphibian has even moved De-Cruit offsite, so vets don’t feel intimidated by being in an actual theater.  

Since her experience with De-Cruit, Robin has gone on to author a book of sonnets entitled Disguise Fair Nature: A Military Memoir In Sonnets and is currently working with other female veterans on a project about their experience in the military. In her chapter entitled, “The Saving Grace of Storytelling With Shakespeare,” she writes: 

The uniform I wear will never be a burden to me, just as being female will never be a burden. On the contrary, they are sources of my deepest honor. In the words of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, I “bear the whips and scorns of time, / Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,” for those who serve alongside me. I will stand tall among the ranks of thousands of my Camouflaged Sisters; I will carry their standard when they are too tired and weak to continue. I will be a beacon for those who feel lost at sea, drifting alone in dark waters. May my truth bear witness to our shared story of service, and may you find courage to boldly speak your truth. You are not alone. Your story matters. 

For more information about De-Cruit, visit www.amphibianstage.com. 

photo credit: Anthony Chiang

Julie Rhodes has performed on many metroplex stages, including Casa Manana, Amphibian Stage Productions, Dallas Children’s Theater, Circle Theatre, Stolen Shakespeare Guild and Lyric Stage. She is married to Gordon and is mom to kids Drew, Madeline, and pug princess Eloise. Visit juliekrhodes.com

The post Stage Therapy: Veterans Find Healing Through Amphibian’s De-Cruit Program first appeared on Tanglewood Moms.