Warrior's Canvas allows Johnson City veterans to discover love of art

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In the heart of downtown Johnson City, an organization is working to improve the lives of veterans through art.

The Warrior’s Canvas & Veterans Art Center is a non-profit organization offering gallery space for veteran artists and free art classes for veterans and their family members with the intention of generating a community of veteran artists.

“Some of the veterans who … now have paintings on our walls had never really done anything beyond maybe a few school projects,” said David Shields, president of the Warrior’s Canvas and Veterans Art Center. “They’ve embraced it, and now, they’ve actually even sold some of their work.”

Aside from offering veterans a space to create, display and sell their art, Shields said Warrior’s Canvas aims to allow veterans and their families to experience therapy through art.

“We provide these classes for veterans and their family members,” Shields said. “We recognize that the family members go through many of the same challenges the veterans do when they’re in the military.”

The only resource the center extends exclusively to veterans is the opportunity to display their work in its gallery.

“The gallery is just for veterans to display and sell their work,” Shields said. “We don’t expand that into family members, though we do have it in our five-year plan to have a retail space … where we would sell products that are made by us to promote the gallery. We could foresee the possibility that we may take stuff from other people.”

Shields and Jason Sabbides got the idea for Warrior’s Canvas when they met at a veterans art show in 2013 that was held at Dick Nelson’s Fine Art Center. Sabbides was a juror for the show, and Shields was a participant and organizer. 

“We talked about trying to do something for veteran artists as a permanent thing in Johnson City, and there was a location two doors down from Dick’s,” Shields said. “We looked at it; maybe two weeks later, we were signing the lease and renting the place, and we had our grand opening in December of that year.”

Since then, the art center has expanded to encompass two spaces and built up a group of supporters and veterans who use the center.

Bob Kukiel, a veteran and Warrior’s Canvas board member, said he first became involved with the organization before Blue Plum last year.

Kukiel, who lives in Connecticut but comes down a few times a year to check on the center, believes the Warrior’s Canvas has continually improved since he became involved, he said. “What I’ve seen is a real community develop over at the Canvas.”

The center is mainly funded through donations by veterans and non-veterans and through a 25 percent commission taken when a work displayed in the center’s gallery space is sold.

“We get art supplies,” Shields said. “People will see us, find us on Facebook. We’ve had people donate some pretty big items.”

One of the center’s longterm goals is to hire an art therapist, Shields said.

He also said the center hopes to establish an internship opportunity for East Tennessee State University students this fall that would allow them to do classes for the Warrior’s Canvas as a part of one of their art therapy classes at ETSU.

Shields said he likes being able to see veterans enjoying art for what might be the first time in their lives.

“It’s pretty exciting and humbling to see (someone discover a love of art),” Shields said. “Somebody comes along and discovers it for the first time, and then, not only are they able to find the enrichment into their life from it but also get a little bit of money from it.”