About UsMission
The National Veterans Art Museum inspires greater understanding of the real impact of war with a focus on Vietnam. The museum collects, preserves and exhibits art inspired by combat and created by veterans.
Incorporated in 1982 as the Vietnam Veterans Art Group, it is recognized by the IRS as a 501 (c)(3) organization.
History
In 1981, a few Vietnam combat veterans put together an artistic and historical collection that would become a timeless, humanistic statement of war on behalf of all veterans for future generations.
The Vietnam Veterans Art Group was created in Chicago in 1981. One year later, the group mounted its first exhibit of veteran artwork entitled "Reflexes and Reflections" which toured museums and galleries across the country.
The overwhelming emotional response to the work, along with an increasing amount of contributions by artists, led to the official establishment of a permanent museum. After viewing the collection, Mayor Richard Daley was so personally moved that he allocated a permanent building to house the collection. The National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum opened its doors at 1801 S. Indiana Avenue in 1996.
Stretching Beyond Vietnam
Since 2003, the museum has broadened its mission to include art by veterans of all wars. In 2010, we dropped the word Vietnam from the name to become the National Veterans Art Museum (NVAM). Today, the NVAM is still located in Chicago’s South Loop and houses more than 2,500 works of art, including paintings, photography, sculpture, poetry and music. All the works in the Museum’s permanent collection were created by more than 255 artists who are veterans of American conflicts.
The artwork presented at the museum provides a unique viewpoint on the controversial subject of war to all visitors. It is a tenuous and reflective balance of beauty and horror, giving unique insight into the psyche of combat veterans and consequential hindsight war leaves on its survivors.
A New Home in Chicago
The museum recently relocated from its location at 1801 S. Indiana Avenue, Chicago, Illinois to its new location at 4041 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. The museum opened in its new space at 4041 N. Milwaukee Avenue on Veterans Day, November 11, 2012.
Contact Us
National Veterans Art Museum
4041 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Second Floor
Chicago, Illinois 60641
Phone: (312) 326-0270
Fax: (312) 326-9767
Email:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
To schedule a tour, visit here.
Artist Donations
If you are interested in submitting art for our collection or as part of an exhibit, please complete this form. We will ask for your contact information, images of your art, and a copy of your DD-214. Submissions are reviewed quarterly, so please allow 3 months to hear back.
Board of Directors
Julie Chavez
Ron Gibbs (Vice Chair)
Mike Helbing (Chair)
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Aaron Hughes
Art Jacobs
Phil Maughan
Jim Moore (Secretary)
Larisa Phillips
Lionel Rabb
Nancy Ronquillo
Carol Sherman (Treasurer)
2013 Staff and Volunteers
|
Sasha Borges-Ho |
Sasha Borges-Ho is an intern at the NVAM, currently pursuing her MA in Counseling at the Adler School of Professional Psychology. Sasha will be assisting in the development of an educational exhibit exploring the use of humor in the military, as well as contributing to the art therapy program. While completing her BA in psychology at York University in Toronto, ON, she volunteered her time at two crisis hotlines, gaining experience in crisis intervention. Upon completion of her graduate degree, she plans to continue on to her doctorate, and to eventually work with survivors of trauma in a non-profit setting. While art therapy is not her concentration, she recognizes its immense therapeutic potential, and hopes to incorporate it into her work. |
|
Lisa Bromiel |
Lisa Bromiel comes to the NVAM with a background in Art Education with specific interest in visual culture semiotics, painting, and printmaking. Lisa student-taught visual arts in both a middle-level and high school level environment. In the spring of 2011, she received her B.S.Ed from Northern Illinois University, and has since held a screen printing internship at a studio in Chicago, IL. |
|
Julie Dederer |
Julie Dederer is an intern from the Adler School of Professional Psychology assisting with grant writing efforts. She is currently pursuing a doctorate degree in Clinical Psychology, with a specialization in military psychology. After completing her BA in Psychology at Penn State University, she received her commission as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army in the medical services corp. Her goal upon graduation is to complete her service obligation as an Army psychologist. Her research interests are in predictive and preventative factors involved in PTSD, as well as in the idiosyncratic factors that inhibit treatment of combat-related disorders. |
|
Sarah Eilefson |
Sarah Eilefson joined the National Veterans Art Museum in August 2010 as the Grants and Communications Coordinator. She is a doctoral candidate and instructor of English at Loyola University Chicago. Her professional background includes work in business development, as a paralegal, and as a elementary school teacher. Originally from northern Minnesota, Sarah received her BA from Colby College and her MA from Loyola. Her research interests include modernism, trauma theory, and war stories, and her artistic outlet is black and white photography. |
|
Nancy Eilefson |
Nancy Eilefson joined the NVAM in May 2012 as a volunteer assisting with special mailings. She is retired from Qwest, Inc. now CenturyLink. Nancy is a member of the Pioneers, a volunteer network also known as the Telephone Pioneers of America and is secretary of the Arrowhead Council in Duluth, Minnesota, which supports the Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans in Duluth in various ways. |
|
Dan FitzGerald |
Dan had a hard time satisfying both his technical and creative interests until he found the communications media program at NIU. He does web design and videography for the NVAM, and he recently completed developing the NVAM Collection Online. Outside the museum, Dan does freelance sound, video and web design. |
|
Iris M. Feliciano |
Iris Feliciano is a writer and a veteran whose focus is on creative expression as a medium for social consciousness. Since transitioning out of the Marine Corps in 2006, Iris has worked with various veterans organizations including providing employment and transition assistance, and veterans in the arts. Iris has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication, Media and Theater with a minor concentration in Social Justice. While studying news writing and media communications, Iris simultaneously worked on her own personal writing and also had her theater debut in StageCenter’s theater production of Stage Door. The opportunity to combine her passion for helping veterans and working in the arts came about in 2009 when Iris began working with a national veterans creative writing project. A writer with the Warrior Writers Project, her creative outlet is primarily poetry and prose, but Iris has also utilized photography and performance, and has studied video and filmmaking. Currently, Iris is finishing a Master of Arts program in Political Science. He research and creative writing interests include understanding the cultural expressions of the norms of war.
|
|
Joe Fornelli
|
Joe Fornelli is one of the original members of the Vietnam Veterans Art Group which eventually became the National Veterans Art Museum. Joe joined the United States Army in 1965. He served for two years as the crew chief and door gunner for a UH-1D Helicopter in Vietnam. Having lived in Chicago most of his life, he became a self taught artist, enriching his artistic talent from the museums in the area. After his service in the Army, Joe worked as a model maker, a freelance photographer, and an illustrator for several published books. In 1978 he was the Art Director for Ducks Unlimited Magazine, that was published in Chicago. Joe currently serves as the Art Liaison and Chief preparator for the museum, cataloging and restoring the more than 2,500 pieces of art in the permanent collection for preservation and display. |
|
Matt Gozner
|
Matt Gozner is an intern at the NVAM and a first year graduate student from the Adler School of Professional Psychology. Matt is currently working on completing his Masters in Counseling Psychology and plans to continue into a doctorate program. He worked as a freelance digital artist after completing his undergraduate degree in Arts Technology from Illinois State University. During this time, Matt volunteered at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Aurora, IL while continuing his education in psychology. His artistic background encouraged exploration and experimentation across multiple disciplines. These transferable skills enable him to contribute innovative solutions to problems one may face while working in difficult situations. |
|
Ash Kyrie
|
Ash Kyrie is an artist that deployed to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He has taught art at Edgewood College, the Ohio State University, and the University Wisconsin-Madison. Kyrie believes art can open the necessary conversations between civilians and veterans to create a more thorough understanding of our actions as a citizen run democracy. |
|
Tanzen Lilly |
Tanzen Lilly attends the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she is pursuing a BFA in Painting, and is currently in her senior year. Originally from Brooklyn, NY, Chicago has become a new home and hub of inspiration for her. |
|
Levi Moore
|
Levi Moore was named Executive Director of the NVAM in July, 2010. His professional background includes serving as Vice President and Board Secretary for the Illinois Chamber of Commerce where he was the organization's primary federal and City of Chicago lobbyist and Chicago-area spokesperson and as a cabinet member in former Illinois governor Jim Edgar's administration as the second-in-command of the state's primary economic development agency. Moore was tapped for the NVAM position because of his history of working with a variety of non-profit operations, including serving as a Board Director/Trustee for the Sherwood Conservatory of Music, World Trade Center - St. Louis, Technology Education & Training Foundation, East-West Gateway Council, Illinois Develpment Finance Authority and the National Association of State Development Agencies. He has also provided consulting services to non-profit organizations through previous professional staff positions with the Korn/Ferry International executive search firm and the Center for Association Resources not-for-profit consulting firm. In addition to his role with the NVAM, Moore operates a full-service government relations/business communications firm, PROXY 2.0 and is the Illinois Statehouse correspondent for Examiner.com. A native of East St. Louis, Ill., he has a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University with graduate work in political science. He has provided counsel, lectured and written numerous articles on public policy and is currently writing a book, The Executive's Guide to Illinois Government, which is expected to be published in the fall of 2011.
|
Destinee Oitzinger |
Destinee Oitzinger began her time at the NVAM as an intern during the summer of 2011. She quickly found a home at the museum as it piqued her interests both academically and personally. Destinee holds an MA in Modern and Contemporary Art History, Theory, and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She received her BA in Art History from the University of Minnesota, Morris. Her interests include the social impact of public art and architecture, new media art history, and Modernist art theory. |
Chelsea Race |
Chelsea Race is a graduate of Fayetteville State University with a major in Psychology. Currently she attends Adler School of Professional Psychology as a 1st year Psy.D student studying Clinical Psychology with a military track. Chelsea’s interested in working with currently deployed military and Department of Defense personnel to understand the effects of deployment on the individual upon the completion of her degree. The NVAM is her first step of beginning to understand what veterans go through while deployed and after deployment from days later to years later. |
|
Ted Stanuga
|
Ted Stanuga's involvement with the National Veterans Art Museum began when he joined the Exhibition Committee as a volunteer in 2003. In 2005, Ted was a guest curator for the “Works on Paper” show and began volunteering with the NVAM’s operations the following year. In order to aid the NVAM’s relocation to the 3rd floor, Ted took on his current role of General Manager in 2010. Ted studied painting at the University of Great Falls, Montana under Jack Franjevic and painting and printmaking at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois. After several years as assistant printmaker to Jack Lemon at Landfall Press, Ted was Chief Preparator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. He also curated shows at the Hyde Park Art Center and ran a high end design and mill work company in Chicago. Currently, Ted is an abstract painter with a studio in Chicago. |
Anjalee Verma |
Anjalee Verma joined the NVAM in the summer of 2011 as an intern in the area of Grants and Communications. She received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and sought to merge her profound interest in the therapeutic properties of art and art making with the empirical nature of the Psychological sciences. This is when she discovered the professional field of Art Therapy. A practicing artist herself, she has a strong conviction in the beneficial nature of creative self-expression and the transmission of that work to wider audiences. She considers herself a student above all else and is always looking for a new story to hear & new art work to experience. Anjalee is honored to be a part of the National Veterans Art Museum team. |
Meg Weryha |
Meg Weryha grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and recently relocated to the Chicago area to pursue her Master’s Degree in Art Therapy from the Adler School of Professional Psychology. Meg received her BA in Photography from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. Meg’s been making art since she was a little girl; painting, photographing, sculpting, even stained glass. She loves all things art. Meg especially loves to share art with others, knowing firsthand the powerful impact art has in healing the hearts and souls of many. Her passion for art as therapy began while she was working with men and women in active recovery from addictions and experiencing homelessness. Meg helped to develop an expressive therapies and creative learning curriculum which included hiking, biking, kayaking, geocaching, urban gardening, pet therapy, drama, and art therapy. Meg also loves to travel, experience new places, and create documentary photography projects particularly about the human experience and poverty in places such as Uganda, South Africa, Haiti, Mexico, and Costa Rica. |
Chelsea Witherby |
Chelsea Witherby will be interning this Spring at the NVAM. She is currently a senior at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, pursuing her BFA in painting. |
|
Susan Zielinski |
Susan Zielinski has been making, studying and enduring the unique intersection of art and trauma through much of her life. While studying ceramics she earned her Bachelor's in Fine Art from Western Michigan University, where she produced dozens of her own two and three dimensional reflections of the world around her, after coming first from the near wilderness of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In Chicago, Susan has both produced numerous works reflecting the removal of a brain tumor and subsequent medical complications and has also taught art at The Howard Area Community Center and studied art therapy at The Adler School of Professional Psychology. The Adler School brought her to the National Veterans Art Museum through a Community Service Practicum. "People not only have perceptions but a will to perceive," she says. "They not only have a capacity to observe the world, but a capacity to alter their observation of the world as well… The contrast of medium and images [can] reflect my feelings and emotions of this continuing experience."
|
Past Staff and Volunteers
|
|
Paulette Boyd joined the National Veterans Art Museum’s Development and Relocation Committee in 2011, working on the Above & Beyond Fundraising Campaign design, marketing and corporate outreach. Paulette has worked with small and large nonprofits in several areas of resource development, including special event galas. In 2000, she received the United Way of Metro Chicago’s first Frances Wisebart Jacobs Award. In 2009, Paulette created her business, Inspire, that provides consulting to a variety of Chicago nonprofits on annual fund campaigns, grant research/writing, event planning, and management. To date, she has successfully coordinated and managed events, written grants and proposals, and solicited corporate sponsorships totaling more than $650,000 from several Fortune 500 Chicago-based companies and individuals, including private and corporate foundations. Paulette graduated from the University of Chicago’s Management Fellows Program of the Development Leadership Consortium in 2010. |
|
Teolina Dosseva |
Teolina Dosseva is currently a senior at Loyola University Chicago majoring in History with a minor in Psychology. She will spend the Spring 2012 semester as a Programming Intern for the NVAM. The internship involves working on multi-media projects in order to create a virtual museum showcasing over 2,000 pieces of art on the NVAM website. |
|
Carly Goff
|
Carly Goff will be volunteering this fall at the NVAM. She is currently majoring in art history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her course work in women's studies and history of photography are expected to be a big help in the museum's inventory and virtual museum projects and an upcoming exhibit featuring female veteran artists. |
|
Chris Karaskiewicz
|
Chris Karaskiewicz is an undergraduate senior studying History and Economics at Loyola University. Driven by a strong interest in issues of social justice and a general curiosity about the world, he initially began his studies in the field of journalism. However, after transferring to Loyola, a love for both of his chosen majors left little time for him to further develop his interests in mass communications. Now, as he gets ready graduate with the intention of pursuing his Ph.D., he has joined the NVAM as Publicity and Outeach Assisant in order to re-kindle his experience with both social and traditional media. Committed to a sense of austere objectivity, he has found his journalism background has made the apolitical nature of the NVAM’s public mission a natural place to re-animate his love for public writing. Ultimately, he hopes the experience he gains from this position will reinforce his life commitment to make complex historical and theoretical subjects more accessible to a wide scale audience. |
|
Taylor Lazzara |
Taylor Lazzara graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a major in Fine Art and a minor in Psychology. She is currently in her 3rd semester of graduate school at Adler School of Professional Psychology where she is in the Masters of Counseling Psychology: Art Therapy program. Lazzara's interest is in working with the military population and she has recently been accepted at Hines VA Hospital to complete her clinical practicum. She is grateful to the NVAM for allowing her to become part of their team and to assist in establishing a more educated Art Therapy community. |
Jami Pugh |
Jami Pugh is currently a student in the Masters of Art Therapy and Counseling program at the Adler School of Professional Psychology and will graduate from Adler in the fall of 2013. She graduated in 2011 from Adrian College with a Bachelors of Fine Art in Studio Art focusing in painting and photography with a psychology minor and a pre-art therapy pre-professional degree. Pugh will spend the Spring 2012 and Summer 2012 semester doing her community service practicum at NVAM. She is sorting through the museum's history in order to efficiently document past shows and events so that they can be easily retrieved. Pugh is approaching this project with a therapeutic art lens to determine which of the museum's in house and traveling shows have been rooted in the therapeutic benefits of art. |
Laura Rauch |
Laura Rauch is volunteering her time at the NVAM assisting the Grants and Communications Coordinator. She is currently studying at the Adler School of Professional Psychology for her doctorate in Psychology after receiving a BA in Spanish and a BS in Psychology at the University of Central Florida. She is very excited to be working at the museum because her family has a long history in the military and hopes to become a Military Psychologist. She also has a great love for art and is thrilled to be combining it with Psychology. |
Megan Reicher |
Megan Reicher is currently finishing her MA in Art Education from the University of Texas at Austin after having received her BFA in studio art from the University of Kentucky. She joined the museum in the summer of 2011 as an education intern. Megan is excited to work with the NVAM’s student, teacher, and adult audience. |
Yezibel Ruiz |
Yezibel is interning at the NVAM this summer. She is a graduate student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, working on getting her masters in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism, and Arts Administration and Policy. Her interests lie in gender theory, race relations, and representation. Yezibel earned her BA in Art History and Chicana and Chicano Studies from the University of California Santa Barbara. She is excited to begin working on cataloguing past exhibitions, expanding upon the topics of female exhibitions and race relations, and delving into the past news about the NVAM. |
