Music Credit: “Renewal,” written and performed by Doug and Judy Smith. Brian McDonald: What I love about working with veteran artists is their passion in wanting to get it done. Like, if there is any common thread through military veterans in the arts it’s like, “Let’s do it. What are we doing right now? Let’s get the team together. Let’s get a space, let’s make something happen. Let’s convince somebody to host us. Let’s find some money. Let’s go.” And there’s a real sense of, “I’m late to the game and I have something to say.” <music> Jo Reed: That was BR McDonald, founder and CEO of the Veteran Artist Program and this is Art Works the weekly podcast produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. I’m Josephine Reed. Those few times we think about veterans and the arts, we tend to think of the healing arts which can play a positive role in the treatment of service members suffering from traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and other psychological trauma. In the past half-dozen years, healing arts programs which consist of the visual arts, music, and writing, have figured more prominently in the treatment and rehabilitation of service members and for veterans struggling with wartime memories and the transition to a civilian life. But what about veterans who are interested in the arts as a career? Or who put a career in the arts on hold when they enlisted. When they return to civilian life after an extended absence, where do they find the resources to navigate the world of the arts or to hone their craft, or to find peers who can help them grow their work? Well, one place they can turn is the Veteran Artist Program, or VAP, founded nine years ago by Brian, or BR, McDonald, himself a classically-trained singer and a veteran. VAP is a not for profit whose goal is to encourage, support and promote veterans in the arts. BR is clear: He sees VAP’s main job as developing opportunities for veterans to create a career in the arts. Brian McDonald: When I started VAP in 2009, I wanted to make sure that we were creating opportunities for veterans and not just talking about it. So we really have a production model. So, we’ve done close to seventy productions now across the country in theater, in film, in visual arts, gallery exhibits, music, performing arts and worked with a lot of different partners both in the creative arts community, but also the private sector, governmental agencies, not-- other non-profits, businesses and all sorts of things. Jo Reed: Tell me your story, because I think in a way your story opens into the larger story of VAP. You began your career as an artist, correct? Brian McDonald: I did. Yeah. I was a performing artist my whole life, ever since I was about five years old. As soon as I could stand up on two feet, I was opening my mouth to sing. I was a pastor’s kid, so my music really kinda started in the church. Like, my parents took my brother, sister and I-- I was the oldest-- to Taiwan. I was a missionary kid for eight years and, so, music was just a part of everything that I did. So, I was singing a lot, I was playing musical instruments, was in musical theater, was acting, I was performing and ended up at the University of North Carolina and I got a vocal performance degree, graduating in 2001. So I was really on the track to becoming a professional performing artist. That was not only my personal expectation, but that was what everybody thought I was gonna do. Jo Reed: What happened? Why did you enlist? Brian McDonald: I was interning with my dad at his church in Northern Virginia-DC area and 9/11 happened. And when 9/11 happened it was just this shift. I mean, it was for a lot of people, especially in the DC area and I decided to enlist. I wanted to be a linguist. I had languages. I spoke-- I do speak Mandarin Chinese, having grown up in Taiwan. Next thing you know I’m off to basic, I’m in the military, I’m in the Army, and they tell me that they want me to learn Arabic. Jo Reed: How long were you in the army? Brian McDonald: I spent the next almost eight years in the Army. I was in the Special Operations community, I was an operator in JSOC, which is the Joint Special Operations Command. I deployed ultimately seven times to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan-- not doing really anything in the arts. Of course, I was being creative, but I wasn’t pursuing it at all. Jo Reed: What happened when you returned to civilian life and tried to restart your career? Brian McDonald: So, I got out in early 2009 and I sort of hit this landscape of what do I do with these two sort of very separate, disparate worlds. And it’s hard to imagine now because there are so many veteran service organizations in 2016 and there’s many, many in the arts, which is just amazing to me. But in 2009, I don’t even know if there were any. There were some veteran artists, as we refer to them, that were self-identifying as both veterans and as artists and starting to, you know, get out there and be on stage and talk about these two worlds, but there was no real organization. So, I was in Baltimore and I just decided, I was uniquely qualified to speak to both worlds. I had been a performer my whole life, I had been educated in the arts, but I also had been in the military at the highest level in the Special Operations units. So, I decided to fill the gap. Jo Reed: Well, how did you begin that? What were the first steps?   Brian McDonald: It was me finding a few friends who were like-minded, who wanted to perform in Baltimore City and we did a showcase and we called it The Home Show. And it was just a-- you know-- a few friends getting together to convince a local creative alliance that we had what it took to be on stage with other artists in the community and that was seven years ago. So, we’ve come a long way and now we’re on a national stage. Jo Reed: We do tend to think of the Army and the arts as being antithetical, but you’ve written pretty persuasively that they’re really not. Brian McDonald: Yeah, sure, I mean, I think the first thing is, most people think about the military in terms of operations and combat theaters and missions and all of that and at the end of the day, you know, the military is made up of people. It’s a cross-section of our society. So, naturally, if you accept that then you’d be willing to accept that there are many different people from many different walks of life that go into the military. Especially after 9/11, where many people were convinced that this is something that they needed to do. What I tell a lot of people is, the arts made me a better soldier and the reason I believe that is because of ultimately where I landed. I mean, just because I wasn’t singing, you know, in the Army, I was being creative and the arts, the process of the arts, the nature of being creative, out-of-the-box, thinking through solutions in a unique way, helped me get to a point where I was able to thrive at an elite level in the Army and ultimately land in a unit where most of my missions were solo missions, where I was doing things by myself in the middle of the tribal area in Pakistan or Afghanistan and while it doesn’t sound like the arts, it’s certainly a mindset. And just sort of anecdotally, in the military we have a saying called, you know, “Hurry up and wait.” <laughs> Which is the idea that we all like, prepare, prepare, prepare for just kind of waiting around to see what happens. You know, like, we have to be prepared for it happening very quickly, but most of the time we’re preparing and just sitting and then needing to react very quickly after a period of time of inaction. And that’s certainly a combat reality and it’s also an arts thing. I mean, how many times have we sat in rehearsals for hours waiting for something to happen just to play a note, you know-- I was a trombone player all throughout middle school and high school and, like, that was my world when I was playing in symphonies. Jo Reed: So there are unlikely and complicated ways that training for the arts and training for the military intersect. How else do you see the arts and the military working together? Brian McDonald: Yeah. I think when I talk about the arts in the military I kinda talk about it in three different categories. You have the comfort side. These are potentially traumatic experiences in combat that, you know, when you come home you want to talk about it and it can be therapeutic for many who use the arts in that capacity. But it’s also a career. Just like I did. I was on the track to become a professional musician. I was gonna be on Broadway. Most of my friends now are on Broadway. So, it’s a career option and it should be an option for veterans who are coming back and transitioning and want to take that step back into a career of their choice. And, certainly, the arts should be an option. And the last is culture. One thing I push constantly is, we have a unique opportunity right now to have veterans in the arts talking about what’s happening in real time. Meaning, let’s not wait twenty years before we talk about the impact and the effects and the policies and the individual stories that are coming out of these conflicts. So, it’s not just about comfort, though it is. It’s not just about career, though that’s important. It’s also just about American culture and if we believe that the arts are a unique way to tell stories then veterans in the arts are the best way to tell those stories. So, I feel like if people can accept those three things of comfort, career and culture, then you have to believe that military in the arts are really more connected than anybody can really think about or imagine. Jo Reed: Somebody like you, other people who I’m sure had gone to school for various careers in the arts and because of 9/11, because they needed more education or better insurance-- I mean, there’s so many reasons, from patriotic to practical and the two are not mutually exclusive, that people enlist. Brian McDonald: Absolutely. Jo Reed: And then when you get out, picking up a career is always difficult. A career in the arts, even if you haven’t left it for eight years is difficult, just on the face of it. But then after being absent from it for that long I would imagine it’s very challenging. Brian McDonald: It really is, and I mean, what we found is, you know, there’s the education piece. You know, I happen to go to school for music so, I kind of have that foundation, but I took a step away and I was in the Army for eight years, I don’t have the network. And in any industry you need that, but certainly the arts, you know, knowing who’s at the lead in different organizations and who are the decision makers and who are the funders and who do you need to talk to in order to get access to different opportunities. You know, the film industry is a good example. There’s a very specific process for getting your script reviewed and then going into, you know, documentary film festivals and then getting those funded and getting producers and those are things that if you’ve not been in it and you’re thirty years old you don’t even know where to start. So, that’s really where the Veteran Artist Program comes in. Our model is production, meaning that we’re building productions and partnering veterans with non-veterans in the creative space, but the real magic is in that mentorship and that networking that happens, that process of connecting veterans to opportunities. I mean, it’s really interesting: The intangible piece that comes out of that is what the non-veteran civilian artists gain from that experience. Right now we’re in this time when there’s so much attention on veterans and rightfully so. You know, we’re all trying to understand the transition stories and what the gaps are and the problems are. But civilians, on the other side of the equation, that 99 percent, are also trying to understand and the artists themselves are looking to portray these individuals and these stories in a way that’s real. What we’re doing is just trying to put them together for the sake of the production, but also for the sake of that process of meeting each other and telling these stories in a unique way. Jo Reed: Okay, let’s say I’m a veteran and I’m interested in film and I come to VAP. What can I expect to happen? And let’s say I did two years in college, so I have some experience in film. <overlapping conversation> Brian McDonald: Sure. I’ll give an example: Right now we have a partnership with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS, and a couple different producing partners and we’re producing this series called Veterans Coming Home. And there’s five media makers in the field right now, three of them are veterans, two of them are civilians. It’s being produced by a company in Chicago called Kindling Group. The Veteran Artist Program is involved in allowing veterans who are filmmakers, producers, researchers, editors, storytellers, to be a part of the production, the distribution, the discussion, and we’re-- also brought in funding from some of our partners at Got Your 6, which is a national veteran’s service organization as well. So that’s an example of something that we do. We also have a community that you can find, veteranartistprogram.org/community, which right now is about a thousand people who are moving and shaking and making things happen and producing. And this also involves other organizations, actually, who are more local in nature or community-focused who have opportunities for you. So VAP really is serving as sort of the catalyst for connecting veteran artists who are all over the country and in some cases the world to each other, but then also to resources. Jo Reed: Give me an example of one of your productions. Brian McDonald: Yeah, a colleague of mine who’s now been with VAP, he’s a board member for about three years. His name is Whitney Dow. He’s an award-winning documentary filmmaker. He’s a Tribeca artist-- and so he reached out to the Tribeca Film Institute and they funded a pitch fest, is what we called it. And veterans who had film ideas and were writing scripts and those types of things came together. We selected a number of applicants. And they sat in front of a team of professional filmmakers that included award winners and organizational leads and things like that-- media company leads and principals. And they selected a winner. They got an award and an opportunity to work with some of these filmmakers. So, that’s an example of something that we do on a regular basis. We also host showcases every year. In New York City we do something called The Home Show-- you remember I mentioned at the beginning, the very first show we did in Baltimore City was called The Home Show. Jo Reed: Yeah. Brian McDonald: So, I decided to bring that back because I thought it was a really unique way to talk about veterans’ issues, is through the notion of home and, you know. We-- the media and sort of American society tends to think about that as back home in America. But the reality is that since 9/11, you know, you’ve had less than one percent of the U.S. population fighting in Afghanistan or in Iraq or in combat zones. So, the notion of home for somebody who has deployed, in my case seven times, is very different than the traditional idea of, oh, come back to your house in a community in a suburb of a city in America. Like, these-- it’s a very existential philosophical place to be. So, what it was practically in the production in New York was a partnership with the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. And we did-- on November 12th last year-- it was a Veterans’ Day event and showcase, thirty artists, partnerships between veterans and civilians showcasing original work on stage at the Lincoln Center under the theme of The Home Show. Jo Reed: Was this a show open to the public or was it exclusively for veterans and their families? Brian McDonald: It was a public event, it was in the atrium at the Lincoln Center, Something that’s really important to me is-- this isn’t something that we want, as veterans, to be doing in a vacuum. To be frank with you, it’s a problem. A lot of the veteran culture lends itself to sort of sitting in a room with each other talking about having been there, done that, exchanging war stories and not really wanting to bring outsiders, because of the feeling that they won’t understand or you’re gonna have to answer questions that, you know, you just don’t want to talk about. You know, it presents itself to be this very insular kind of patting each other on the back and talking about how great our pieces of art are or our works are. And the reality is that’s just not conducive to a career in the arts. For one, you need influences and mentorship and people engaging with you on what you’re doing and helping you grow and learn. Every artist at every stage of life needs that, but especially if you’re transitioning into the arts from something very different. So, we really encourage and it’s starting to be embraced as this idea that we’re opening up. This is not just about veterans performing for veterans, it’s about the audience learning and being involved in the process. So, we’re doing more of those and everything that I do, that VAP does, involves both a veteran and civilian component. It’s very important to me. Jo Reed: I wonder also-- and I’d love to have you speak to this-- how the experience of military-- what that brings to the process of making art, and I wonder how that has worked with you, how the experience of military service influenced your art, what it allowed you to bring to your art. Brian McDonald: Yeah. I think for me it’s-- was a sense of abandon. I remember when I, even in college, having anxiety sometimes around performing and when you’re learning, when you’re just going really fast and you’re performing every day, and all this-- sometimes you get anxious about what you’re doing and don’t really feel grounded on stage and I remember once I decided to step back in it. There was a sense of, you know, “I’ve been there, done that,” like, you know, “what do I have to be afraid of to learn my craft, to rehearse, to step up on stage and have hundreds of eyeballs looking at me and what do I have to lose but to get up here and tell my story?” And I think for me personally that’s what it was: It was a sense of abandon and also a sense of urgency. Jo Reed: Mm. Brian McDonald: I think that I love-- <laughs> I love, love-- there’s downside to having a sense of urgency as well, but what I love about working with veteran artists is their passion of wanting to get it done. Like, if there’s any common thread through military veterans in the arts it’s like, “Let’s do it.” Like, “What are we doing right now?” Like, “Let’s get the team together. Let’s get a space. Let’s make something happen. Let’s convince somebody to host us. Let’s find some money. Let’s go.” And there’s a real sense of “I’m late to the game and I have something to say and I’m not gonna let somebody hold me back. And I think anytime you have that, if you look across the board in the arts, really powerful things can come out of that in a community. The downside of that is making sure that you have the right network, the right education, and not overshooting opportunities when you need to just kinda sit back and let people train you and educate you and figure out the best way to navigate the funding cycle, as an example, or something like that. So, that’s where VAP comes in, is to say, “Okay, yeah, we’re all motivated, we’re all excited. Let’s sit back and bring in some professional artists who can help you build this project or will help you find some funding and mentor you through the specifics and details.” Yeah, I mean, a sense of urgency, that abandon-- but also just having a voice. You know, there’s one thing for sure with veterans who have been in something outside of the arts and are now in the arts, at least in the capacity of finding a way to tell their story. They have a really amazing story to tell. And, that’s a very, very valuable thing for an artist. Jo Reed: I would also think, as I was thinking about this myself, that the connection between the comradery of the service and in the performing arts the comradery that has to happen. Even if you’re a soloist at the Metropolitan Opera, you’re not up there alone! Brian McDonald: Right. <laughs> No, you’re not! And, I mean, we use this analogy a lot in the film world, but it could be applied to any of the disciplines. In film you have a lot of different jobs and responsibilities and there’s only one or a few people ever, like, in front of the camera, right? <laughs> There’s tons, if not hundreds of people behind the camera, and all those jobs are as important as the actor who’s saying the words. You know, the person who’s setting up the lights and, you know, rolling sound and pushing “Record” on the camera and all the producers and everything else that’s happening. All that needs to happen. It’s not only important, but it has to happen in a very specific time and process that allows everybody to be successful. That’s exactly what a military operation is, right? Like, if one person doesn’t do the job that they’re empowered to do and told to do, then everything can fall apart. And, so, military veterans really get that. So yeah, two things: One is the actual practical skill comparison is absolutely there, but the comradery and trust you have between military veterans is an instant value proposition for the creative art space. Jo Reed: And it seems from what I’ve read about VAP that you’re also determined that veterans need to be able to express what they want to express. If they think that the war is their subject, then by all means, that should be their subject. But if they don’t, then being a veteran artist doesn’t mean that that’s your subject, that’s what you need to be writing about, talking about, painting, et cetera. Brian McDonald: Yeah, that’s right. I think that it’s-- <laughs> it’s definitely my soapbox. And it’s funny because I’ve been constantly talking about this for seven years now. The arts aren’t just about healing. Of course they’re therapeutic, right? I mean, it’s one of the things I already said in this interview. Any artist will admit that being part of the arts means doing something you love is therapeutic in every way. But for veterans to be pigeon-holed into a segment of the creative arts community, suggesting that they only belong in this therapeutic pillar is very limiting. And it’s not only limiting for the veterans, but it’s limiting to the discussion around these issues. Because it puts this person who has a voice pigeon-holed in a niche, where they can’t have a voice in something else. I didn’t start the Veteran Artist Program to just succumb to the assumption of a society that says, “Veterans should be in this niche.” I wanted to push the envelope and based on my experience, drive the idea that veterans have a voice in all things. I mean, we’re in a presidential election cycle, right? Like, why not have a veteran artist who’s uniquely qualified in a certain skillset in the arts as a filmmaker or a painter or a writer, create something that speaks to what’s going on now in this presidential election or in immigration or in homelessness or in education or, of course, the wars, but that doesn’t mean that that’s the only thing they can talk about. So, to your point, we’re very inclusive when it comes to that. The truth is what I’ve seen as far as veteran artists in the continuum-- You know, we kind of use that sometimes, the spectrum of veterans who come through the Veteran Artist Program is that most artists start with what they know, you know, and what these veterans know is war. And they know the military and they know their experience, which they’re very proud of. So, many start there. But most of the time they graduate to other things and what I want to make sure that we’re doing at VAP is not limiting them, is creating opportunities where their voice can be heard as an artist who happens to be a veteran. I think we’ve been successful with that. Certainly other non-profit organizations and arts organizations are coming around to that. But what’s been really encouraging for me is that we have partnerships with private businesses. We have an ongoing partnership with Starbucks, where they have our filmmakers-- they reach out to us to produce content for them. We just produced three videos that were produced by veterans, edited by veterans, researched by veterans, for Starbucks to communicate their corporate brand and to be unique and, with integrity, telling these stories. So that’s exciting to me that when, private businesses and chief marketing officers and other folks who have the money who want to put that money where their mouth is and pay veteran artists to do the work. So, that’s really what we’re trying to do is to raise the ceiling on these ideas. Jo Reed: And what about your singing career. You still singing? Brian McDonald: <laughs> Oh, man. I am, actually. I just recently sang in Baltimore City at a big gala, actually it was in front of a-- man, it was three thousand people or something. It was the first time I’d sung in front of that many people in a while. I sang with a dear friend of mine, Kara Lindsay, who was Glinda in Wicked. We sang a duet and I sang a solo and it was for the Baltimore City Shock Trauma Gala. So, I’m doing more of those types of things. I don’t have a lot of time to do lengthy musical theater productions, but I do love to get out and do some solo stage-type work. Jo Reed: And where do you see VAP in the next five years? Brian McDonald: Yeah. That’s a great question! So, really, where I’m taking VAP and where the board is taking VAP and, like, what we’re trying to design is, I wake up every morning wanting to raise the ceiling of opportunity for veterans in the arts. I didn’t start VAP seven years ago to make a living doing it. I started it because I saw a gap and I wanted to fill that gap with a solution and that was VAP. So, as we’ve gone on seven years, we’ve made several different transitions and the next one for me is really doing something on a national stage that not only includes veteran artists as individuals, but veteran service organizations and arts organizations that are doing local-, community-, state-based work who want to engage with veterans. So, the way that that’s gonna hopefully manifest itself is through sort of regional-based productions where you have networking, you have panels, you have a community, where VAP serves as the catalyst for connecting artists and organizations and private businesses and funders, so they can come together, find each other, perform, and then network and then create something amazing. So, that’s where we’re taking VAP on the programmatic side. And then we’re also increasingly building our media production side. So, the partnerships like we have with Starbucks, as an example, where we help them tell their stories. At the end of the day what I’m interested in is-- what I consider myself is a story teller. So, if I can help a business like Starbucks, or Nike, or NEA, or a myriad of different organizations tell their stories, whether it’s about veterans or not, but engage veterans in the process, then it’s a win for everybody. Jo Reed: Thank you so much, BR, for the work you’re doing, which I think is really kind of fabulous, and also for giving me your time. Brian McDonald: Of course! Yeah, no, this is exciting! You know, I love to talk about VAP and I appreciate the opportunity. <music> Jo Reed: That was BR McDonald, founder and CEO of the Veteran Artist Program. You can find out more about VAP at veteranartistprogram.org. And today, May 26, is the 7th annual launch of Blue Star Museums, which offers free admission to military families at 2000+ museums nationwide, from Memorial Day through Labor Day 2016. The complete list of participating museums is available at arts.gov/bluestarmuseums. <overlapping music> You’ve been listening to Art Works, produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out how art works in communities across the country, keep checking the Art Works blog, or follow us @NEAarts on Twitter. For the National Endowment for the Arts, I'm Josephine Reed. Thanks for listening.