THE ARTS MAKE AMERICA GREAT

                                                                                      Photo by Edward Allen Santos My Name is Edward Allen Santos, NYC native, born and raised in the Bronx. I’m a father of 3 grown children, two boys and one girl, girl being the oldest and who has given me my first grandchild. Having been raised in the Bronx wasn’t easy be any means. My dad who passed away when I was seven and my mother forced to raise four boys on her own made it difficult for any of us to get a lot of things we wanted growing up. After having my daughter at the age of 18 I worked odd jobs throughout NY. I worked retail, construction, delivery until a friend landed me a job as an electricians apprentice. I finally had a decent job in which I...

Tim Shields and how the Feast of Crispian has helped him. What the arts have done for me is showed me a way to unpack my duffle bag of emotions, and repack them when I’m done with them. In the military you’re trained to push down your emotions as they just get in the way of the mission. Your buddy gets blown away but you can’t stop, man the battle is still going on. Drive on! You kill a bunch of people, what’s the big deal “they’re the enemy”. No they are guys just like me, a father, a son, a brother, an uncle. I started with the Feast of Crispian group in Dec of 2016, they are a Shakespeare Theater Group that works with Veterans here in Milwaukee. My wife saw a piece on a local news program and called for me to come watch. So we got in touch with them, in late November. I went to my 1 st weekend event in December, if I had not, I may not be here today. I was 2 weeks away from celebrating our 20 th wedding anniversary and I had just moved out of the house, my PTSD was in ful...

In honor of Veteran's Day we want to use this month to highlight the arts serving veterans. How do we recognize and experience ourselves as human beings? Of all the living beings on this little planet, we are unique. We ask questions about the meaning of existence. We explore and express those questions through imaginative creation. Art is how we tell stories about ourselves that words alone cannot communicate. Stories are how we make sense of what we cannot understand. Military service veterans come from an elite group; a tribe that trains, lives, works and – sometimes - fights wars - shoulder to shoulder.  Less than half of one percent  of Americans serve in the armed forces. When their service is over and they return to an overwhelmingly civilian community, the transition can be confusing and lonely. Some return with life changing physical and psychological wounds that further isolate them as strangers in a strange land. Veterans don’t know how to explain to ci...