Arts & Healing - Artist Spotlight

Arts & Healing

Arts for Military Veterans

By Amber Robinson

Veteran Artist Spotlight:

Luz Helena Stacey Thompson

This month I wanted to continue our Veteran Artist Spotlight series with Marine veteran, artist, surfer, poet and vet advocate Luz Helena Stacey Thompson. Thompson lives in Oceanside as a single mother of three (four if you count her chocolate lab service dog, Reef) who has used the power of art and the ocean to help her heal from wounds she sustained while in service.

Thompson joined the service in 1998 at the age of 17 as part of Traffic Management Operations. Originally shooting to join the Army, a Marine recruiter challenged her, asking “What? You don’t think you can be a Marine?”. Thompson decided to prove that she could step up to that challenge and signed herself over to the United States Marine Corps.

After her basic training and individual schooling for her job, Thompson was stationed in Okinawa, Japan in 1999. She says she remembers the day she got there because she showed up to base in a skirt and pink tank top and felt proud to be a woman Marine when she arrived.

“I was very proud to know I was a STRONG woman, I was a MARINE, yet know I was still feminine,” said Thompson.

She soon found out what it could mean to be a woman in the Marines. As soon as she arrived to her unit, she started to face sexual harassment, where the ratio was one woman to 60 men.

“I was blindsided,” said Thompson.

The harassment progressed and Thompson eventually became the victim of Military Sexual Trauma. Although not one to usually go out, she made the decision to take a chance one night and have a little fun. That night she was drugged by her immediate supervisor and assaulted.

Thompson tried to report the assault, but experienced a common occurrence after sexual assault is reported in the service, retaliation from her command and peers.

“I reported it,” said Thompson. “But the more I pushed for things to be done, the more repercussions came to me professionally and personally. I was basically blacklisted.” Unfortunately, her perpetrator never had to stand trial. He was released from service and was able to return to the United States with no mark on his personal record of his crime. Thompson then called a Congressman to seek further justice. She received dramatic retaliation for that by being removed from service with an Other Than Honorable Discharge, which barred her from receiving any veterans’ benefits once separated from the Marines.

Sixteen years later, after years of litigation with the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs, Thompson finally received 100% service-connected disability and can receive care from the VA and other veterans benefits.

As part of her healing, Thompson has since poured herself into her art, creating pieces for herself, art buyers and her community.

“I spent 16 years in silence about what happened to me in Okinawa,” said Thompson. “Art allowed me to go into the dark places of my mind and heal from the inside out without having to say a word.”

Thompson started her art journey in 2011 after her grandmother died.

My artwork began in 2011 after the passing of my grandmother, Irene, who was also an artist,” she said. “I could not express the depth of pain it caused losing her and I turned to artwork as a way to ease the pain and feel connected to her.”

Then Thompson created with paint, charcoal and graphite. Now her work has become more industrial. She is now a glass mosaic artist and specializes in large scale mosaics. She is also a muralist and has painted a number of community murals in Southern California. She also does smaller scale work.

“I also paint with acrylics and watercolor and I make coastal themed jewelry,” said Thompson. “I have lately fallen in love with woodworking and building custom tables for my mosaic artwork.

Thompson credits art with being a major part of her healing, but also credits her love of surfing, her children and her service dog, Reef.

“My service dog Reef, or “Reefer”, helps me stay balanced and stable throughout the day,” said Thompson. “He is so in tune with me and my emotional state that oftentimes he knows what I need before I do!”

As a single mom, her kids keep her on her toes and each have their own creative or athletic outlets inspired by Mom. Her son, also her oldest, plays guitar; her teenage daughter is a wrestler and surfs as often her mom and her smallest loves to work in the studio with her, learning about glass mosaic and more.

Although surfing, she says, is the main thing that keeps her balanced and motivated. She surfs 4 to 5 times a week and has even been linking up with and working with other women veterans who are interested in surfing.

Thompson’s life now is much better than the years she suffered in silence after her malicious discharge from service. Now, she says she seeks to be “salt and light” to everyone that she meets, crediting the energy of art and creativity as one of her biggest self-building blocks.

“(My trauma) affected every avenue of my life for over a decade,” said Thompson. “Art (writing and visual) has been a way for me to learn to trust myself again and my instincts. It taught me how to love myself for the courage it takes to confront that which is difficult, extremely intimate and private and use my story of recovery to help others.”

Thompson is also co-founder of Veterans Recovery Project, a program that helps survivors of Military Sexual Trauma. To learn more go to www.VeteransRecoveryProject.org.