ABOUT
The Veterans Creative Arts Program provides a platform for veterans, active military, and first responders to express themselves through various art forms. Our program aims to support and empower our participants by offering a safe space for creative expression and artistic exploration. Through art, veterans, active military, and first responders can share their stories, connect with their peers, and find healing and inspiration. Join us in honoring our veterans, active military, first responders and their creative talents. We welcome you to explore their diverse artistic works and engage with our community. Your support is essential in helping us continue to provide an enriching and supportive experience.
MISSION
Veterans Creative Arts Program provides access to creative arts programs for veterans, active military, and first responders, especially those experiencing the effects of service related trauma, such as PTSD and traumatic brain injury.
Cammeron Batanides
President of VCAP
Cammeron Batanides is an internationally known fine artist and children’s book author/illustrator. She is a teaching artist, business owner, live painting performance and studio artist. Predominantly working in acrylic and watercolor, her works have been featured across the United States, in Jamaica and throughout Canada.
One of 14 artists in the world chosen for a group exhibit sponsored by CBS at the 2013 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in conjunction with the 2013 French Quarter Festival, Cammeron was also invited to California during that same period for a solo exhibition of her work at the legendary Los Angeles Fine Arts Building. She was the first live painter for The Wailers, the first live painting performance artist on the USS North Carolina battleship and at Wilmington’s historic Thalian Hall’s inaugural reggae show. Locally, she has been commissioned to paint multiple public and private murals in the downtown Wilmington and Leland area. Cammeron has recently returned from Washington, D.C, where over 40 of her original works were exhibited adjacent to the Smithsonian at Pepco Edison Place Gallery. Cammeron’s originals were simultaneously displayed in Leland, North Carolina at Leland Cultural Arts Center.
Veterans Creative Arts Program
(910)367-5554 (ph)
Michael Ramos
Veteran & Teaching Artist
Michael Ramos is an Iraq war veteran, a writer, teacher, book designer, editor, and the art director for Ecotone magazine. His work focuses on dispelling myths about war, warriors, and veterans, and bringing military and civilian communities together through the power of art. You can find his work in Fourth Genre, Slice, PANK Daily, and other places. His essay collection The After: A Veteran's Notes on Coming Home (UNC Press 2024)received a starred Kirkus review and is available now from UNC Press
Chef McCoy
Veteran & Teaching Artist
Chef McCoy is an Army veteran, executive chef, and culinary professional with over 25 years of experience. He is currently a teaching artist through Veterans Creative Arts Program. Chef McCoy continues to empower others by sharing his expertise. He explores other artistic mediums, such as acrylic painting on canvases and participating in community mural work.
Jason Noble
Veteran & Teaching Artist
Jason Noble is an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran. He uses the art of stained glass to find physical and mental healing. He has been making stained glass for about three years and loves sharing his art form and work with everyone.
Kristen Dorsey
Veteran & Teaching Artist
Kristen Dorsey is a published writer, award-winning visual artist, and USMC
veteran. Her artwork reflects her love of the natural world, and her writing encourages a
connection to nature as a method of healing and self-expression.
Kristen writes primarily nonfiction and occasional fiction and has essays and
short stories published in the Chautauqua Journal, the Collateral Journal, Press Pause
Press, and Written Tales. Kristen was a finalist in the 2024 Charlotte Lit Lit/South
Awards for her nonfiction story “Vine Of My Soul.” Her essay, “Semper Fi,” was
nominated for the 2020 Pushcart Prize and she was again nominted in 2024 for her story
“Hive of Sisters.”
Kristen served a four-year tour of duty in the United States Marine Corps from
1981 to 1985 and was then recruited by the Department of Defense to work for the DIA
at Bolling AFB in Washington DC, then the Pentagon as a member of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff Intelligence Briefing Team, and finally as a contractor to the CIA at a classified
Area in Virginia until 1996.
Kristen currently works as a freelance digital media specialist while she continues
to paint, write, and work toward publishing her book about spending fifteen years on a
West Virginia mountain homestead after losing her husband to opioid addiction. You can
find out more on her website, www.KristenDorseyArtist.com and follow her on Facebook
and Instagram @KristenDorseyArtist
Stan Lake
Veteran & Teaching Artist
Stan Lake is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker from Bethania, North Carolina. His work has been published in The Havok Journal, Reptiles Magazine, Dirtbag Magazine, Lethal Minds Journal, Backcountry Journal, Wildlife in North Carolina, SOFLETE, The Tarheel Guardsman, Wildsound Writing Festival, and others. His poetry collection "A Toad in a Glass Jar" is scheduled for publication by Dead Reckoning Collective, date TBD. He has written 3 Children’s books and one Christian Devotional book. He filmed and directed a documentary about his deployment in Iraq with the NC Army National Guard called “Hammer Down.” He spends most of his free time wrangling toads. You can see his collected works and social media accounts listed at www.stanlakecreates.com
Marcus Dawson
Guest Teaching Artist
Marcus Dawson is a North Carolina collage artist whose mission is to spread love and light through analog collage. What started off as a self-care practice, became his passion for creating unique art with paper that included bright colors and vibrant visual storytelling. He often incorporates images of people of color among whimsical landscapes dotted with colorful flowers, rolling hills, and the heavens above. His work has been featured in Suboart Magazine, Wilder Collage, Collage Care: The Method and many more.
Arial Fitzner
Veteran & Teaching Artist
Arial Fitzner is a USMC Veteran. She loves to work with Mosaic pieces using small rocks, shells, and moss, creating nature-themed faces, animals, or objects. She also enjoys exploring acrylic and painting on different surfaces that she can bring to life with beautiful color patterns. Arial also enjoys exploring pastels. Her passions outside of creating art are a love for animals, spending time with her cat, Grechen, boxing, martial arts, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. She is currently working on completing her 200-hour yoga teacher training and is studying Stenography. Arial is a teaching artist through Veterans Creative Arts Program. She loves how art can help soothe the mind and soul, expressing what's inside us, reflecting our true selves, and bringing people together from all walks of life in a positive community.
Zerick Jones
Veteran & Teaching Artist
Zerick Jones, a Wilmington native, has traveled the world. He is a portrait artist who works in different mediums, such as charcoal, acrylics, graphite, and his love, soft pastels. Zerick has been creating since birth. He has created numerous murals in the Wilmington area. Zerick served in the Navy from 1987 - 1989 aboard the U.S.S. Iowa. The U.S.S. Iowa had a capacity of 1,500, with 750 onboard during Zerick's service. Zerick Jones is a teaching artist through VCAP and has played a key role in mural collaborations between VCAP and the City of Wilmington.
Kobe Kelley
Veteran & Teaching Artist
Kobe Kelley joined the U.S. Navy Seabees in October 1981 upon graduating from High School. After Basic Training in Orlando, Florida and Apprentice training in Gulfport, Mississippi, he was stationed at various places around the world such as Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Atsugi, Japan; Port Hueneme, California; Saudi Arabia during Desert Shield/Storm; Okinawa; Puerto Rico; Gulfport, Mississippi; Guam; Spain, and Macedonia (the Former Republic of Yugoslavia. He retired as a Chief Petty Officer
(E-7) with 22 years of active duty under his belt.
After retiring from the Military, he moved to Montpelier, Vermont in 2003 and went to work for the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) as a Geodetic Surveyor for 14 years. Retired from VTrans in 2017 and moved to the Brunswick Forest Community within Leland, NC. These days he enjoys walking, playing pickle ball and attending the Veterans Creative Arts Program (VCAP) participating in the painting class.