'Art Is Very Healing': From Army Veteran To Future Art Therapist

KIPS BAY, NY — For U.S. Army veteran Nikki Woods, her lifelong passion for art and military experience has fueled her goals of becoming an art therapist for veterans.

Woods, a fourth-year graphic design student at the School of Visual Arts, is among more than 50 veterans enrolled at the school. She leads a campus organization that connects veterans to veterans and helps students find housing and navigate G.I. Bill benefits. She has also helped the club connect with Gallop NYC for a therapeutic horsemanship program coinciding with the week of Veterans Day.

But before she enrolled at SVA, she joined the U.S. Army, where she was enlisted for eight years. She worked as logistics manager, overseeing hundreds of millions of dollars in military equipment, according to Woods. She was deployed to Afghanistan and has worked at various military bases, and when she moved to New York City, joined the Army Reserve.

Now the 28-year-old plans to pursue a graduate degree in art therapy to one day work with veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health struggles.

"I personally have people who I talk to on a daily basis who are struggling with PTSD," Woods told Patch. "I feel their pain. I help them by listening."

"I realized art is very healing," she added. "It has definitely healed me."

The Miami-native first joined the Army at 17 to pay for school, she said, recalling her mother had to sign documents to make it official.

When she returned home, she was ready to fulfill her dream of going to art school. She chose SVA after feeling confident in the school's veteran support systems because of its history of being co-founded by World War II veteran, Silas Rhodes in 1947.

"I was just getting out of the military, so I did realize this was a new chapter for me, so it was kind of hard adjusting for a little bit," said Woods, who also works as a graphic designer at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"It was so fresh and so new and so different from the military."

An on-campus advisor for veterans was communicating with her well before her move to New York City. Soon after, she joined the campus organization Veteran Coalition of the Arts, where she's now president.

"I believe it's very necessary, and I believe it's actually extremely important to have that connection around the campus and to have that camaraderie with the veterans," Woods said. "To have that is to say I'm in the right direction, I have my people here, there are artists that can be veterans as well."