Baird Asher from Air Force, to homeless veteran, to discovered artist

Homeless Air Force veteran and street artist receives national attention after stranger buys his work

ABC 13 NEWS

Deborah Wrigley

October 11, 2018

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- As cars travel over a creek on a Katy Freeway service road, yards beneath out of view, a homeless vet applies paint to plywood, creating art.

It is where Baird Asher has lived for two months after he caught a ride to Houston from New Orleans, where he was a street artist. As an Air Force veteran who was an aircraft mechanic, "I can put an engine together," he said, but his real calling is his art.

"I'm an artist, and this is what I do," he said. "I don't necessarily refuse to do anything else, but this is what God gave me the talent to do."

Technically, Asher is homeless.

"I live under a highway bridge," he said with a laugh. But he needed the kindness of strangers to eat.

Two days ago, he was standing at an intersection with a sign that read, "Hungry Vet." That caught the eye of Suzanne Coppola, who was stopped at the light. At his feet was one of his paintings. It got Coppola's attention.

"I parked illegally and talked to him," she said. "He had an amazing story, and he's an amazing artist and I put it on my Facebook page, asking the creative community if we could do something for him."

The response amazed Coppola.

"I have artists contacting me about ideas they have for him, and a gallery owner from Dallas, who also has a gallery in Miami, asked to buy all his paintings," she said.
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Vietnam Veteran Artist Roberto Gutierrez Brushes Fight PTSD

Art of Marine veteran who paints as therapy on exhibit in Lincoln Heights
ABC 7 News
By George Pennacchio
Friday, February 09, 2018

"I continue to seek help. I've tried the kitchen sink. I've tried hypnosis. I've tried traditional therapy. I've tried Qigong. I've tried Tai Chi. Whatever works!" 
Roberto Gutierrez

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Artist Roberto Gutierrez says color is in his DNA.

He expresses that in his paintings, after having lived through the darkness of war.

"It's my soother for PTSD. Still going through that," said Gutierrez. "Never will get rid of it but it's better."

For more than 40 years, Gutierrez has been painting away the pain of the Vietnam War.

The U.S. Marine veteran is among just a few members of his platoon who made it home alive.

Today, Gutierrez is a distinguished artist known for painting Los Angeles landscapes.

His current exhibit at Plaza de la Raza also celebrates landscapes from New York and Paris.
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Georgia Aims Paint Brush After Two Tours in Iraq

How art therapy helps a Georgia veteran with PTSD
Atlanta Magazine
Frank Reddy
April 20, 2016

“[My art] gives me somewhere to put energy

that I have no other way to get rid of.”

Jason Smith works in his home studio.

PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVEN KARL METZER

Everywhere Jason Smith turned, it seemed death surrounded him. As a medic in the smoldering battlegrounds of Iraq, he performed CPR on fatally wounded Marines. Back home he was involved in a car wreck that left him with a traumatic brain injury and killed a friend.

Before long he began hallucinating. There were daytime visions of dying men at his feet. In the grocery store, Smith saw the smiling ghosts of uniformed Marines waving. He was diagnosed in May 2005 with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The following year Smith, 33, was discharged after two tours in Iraq. Back in civilian life, he held and lost eight different jobs, largely due to symptoms relating to his PTSD. After a period of hardship and heavy drinking, Smith finally found comfort doing something he’d never done before: picking up a paintbrush.

These days the walls of the Gainesville, Georgia, home he shares with his wife, Pamela, are decorated with paintings and mixed-media artwork incorporating found items like feathers, vinyl records, and gnarly chunks of driftwood. Pop culture is a dominant theme—think ThunderCats cartoons, Iron Maiden album covers, and Duke’s Mayonnaise jars—but it’s not all lighthearted. One painting features a man dangling from a cliff; a group of soldiers grasp at him from below, trying to pull him down. “The chasm represents PTSD and memories and intrusive thoughts,” says the burley, bearded Smith, who swears by the healing power of the creative process.
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