When Penny Lee Deere picks up a brush she says she’s quickly swept away.

“You just forget about anything else, it doesn’t matter, you just try to figure out what’s going on, just letting go,” she said, as she painted a poppy with watercolors.

Not quite a decade ago Deere first tried her hand at the arts at the V.A.

“In my case, I needed an outlet for trauma,” she recalled.

Following a 20-year career in the U.S. Army, Deere had been seeking treatment for PTSD. Along with losing a son and experiencing combat trauma, she says she was sexually assaulted.

“I would go to the V.A. and talk to therapists, do traditional talk therapy, and I never really got any better,” Deere said. “The first time I saw a change in me was when I went to music therapy.”

For the past four years, Deere has met weekly with a group called Arts4Veterans, which dabbles in just about any medium they can.

“I think it’s a combination of them all, it’s not one thing, it’s the arts that saved my life and that is not blowing smoke,” Deere said.

Fellow Army vet and sexual assault survivor Sandy Arnold is one of the group’s other regulars. 

“You come to the group and it is a sense of belonging, friendship, camaraderie,” Arnold said. “You don’t even have to say anything.”

During a recent session, certified art therapist Heather Hutchison urged the group to paint something calming to help “center” themselves.

“This is the highlight of my month,” Hutchison said. "I love this group, I just adore seeing how much they support each other.”

Hutchison says neuroscientists believe art therapy is often effective at treating conditions like PTSD because, unlike traditional talk therapy, it stimulates all parts of the brain.

“Creative arts tap into a nonverbal part of our brain and most trauma that has happened to us, it affects us in a nonverbal way,” she said. “We can’t verbalize what has happened sometimes, because it has shaken us to the core so much and the arts create a door that opens.”

During November’s National Veterans and Military Families month, replicas of the group’s pieces have been on display at C.R.E.A.T.E. Community Studios, of which Hutchison is the executive director. The originals are being showcased at different venues in Washington, D.C.

“I remember the first class I came to I couldn’t even draw a straight line and I just laughed,” Arnold said. “They kept encouraging me and now we’re in art shows; it’s fun.”

More than 25 years after retiring from the Army, Deere says recovery is still a work in progress.

“I get mad at myself when I’m having bad days. Like, don’t you know better? You have no reason for being upset today,” Deere said. “It’s like going back; two steps forward, one step back. There is no cure, I’m much better, but I’m not cured.”

On the good days and the bad, she knows her paint and brush will be here to help her get through it.

“It’s life-changing,” she said. “I have a reason to get up in the morning.”