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Live music will be accompanying a two-day market with local vendors. Saturday evening will be full of live music in the cafe, and spoken word artists will perform Sunday afternoon.
“We’ve already got a host of talent lined up. Musical acts Michael Daughtry and the Drift, Afro Dope, Gamalier Padilla, Judah Marshall and Jammin’ Jon will play free to the public throughout the two-day event in front of the Fayetteville Bakery and Cafe,” said Thomas Walk, president, Infinite Art Studio NC. “Special guests Franco Webb and Luevelyn Tillman will speak on Saturday. Spoken word artists Aaliyah Hazel Lane, Law Bullock and T.A. Walk will perform Sunday afternoon.”
The market will open at 8 a.m., May 14. Food trucks and vendors will be set up in front of the Fayetteville Bakery and Cafe until 6 p.m. The cafe will hold an adult open mic night from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. The following day, the market kicks off at 10 a.m. Spoken word artists will begin to perform at 2:30 p.m. Events wrap up at 4 p.m.
Walk is a retired Army veteran who served for ten years. He was a combat engineer but became a bio-medical equipment technician during his military service. During his deployment to Iraq from September 2006 to September 2007, he had a moment that changed his life forever.
“In all my time deployed, I found myself fractured by one moment in time. Approximately 30 seconds of my life,”
he said. “I was in the hospital where I was stationed, and I happened upon a ward filled with civilian casualties. To be honest, until that moment, ‘enemy’ casualties never crossed my mind … However, these women and children were not the ‘enemy,’ and there was no ignoring that. I went the wrong way down a corridor and viewed this room and its occupants as I passed for no more than 30 seconds.”
Walk has suffered from severe post traumatic stress disorder as a result. For years he said he was heavily medicated.
“[I would take ] a handful of medications in the morning to combat the handful taken the night before. Years and years of betting on a cure that tore me further apart rather than putting my pieces together,” he said.
Suicidal tendencies were a side effect of one of the medications he was taking, something he says contributed to tearing his family apart. He decided to be pharmaceutically clean. He began to write. Walk published two novels and was working on a third when a friend and fellow veteran committed suicide, causing him to put the book aside.
But Walk persevered. He discovered painting. His partner introduced him to acrylic pour painting.
“We decided to try our hand together, and what started as a bunch of wasted paint and trashed canvases has become our wellbeing,” he said. “Along with my PTSD comes slight obsessive-compulsive disorder issues, control issues, etc. This style of painting is the most chaotic, uncontrollable thing I could choose, but I love it … Over time, we noticed the changes creativity had affected in me and decided we wanted to find a way
to share our ‘therapy’ with our community.”
The two created Infinite Art Studio NC to do just that. The studio currently doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar space, but Walk is confident that with mobile events like Artists Perform to Stop Veteran Suicide, they will be able to lease space by the end of the summer.
“Our mission is mental wellness through creativity,” he said. “We want to be a place the community can feel welcome and safe, and a place people can leave their illnesses behind for a little while.”
Artists Perform to Stop Veteran Suicide is the first of several events Infinite Art Studio has planned for the summer.
The event is looking for more performers and vendors. For more information, to donate or sign up as a vendor or food truck, visit www.eventbrite.com/e/artists-perform-to-stop-veteran-suicide-tickets-317236461797.