We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cody Vance a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Cody thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The most meaningful project I’ve had the honor of creating began in 2008 while still on active duty, stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. There, I managed a 15-member Medical Multimedia Team whose mission was to support the Graduate Medical Education program for the Office of the Surgeon General of the Air Force by providing forensic photography, videography and illustrations for 350+ residents annually in support of their formal training and research.

As one of the Medical Illustrators supporting these missions, I was approached by members of Behavioral Science with the request to create a visual representation of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). I knew generally what these two terms meant but understanding from a clinical viewpoint is vastly different. What helped me design a concept for the visual representation, later evolving into a personal life ideology, was the explanation from the Behavioral Health team that a person who suffers a traumatic event can develop symptoms like severe anxiety, vivid flashbacks, and intense distress at reminders of the trauma. Newly developed “pieces’ of themselves where none may have existed before.

The pencil illustration “One Piece At A Time” was born from these considerations. The original drawing, now residing in the Pentagon, depicts a soldier made up of jigsaw puzzle pieces. While he’s holding two pieces in his hands, we see those pieces that he’s trying to replace in himself no longer fit.

An unexpected result for me since creating this drawing in 2008 is continually receiving personal messages about how it serves to be a source of hope and understanding for those living with PTSD and TBI. One such example occurred at an army veteran friend’s leatherworking shop in San Antonio. A PTSD sufferer himself, his shop also served as a place where other veterans and non-veterans alike were invited to learn traditional creative skills and have a place to call their own or “a club house” as he declared it. One day, a mother and daughter pair were out for a day of shopping and entered his shop to have a look around. As my friend and the mom made their way through the two-room building full of art, equipment and supplies, they realized the daughter was no longer with them. They discovered her sobbing in the middle of the main room, staring at my “One Piece At A Time” drawing that he had hung in the space. When they asked what was wrong she pointed and said, “That’s it. That’s what I feel like.”

Due to similar feedback over the years from so many people describing a profound connection to the illustration, I created a bronze sculpture depicting the same concept in 2023. My hope is to give those who are affected by trauma a monumental visual representation that they can connect to and for them to receive support from an understanding community in order to rebuild their lives “One Piece at a Time.”

Cody, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Cody Vance and I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Having taught myself many mediums and processes, I’m constantly flowing between multiple projects or experiments. What most people see are the end results of countless hours in designing, considering materials and other logistics. This juggling act is what keeps me energized and excited to learn something new.

I began his life in the arts as probably most do, with a crayon and anything I could scribble on. With no formal training I have an insatiable desire to make things and an equal focus that allows me to quickly pick things up by observing.

I’m an Air Force veteran, having enlisted in 1985 I traveled all over, viewing first-hand some the world’s great art and architecture. Wanting to help spread the beauty of art I worked diligently with my military leadership to create painted murals and other pieces of artwork in various U.S. military locations. Those pieces of artwork, some still intact to this day after almost 40 years, helped brighten up normally drab military surroundings and gave my fellow servicemen a visual sense of pride. After 24 years of honorable service I retired as one of the top military graphic artists in the Air Force Art Program having won the title of Graphic Artist of the Year in three consecutive years 2007, 2008 and 2009. Over 33 pieces of my original art are part of the permanent collection housed at the Pentagon.

During the apex of my award run I began to feel I needed a change in creative direction. Discovering stone carving, I was fortunate to learn under expert hand of the late Rachman Ulmer. To say I was hooked immediately would be an understatement. Unaccustomed to creating in abstract form, my surprise was how quickly I took to this new medium. Everything I had learned up to that point had prepared me for sculpting and now, over 15 years have passed and I continue to expand my creative boundaries, recently adding steel sculpture, bronze and printmaking to my toolbox of creative disciplines. I still work full-time as a medical illustrator, and my focus outside of the 9-5 is primarily sculpture. Although I still practice with many mediums, my energies go mainly into creating sculpture, mainly stone and clay for bronze. The bronze is especially exciting with the advancement of 3D scanning. An artist can now build something on a small scale, have it scanned, then printed in any size needed. This significantly cuts down cost of materials and time. Especially for monumental work, which is my next major goal.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For me, it’s being the underdog. A portion of society have an unrealistic opinion of artists. They can consider them to be weird, flighty, unmotivated, unwilling to get a real job, and that may be true for some but overwhelmingly, artists are hardworking, resilient problem solvers who are constantly hammering out the details of upcoming projects or ideas. We have the ability to make something out of seemingly nothing. A conversation with a client, friend or another artist, about possibilities, or “what if’s” really gets our creative brains moving. Artists are unique in the fact that when presented with a need or idea, we can conceptualize a design, work closely with clients to honor their vision, complete all of the endless red tape of legal documents, navigate code restrictions, insurance, etc. and then construct the project piece and help walk everything through to completion and installation. How many companies would you think that could take normally? Artists do that every day across the country and many times they do a lot of the work solo.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.vanceartstudio.com
• Instagram: vanceartstudio