Comstock's magazine 1217 - December 2017 | Page 90

• success story
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IMAGE NATION
CONNECTS VETERANS
WITH THE ARTS IN
NEVADA COUNTY
90
comstocksmag.com | December 2017
BY Trish Moratto Litke PHOTO: Michael Llewellyn
S
andra Boyd focuses her lens,
checks the lighting and
considers the best angle to
capture the personality of
each animal she photographs. She
enjoys volunteering her time to snap
photos of dogs and cats at the animal
shelter in Grass Valley.
As a U.S. Army veteran, Boyd
participated in the inaugural Image
Nation program in Nevada County,
where she learned photography skills
as a method of self-expression.
Image Nation is a joint project
between the Nevada County Arts
Council and Welcome Home Vets, a
nonprofit that provides veterans with
mental health services, counseling,
advocacy and referrals at no cost. The
program is built on a philosophy that
sharing experiences through self-ex-
pression helps veterans cope with
their military service in a meaningful
way.
“The program allowed me to
come to grips with being a veteran,”
Boyd says. “I felt shame for years
about having been in the military,
especially as a woman. We were
not welcomed home kindly in the
post-Vietnam era.”
Award-winning photographer Mi-
chael Llewellyn runs the program,
which launched in September of 2015.
Before becoming an artist-in-resi-
dence for the Nevada County Arts
Council, he worked for 22 years as a
national print media photographer.