“What is it that you want to do with your life?”
“Well, I want to be an artist.”
“Ha, no really. What are you doing with your life?”
One of the tragedies of modern American education is the way in which art is trivialized and downplayed. Many aspiring artists (including the authors) face a great deal of internal conflict between passion and “reasonableness.” And yet a world without art is empty and colorless. Art is a way of expressing things that can’t be expressed in any other way. It’s a kind of general human communication that strengthens and adds value to communities.
Arlene Goldbard wrote an article wherein she describes a “Storyland”--a place where culture, history, and art are embraced and embedded into the framework of society. It is this paradigm shift, she argues, that will free up the hearts and minds of the people and generate empathy and emotional development to keep up with the rapid advances in cognition. In other words, art, or at least creative expression, is the key to a healthy society.
In creating A Chance to Speak, we were interested in the relationship that art has with the community at large. How do they inform each other? In what ways is there an added value or contribution? Why is art important, and are we appreciating that? In some ways it was also an effort to validate our own artistic pursuits in a culture that very much encourages concession to pragmatism. We interviewed Cori Nelson, a BFA student at BYU, for her thoughts on art and community. She just completed her senior project, which is showing in the Harris Fine Arts center through the end of March 2016. For Cori, art is an important aspect of finding voice and expressing oneself through visual mediums.
The original inspiration behind our documentary was our dual observation that so many students and staff walk by the beautiful pieces of artwork in the HFAC without a second thought. We wanted to hear an artist’s perspective on this dismissal and how he or she might prefer their work to be observed. After tracking down Cori, we learned about her enthusiasm for art as a mode of creative communication and her views regarding art’s value in relation community interest.
Cori gave us so much golden content, it was very difficult to cut everything down to a three minute video. Our discussions ranged from the purpose of art in society to the deeply personal anxieties that plague artists within their perspective communities. It was hard to pick a concrete stream of ideas and concepts to follow, but we ultimately chose to include those sections of our interview that dealt most specifically with Cori and how her art plays a vital role among artists, students, and even humanity as a whole. The principle inspiration for the construction of our documentary was the Beehive Story we watched in class. We understood we had wide array of information to address, but just like Brad Barber’s distillation of Iron County, we had to make an honest attempt at justly exhibiting one paramount character who is initiating change within her community.
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