When I was fourteen and had to explain to people that I was a freshman in college, one of the most common comments I got was “So, are you going to be a doctor or a lawyer?” Some people said this as a joke but others were completely serious and I soon got sick of the question. Were those the only choices I had as a young woman deeply interested in finding my own way of contributing to the world?
Turns out they weren’t. When I was sixteen, a junior in college, and first vocalizing what I truly wanted to do, I wrote a song called Jump Anyway which opens with the line, “I skipped high school so I could go to art school and be what I wanted to be.” Although when I first sang this song in front of my father at a folk festival he reminded me that I had gone to a liberal arts school not a studio art school, with all the classes I was taking art had taken over my life. Below is the original video from three years ago made in my not-so-official studio comprised of my basement bedroom and Photobooth.
In graduate school this past weekend I had a realization. As an artist, specifically a community artist, I am always asked why I do what I do. My friends who went to college early with me and then went into the medical school weren’t faced with this question. They’re becoming doctors because that’s what intelligent people do, to save lives and contribute to society.
I sat with one of these friends when she was applying to medical school and was asked in her application why she wanted to be a doctor. The question stumped her. As a community artist all I do is answer that question, struggling each time to not only explain why I want to do community art, but what community art is.
While this constant questioning, sometimes to the point of interrogation, can be straining and irritating, it is also quite informative. I’ve had to be introspective, to write, to converse, to explain and every level. Recently I had a long conversation with my 91-year-old grandfather about what community art is. After that I had to explain to the children I work with what my job is. Each time I do, not only do I get better at expressing what I do, I get a better understanding of it myself.
My graduate degree at Lesley University has helped me be able to answer the constant “Why’s?” whenever I’m asked. Why do I make art? Why do I paint abstractly? Why do I like to work with kids? Why don’t I want to be a traditional teacher? And the question that’s ever present but never directly stated, why did I skip high school to go to art school?