Colleen's statement

        Art has always been able to entertain and inspire me, and has often been the subject of my leisure activities and Wikipedia tangents.  I believe I can only learn so much about art from a book or a museum.  The only way to truly understand and appreciate art is to participate in the process.  This is why I make art.  It challenges me to use what I have learned in books and museums and apply it, given the limitations of my own abilities.  Making art helps me to acknowledge and overcome my weaknesses.

            I am intrigued by the ability of art to connect the senses: sight can become sound and touch.  I like to think of art as an alternate means of communication; one not limited by the boundaries of language.  My art explores just that: the ability to convey an emotion through the combination of visual imagery and sound.

Evan's statement

I find art in the little things to be quite awesome. 

Anytime I can look back on something and see a deeper meaning that I had previously passed over, I get really excited.

 I try to capture these things, harness the essence of that deeper meaning, and promote or exploit whatever it is that I, in my own experience, took from it.

               It’s rather difficult {impossible} to share this experience, but that’s what makes art so beautiful.

 It’s so personal.

Joshua's statement

On the most basic of levels, I create art because I enjoy it.  I enjoy being able to sit down and create something. There is no better feeling than having a creation you are proud of. I think the most fascinating aspect of “creating” is that you can work with the same concept one hundred times and never get the same end result. And this is becoming increasingly true with studio and video art. Technology has allowed for an unprecedented number of tools, possibilities, and ultimately endless ways to share and experience art. I love being on the forefront of this ever-changing landscape of digital media creation.

Stephen's statement

I am not an artist. My wife is an artist. She thinks I am an artist. But I don't want to be an artist. I just want to be creative. I want to make stuff that I think is cool. I want to make stuff that I don't know how to make. I want to make stuff just to make stuff.

Kyle's statement

As an artist I aim to create experiences. I enjoy crafting environments that my audience can interact with and explore. In the case of my video work I take a more narrow approach and attempt to give this experience to my actors. As they follow my direction and act out my scenes I want to wholly involve them in the experiences of the characters that they are portraying. In this manner I can create both a piece that is visual interesting to those passively watching, as well as a work that is (hopefully) mentally stimulating to those involved in its creation.

Bill's statement

I make art to chart my paths & tangles and unravel them after the fact. Art is mark-making, cave painting. So is living. Every day leaves a mark, every path has stuff strewn by the wayside. So this process involves collecting what's left over and looking inside for patterns. Art as archaeology. Some patterns are true, others not so much. Unraveling them really means re-raveling, weaving them into something new: this weaving's mirrored in the artist's act of making and the viewer's act of renewing. Fortunately, the patterns found emerge from the work as much as the intention. Striving goes three ways. Patterns make art on their own.

Lydia's statement

I understand the power of art. Art can accomplish many things but I desire art that teaches, enlightens, encourages, and entertains. While I hope to do all those things with my art; I know the reason I am an artist is because I enjoy creating and experiencing art.  I create art that others can enjoy, the same way I enjoyed creating it. In the end, I am an artist because of arts ability to affect the lives of others.

David's statement

I love video and film because it allows for expression deeper than what I can paint or sculpt. Whether i shoot actors or just objects, I can put emotion into it and tell my story or someone else's story. Emotions can be brought out in a thirty second clip or a two hour feature but everyone can feel something different. Video art is that ability to make one feel something different than another. To bring them together to discuss the piece and draw new or make clearer new possibilities.

Ellen's statement

I am an artist to create 
connection 
between seemingly unrelated ideas
between supposedly incompatible truths 
between initially distant humans

Adam's statement

As an artist I would like to evoke emotions from the viewers of my art. Whether it is sadness or happiness I want my art to make them feel. I hope that my art makes people feel enough to offer an escape from the world in which they are living in, whether it is for seconds or something they can take with them for the rest of their lives.

Mike's statement

I make art because I see the world in a unique perspective. That's not to say that mine is inherently more special or insightful than other people's but merely a factual statement that only I see the world exactly as I do. I want to relay my perspective so that people might understand me better or just share in my experience of something interesting. The problem is that I have trouble sharing my art sometimes because it comes from my core and can say so much about me as a person. Still, I think that the sharing of art is important enough for me to get over it and let others into my world. It also helps me to expand my horizons and forces me to do something outside of my comfort zone. My art is therefore as much about me sharing what I already see with the world as it is about me finding out new things about myself. I see where I came from, where I am and where I'm going in life more clearly and fully than I otherwise do. I use and abuse art to make me happier, wiser, stronger and more insightful and consequently I love making art.

Alan's statement

Art to me at this moment means creation. Anything that is brought to existence through thought and action is art.  From music, to video, to paintings, to computer programs, to food.  It's all a process of re-working and re-working an idea into the best possible version of a concrete form that can be gotten. A concept in art I'm trying to focus more on as I go is subtlety, and it is best conveyed in a quote from Stephen King's 'Dark Tower' series: "He had long since learned that bangs and smoke were more often the marks of ineptitude than expertise." I keep this in mind as I go and try to work on crafting art; consciously having everything present for a reason and in balance.

Tina's statement

The only reason I consider myself an "artist" is because one definition of an artist is "A person whose work shows exceptional creative ability or skill."  The part of that definition that lets me know I'm an artist is the part saying "creative ability".  I'm not creative in a philosophical or a meaningful sense or any of that kind of deep thinking crap.  I'm only creative in the more...lazy sense.  I like to be creative in the most obvious ways.  My "art" does not take any in depth thought or strange concepts.  It's simply whatever my random thoughts formulate. 

My favorite thing to draw is stick figures.  Most people look down upon stick figures as drawings that are made for novices of art; those who are inept, if you will.  But the reason I love to draw stick figures is because you can make them do whatever the hell you want.  If you want the stick figure to be a break dancer, you contort the limbs; if you want your stick figure to get hit by a car, you detach the limbs; if you want the stick figure to be a living water raft, you draw no limbs.  Your mind can go in an which direction you can think, which is something I love doing: thinking of the weirdest events or scenarios and drawing them.  Ideas are so much more pleasing and fun when they're drawn as stick figures rather than opening your trap and telling people that don't care. 

I'm an artist because I use stick figures to express the weird shit that I think about in my head.  I won't be called insane if they're all on paper...

Katie's statement

Both dance and film encompasses composition however the latter emphasizes the two-dimensional of a screen while the first focuses on the three-dimensional of a stage. It is the juxtaposition of these plains that interests me. Taking the visceral sensation of the body that dance inhabits and visually demonstrating it through film. Orientation of the body within dance is constantly being altered therefore pinpointing ones direction at any given time is challenging. Camera’s close up shots and postproduction editing successfully portray individuals’ intimate experience while dancing. My goal is to engage not only performing artists through dance for camera films but a wide range of audience members in hope that they associate themselves and their bodies within the piece.

Jen's statement

"Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls." -Ingmar Bergman

I love film as an art medium because it does exactly that. I use my art to tell stories and create new, and bring out existing emotions. You can say so much with just a little- whether in acting, lighting, music, sounds, or with what you choose not to show. I love the idea that the story I tell can mean completely different things to different people, and that with the same 2 minutes of footage, a whole range of emotions and stories can be evoked. The strength of the piece is in it’s ability to speak to more than one person, and in more than one way. The art of storytelling is such a vital one, so in my works I hope to only grow and dive deeper into the various depths that are there to be explored. What could be more fun or imaginative than creating your own worlds and ideas with a simple piece of equipment and creativity, and bring audiences with you on that journey, even if there’s takes a few different turns along the way. Film is a never-ending fascination, and deliverer of feelings to our souls- whether it hits us over the head, or creeps back into our mind and lingers for awhile after, it is ever more powerful.

Kevin's statement

I make art because it's what I am good at and it's what I like to do, simple as that.  I've been drawing ever since I was in the first grade and sort of always knew that art was something I wanted to keep in my life as I got older.  Now that I am older I can say that I made the right choice.  Having had opportunities to work with all sorts of different mediums that I may have never even considered art at one point has been something I am very grateful for.  It has brought challenges that I never imagined I would face, as well as many chances to experiment and see what I can create.  I hope to learn all that I possibly can through art and continue making it so long as I am able.

Austin's statement

My work is built from what we think we know about the world.  By “we” I am referring to the prejudices that all humans hold.  Humanity has a rich history of prejudice, tribalism, and short-sightedness.  It is our greatest natural resource.  I build objects and narratives that offer both myself and the viewer a chance to consider potential errors in how we imagine our relations to each other and to the natural world.  To facilitate this goal the art hijacks our dominant cultural narratives and subverts technologies developed for commercial or martial success: implements of destruction and terror become means of propagating native wildflower seeds in urban areas; a gas mask filter is replaced with wheat grass; and the human who commits acts of terror is considered as a human and not as a two-dimensional villain.  Through examining our assumptions about the world I hope to learn to see the world more clearly.

Bill's statement

I make art to deal in systems, the patterns and processes unfolding around us. In particular, I am fascinated by the systems behind the "natural," outward landscape and the inward mental landscape. They brush coarsely against one another. The mind constructs its own systems, which grasp, contain, and manipulate the former. We put values on land; we plough it for crops; we flatten mountain ranges for coal. By contrast, the landscape outside the mind makes few demands. Instead, it almost uniquely offers the mind release from its frantic loops. For whatever reasons, the mind eases up before the varied patterns of nature. Taken together, these two landscapes form an ecology of noise and silence, central to human beings split between calm and frenetic activity. We rest in ourselves; or we scrambled before the storm, building shelter, then cities, then networks of machines and computers, extending our own scattered minds into the physical landscape. Art, by offering the chance for more acute seeing or just a quick rest, can trouble the mind. This may, hopefully, open it to the silence of the outward landscape. My art's not so vast, of course. But for a moment my own frenetic activity suspended me between the two extremes. I had a camera, and got a little perspective later. Enjoy.

Andrew's statement

My art is simple yet profound. It tackles issues in a way that makes people examine themselves.  It is subtle, but thought provoking. The aim is to make the world a better place. A simple message can provoke a thought that spawns an idea which can be brought into action.  Those actions change the world. My action is my art.

Kaycee's statement

Almost every piece I make is about what it is like in my head. Sometimes it is something that happened at work.  Sometimes it is something I was annoyed about.  Sometimes it was just about emotions.  Sometimes it is about one particular person.  I really wish that the things I make myself say in my work were things I could make myself say out loud.  That is a big part of my work.  The all unutterable.  If I can’t say it out loud, then maybe I can make someone understand without needing to say it.

Alan's statement

Growing up with a heavily musical background, I have almost always associated my creative endeavors with the auditory realm.  Recently as I've begun to sink into the video world, my mind is being opened up to so many more possibilities to combine the two in ways that can evoke very specific reactions, and I can't see a limit to expressing myself using music and video now.  One of things that I've somewhat realized is that creativity is really no different that any other skill.  It increases with practice, and when not being exercised, can be lessened or lost with time.  People aren't born with massive amounts of creativity, and likewise people can become more creative with practice.  And the process of creating, and learning, is probably more of a reward than the end product sometimes.  I don't know, my art up till now hasn't had much of an end goal; I've mainly just been creating it for it's own sake.  There might come a time when I look back on now and appreciate what I have, because if I ever start making money off art I might not get as much freedom!  In the end, art is pretty much who I am.  My job doesn't define me, my money doesn't, my relationship status doesn't; if some says tell me about yourself, I will respond with, "Oh yeah, I really like to make art!"

Justin's statement

I want to create the images that are in my head. Once I create something I can let the idea go or if it’s a good idea I can expand the thought. For now this is the extent of the reason why I create art.

Link's statement

   It's hard to say whether art is more impacted by inherited genetics or by exposure from others who share it first and everyone approves. I can only speak for myself, but I don't think creativity is something that's exclusive to the idealists, where the rest of the world are spectators wanting more. I find Art to be some sort of power that people take for granted because it isn't a calculated asset or a number of years of experience. I find art, GOOD ART, to be more of an accident than a measure of creative skill, especially in the magnitude of the world's reception. If someone indulges in their own creative accidents enough, they can take their knowledge and wisdom and experience and utilize it for something that is and always will be something that just simply happens from the heart: a beautiful idea.

There have been numerous, numerous times when someone like myself thinks they have an immaculate idea, only to lack the ability to harness it, control it, shape it, and present it the way I want people to see it. Even then it can still be an accidental failure or success because I'm simply not in complete control. I'm not running the show, I'm not the Deus Ex Machina of all that is Art, but I'm a perspective all to my own that I can keep secrets, let those secrets brew and sneak around, and perhaps at the right time (or even by ignorance of it's effectiveness) slit the throats of the leather-necked audience that wasn't expecting something this amazing. Sometimes it will be to everyone, and sometimes it's just popular, and you don't know why.

You can't be upset if you make something accidentally and the world roars in it's success. It's the emotion that counts. The idea you threw out was sloppy but still from the heart, a source that isn't just a blood pumping organ, but a crux of feelings and thoughts and emotions that we can't put a finger on why it exists exactly. That's the essence of your life, it's a door to your soul where you jam your hand in and pull stuff out and try to figure out what it is or why it's important, and that's the very same stuff that others put into their hearts and kiss it goodnight. There's a science to it sometimes, sure. You need your brain to visualize what comes from your heart, and Art is a deadly mission between those two things, your mind and your soul.

Those two commandos can be lone wolves, but a joint strike can be planned, sure.
 If it's just the soul, it'll accidentally get through things without a scratch, only to fear getting hurt the next time or scared of what more is expected. If it's just the mind, it'll have a bulletproof plan, but fears that planning it all just won't be enough to make it out okay.

When you have both together, you complete the objective, and you aren't responsible for sending letters home to widows.

Kevin's statement

The reason I'm an artist is for the feeling that comes with creation. To have ideas in my head, and to watch them manifest themselves into something physical, something tangible, is what really makes art worthwhile. I like to create things that express my views, thoughts, and ideas about day to day life, and I hope that with my art, someone will either be able to relate to it, or they will draw inspiration from it, as I have from so many others. I feel that everything around me has something that needs to be appreciated, and that via any kind of medium, I need to help show that. And when it finally happens, and someone else sees the intricacy in the littlest things, that makes me feel like I have done my job as an artist.

Julian's statement

My art is selfish and self-indulgent. It does not care if you are aware of it, or if it holds any meaning for you. In this way it is a guilty pleasure. It is not an exercise in self-exploration. It is not an exercise. My art is about the idea. It is about externalizing that idea before it becomes confused, muddled, or forgotten. It is consuming. My art is a willful manipulation of the soul; it intensifies, it dulls. It is wistful and nostalgic, and being so, is often yearning and sometimes brooding.  It exists to define an idea and to control a sentiment.

My art is selfless and generous. It cares about spreading awareness on issues, and making those issues emotionally charged for the audience. In this way it is philanthropic. It is also an exercise in self-exploration, a careful exercise in discovery. My art is about the moment. It is about recording that moment as I experience it, taking note of the mood. It is fleeting. My art is a spontaneous manipulation by the soul; it rises, it falls. It is whimsical and optimistic, and being so, is often light and sometimes witty. It exists as an idea and a sentiment.