Welcome to ELAN’s Blog Salon! All week we’ll be featuring articles from ELAN members around the theme of “My Life in Art”. Members will talk about their lives as artists, arts administrators and arts supporters.
Let’s pump up the weekend with an inspirational message from ELAN member Anne O’Dell on how access to the arts can change your life.
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When I was five years old, I begged my parents to buy a piano so I could learn to play. They looked at purchasing an upright, but said they could not because our living room was too small for it. I didn’t believe them (and still don’t). Not buying that piano is the one grudge I hold against my parents.
Later, I wanted to learn how to play the violin, then the harp, but they were too expensive to purchase. So, I started to sing in choir in public school. The voice is free. It was the one instrument my parents could afford to purchase. While I attended Virginia public school, the Board of Education sponsored District and State Choirs, and at the age of sixteen, I auditioned and made it all the way to States. This was huge. While I was at the festival, I fell in love with the collaborative experience of making music and singing. I decided this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I went back home, auditioned for a scholarship offered by the Annabel Morris Buchanan Music Club, won it, and paid for my first year of private voice lessons. Not only did this lead to my successfully auditioning for State Choir again my senior year, it kept me from being a high school drop out because I knew if I wanted to be a professional musician, I had to go to college.
I’ve since graduated with a Master of Music and am working on a Doctorate of Musical Arts with a supporting area in Arts Administration. Here are some lessons I’ve learned from my journey as a vocal artist. First, being an artist and living in a capitalist society are two things not conducive to one another. Second, the role of the artist in society is to express what others cannot or do not have the ability to express for themselves. Third, the arts are the conscience of society. This is an incredible responsibility to assume. We are ambassadors, conflict resolvers, healers, communicators and narrators of our communities. We are necessary to the existence of a healthy society. Fourth, because I have had to survive in a society in which not enough policy makers and citizens consider me worthy of the same level of funding as the defense industry or the sciences and language arts (even though music is physics and math and requires one to learn multiple foreign languages), I have acquired a diversified skill set that will enable me to make the arts relevant through arts administration.
No matter in what capacity I work as an artist, I will be an arts administrator because I want to define American culture differently for my generation and the ones who follow. All artists need to assume the role of arts administrators because it is up to us to build bridges between different sectors of the economy, community and artists, not just at a local, regional, or national level, but globally as well, to make ourselves relevant and prove the arts’ economic worth. Because of globalization, every community is apart of the global community, and with their distinct cultures, they have something unique to offer to it. How do we want our culture to be projected to the rest of the world? How do we want it to be defined to each other here at home?
I distinctly remember as a child watching Bob Ross paint on PBS. Bob Ross, the painter with the afro who spoke in a quiet voice and painted happy trees and clouds. He made painting a part of every day life, giving free lessons on television while providing a Zen escape to anyone who wanted to watch. He made painting accessible, and this was important for a child who lived where visual arts were close to nonexistent. We must make the arts accessible and needed, not only for artists to live a life of good quality, but also to nurture the next generation and make the arts integral to sustainable economic success and a healthier society. If we accomplish this, funding for the arts in public school programs would have to increase as a result, giving children who are not mathematicians or scientists validation in their talents and a reason to stay in school. It would make life as an artist in a capitalist society a lot more livable, and open the door to the creativity of every day citizens to nurture their culture and each other.
Anne O’Dell is a Doctoral student of Musical Arts with a supporting area in Arts Administration. She is a Graduate Teaching Fellow experienced in instructing voice and diction. She works with US and international students in the study of music and vocal performance of all levels.
