Students on Art: Part One

Community responds to questions on the definition, impact, and necessity of art in the modern world

Dorothy Dark / A&C Editor / The USD Vista

Beyond the University of San Diego’s Art Department is a community of passionate individuals with artistic visions that are uniquely their own. Art is a multi-faceted form of creative expression, and it holds very personal significance for those who devote themselves to the field. When discussing the many forms that art may take, individual perspective plays a significant role in how one’s understanding manifests creatively. In hopes of providing honest and relevant content to the USD Community, we turn to you, the students.

The “Students on Art” series seeks to highlight students on campus who consider art to be a foundational part of their daily lives. Over the course of five interviews with various students, common definitions of art will be set aside to further examine its fluidity. Students will, in conversation, offer up their understanding of art and the role it plays in the community. Through examining a few of the opinions which shape USD’s community, we find that strangers who  walk the same routes to class may not be so far away.

For Lorenzo, art has always served as a creative outlet. It works as a means to make sense of what’s before her, to better process daily trials and tribulations. Her admiration for art is clear in conversation, and her own work varies from doodles in class to watercolor to collage. She knows the significance of art in her life, and she shared a few of her thoughts on the motives and impacts in the art she’s encountered.

DD: “What’s your personal understanding of what qualifies as art?”

KL: “Art as I understand it is one of those words that you can’t really put into a single definition. Every time you try to confine it to one thing something else breaks the confinements on your definition again. I’m not trying to be vague, but it’s something created by a human being that stirs an emotion.”

DD: “What was your first memorable encounter with art?”

KL: “My first memorable encounter with art was when I was in middle school and wrote my very own original song for this weird mandatory singing thing at my school. This song was awful, obviously, but I really liked writing music after that. When things got really bad for me, like mentally, I started writing them down in song lyrics. I think I wasn’t really comfortable with the whole diary thing and songs just felt more casual yet authentic to me. I never really share most of my songs but they made me feel better.”

DD: “What do you like to make art-wise?”

KL: “The thing that I draw the most often is admittedly a mandala in my class notes.”

DD: “Why?”

KL: “I really like these because the repetition is really, really soothing for me. Each one is always a little bit different from the last so I know that I’ll never run out of things to draw. When I’m super stressed out I like to draw a mandala and add a layer everytime I feel like crying or something. At the end of it all it’s just really nice to see something beautiful come out of all that work and emotion.”

DD: “What art do you see regularly on campus?”

KL: “When I used to have a class in Camino, I would regularly admire the changing art in the basement hallway as I walked to class. On a wider scale I don’t really see that much art on campus besides the architecture of course.”

DD: “What about art serves as inspiration to you?”

KL: “Everything about where we are located serves as inspiration for me. I like to pay extra attention to the skyline when I’m driving so I can doodle it later in class, when I’m bored. I love drawing the ocean and the city skyline so…”

DD: “Why do we need art?”

KL: “I think we need art because I don’t really think we can live a healthy life without it. Like I said, art covers a huge scope of things from music, to fashion, to literature, and even just language. Art exemplifies human success because it proves that our society has advanced enough to use their time on art. We crave it and often base our entire lives around art. It’s a way to express yourself in a way that someone else might hopefully understand. And that understanding is all we really crave in life. So yeah, I think we need art.”

With that, Lorenzo departs but her words linger. Indeed, art works as a means to cope with daily stress and exhaustion. It provides the means by which something beautiful can emerge from distress. And, often, it works as a reminder that even the greatest pain and affliction is not felt alone. With art, people put forth physical representations of their experience and in doing so open themselves to others who may feel the same. It’s the basis of community, and it’s a practice in empathy. Spend time talking about art. Chances are someone somewhere feels what you feel too.