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W.C. Bryant High School 48-10 31st Avenue Christopher J. Pellettieri, Principal
Scott Frank , A.P. Creative Arts & Business Tel. (718) 721-5404 Ext. 391 Email: sfrank7@schools.nyc.gov |
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An artist looks at life and the chaos of nature, then takes a brush, a violin, a camera, or his or her own body and plays a plaintive song of desire on it. A desire for understanding.
Artists try to say things that can’t be said. We fine tune ourselves to the oscillations of nature: the rhythmic beat of the heart—of the sea running up the shore, then pulling back—or the bang and slam of the shutter in a storm. From these elemental rhythms spring the one-two beat of music and the push and pull of a play on words. They’re the antagonist and protagonist of drama.
We may amuse and delight, but, like Shakespeare’s clowns, we also ask the most impertinent questions about who we think we are. Where would we be without artists? We would be gray automatons in a gray landscape picking gray flowers for gray lovers. Life would be grim.
Alan Alda, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2006 |