Charlie Burton: With 91.9 KVCR News, I’m Charlie Burton. What does it mean to be creative? Is it something that comes from within you, or a skill that you can learn? And how can you express it? At the University of California, Riverside, creativity is being expressed through the Starving Artists club on campus. I sat down with the co-president of the club, and a good friend of mine, Audrey Gemperle, to figure out what kind of creativity was being expressed at the Starving Artists club.
Audrey Gemperle: I'm one of the co-presidents for Starving Artists. Our other president is in Spain right now, so we're co-parenting the club at the moment. Their name is Anna Mediva, they are in Spain studying Spanish for their general degree at the moment. They've done a lot for the club. The club was not doing the best last year, but they helped revive it, and now we're in good standing at the moment.
Charlie Burton: Starving Artists isn't just a club made for art lovers. It's designed for people to go and connect with others about their shared interests, hobbies and passions.
Audrey Gemperle: The main foundation for Starving Artists is folks who have a genuine interest or passion in art, and they want to find like-minded folks, or they want to explore art more in different ways, because there's no barrier of entry into the club. If you're not good at drawing, if you're amazing at it, everyone's welcome. Everyone's welcome to share the passion, what they're interested in, the projects that they're doing, and also ask for art advice, or ask for people to go to events that they're interested in.
Charlie Burton: The question of whether there's a right or wrong way to perform art has been asked and explored many times, but the Starving Artists club? All that matters is that you're putting your full self into it and connecting with others and having fun! As with all hobbies and passions, the spark had to be started somewhere. So where did this love for art and drawing come from for Audrey?
Audrey Gemperle: Definitely earlier on in life; I have a lot of older siblings. They were very, very into art. And I was like, "oh, my god, that stuff is so cool. I really appreciate that. I want to do art too". And also, I always was interested in, like, physical drawing media or just like, like cartoons and stuff like that. I was actually a, like, a live action hater as a child, I was like, argh!
Charlie Burton: Art comes in many forms, whether it could be a song, a movie, a drawing or anything else, but one thing is always apparent in all forms of art; its ability to connect and its ability to express. This is something that happens throughout all periods in human history, as Audrey explains.
Audrey Gemperle: I feel like art is one of the most powerful ways that people can connect with each other, at least like art is a way of conveying different feelings, thoughts, and ideas, to other folks, it's always been at the central point, at least like throughout history, for people to express an idea, ideas, thoughts and evoke emotion, evoke feelings, evoke certain new ideas that people won't wouldn't be able to fully express or feel about it, if you think about the Renaissance Period, Romantic Period, Realism Period, it all happened with a change of philosophical belief and general cultural change, a change of cultural norms of the time period.
Charlie Burton: When creating a piece of self expression, talent is not at the forefront. It is complete and total honesty. Honesty is one of the most important aspects of creating art based on self expression.
Audrey Gemperle: Art is one of the best ways that people can express certain aspects of themselves, even though it might be shameful in certain regards or process certain things, because how can you truly have built genuine relationships or genuine connections if you can't be honest with other folks, the only way that people can truly understand one another [is] if they're honest with each other, but it can be scary, because there has been rejection before in that regard. I know some people are afraid; I met some people that are afraid of sharing their art based on perceptions that their parents might have of it, or siblings or their community.
Charlie Burton: As Audrey and I discussed creativity and self expression, they brought up some points that I thought were just fascinating, how creativity mixes with philosophy, and again, with history.
Audrey Gemperle: William Blake is this fascinating figure from, I believe, 18th to 17th century England, he made these very visceral and beautiful paintings, and it was very, very religious, religiously related. And he had this very fascinating way of how he portrayed, how he processed Christianity and Protestantism. Oh, because this was happening when the Protestant Revolution just happened, and there was a lot of cultural changes during the time period. But one of his main beliefs is that the most important factor, or at least, way of salvation, or just way of putting yourself out there, is creativity. Creativity is the main, creativity is the main aspect that one can express themselves and truly find like enlightenment in a certain regard.
Charlie Burton: It's easy to see art as something that can be perfected and something that can be replicated in a right or wrong way, but art is based so much on creativity, and creativity is based so much on self, that there really isn't a right or wrong way to perform art. Art is something that can be felt within all of us and even seen throughout history, and at the Starving Artists Club at UCR, this idea presses on, and this idea will always persist. I'm Charlie Burton with KVCR.
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Charlie Burton is an undergraduate student at UC Riverside majoring in Theater, Film, and Digital Production. He created this feature for a public radio course at UCR, led by Allison Wang of KVCR.