Salt River Sculpture Studio
Salt River Sculpture Studio
JASON G. KELTY
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
- I do not like quietly, cleanly and controllably working alone in my Shepherdsville
studio. I prefer working loudly in and with a community, organically growing together,
discovering our art and selves as we grow together. I prefer to do life and art
together.
- It is my duty as an art teacher to share my experiences and skills leading collaborators
to discover their own impulses and creative abilities. It is my duty as an artist to choose
and illustrate my most important life experiences—the well-learned lessons—to the
best of my ability. I have such a creative impulse to work within a community.
- When I create art, I create as a teacher, instructing my audience in processes,
creative thoughts, and community-minded conclusions an art teacher
can possess. When I teach, I instruct as an artist, teaching my students the
processes, creative thoughts, and community-minded conclusions an artist can
possess.
- Out of this duality, I find a consistent collaborative mindset. My art is not separate
from my teaching, my teaching is not separate from my art. And never is my teaching
or art separate from the community in which I find myself.
- While the majority of my creative processes result in a beautiful object, a sculpture of
immense proportions and great presence, it is the presence of a collaborative audience
by my side I find most rewarding, most beautiful.
- Considering my artistic process, I am inspired to create artwork within a community,
about that community. The shared vision for what original, beautiful sculpture
may occur in the next community site is what entices and fortifies me. Not knowing how
we may grow ideas and form art, we must trust each other to lean on and learn from
each other. We will be and make something beautiful.