Aaron Jenkins
March 14, 2018
Personal Artist Statement
As a young artist, I feel I have an obligation to strive to change how we interpret and react to the world around us. We live in a time of such uncertainty, but we also live in a time of transparency. As I have grown as an artist and have seen the issues that our world faces, I know I can be an active part in making that change. The issues we face of corruption, racism, discrimination and inequality are going to be fought harder against and more resilient than ever before. With our ability to access and process more information, communicate more quickly, unify our ideas and persuade hearts to empathies with the most honest parts of ourselves, artists will be the greatest weapon against injustice. I believe I can part of that. I believe everyone can be a part of accepting the faults of our past as a human race and push to overcome our downfalls.
Artists in each generation are faced with daunting battles they must overcome and maneuver through. It is part of being an artist. It is part of being a human. We as artists are the interpreters of our generation and the generations before us. With each passing moment we grapple with an emotional tie to how we will react to the events of the world. Answering the question: how will we take action against adversity and how will we look to ourselves to inspire change? Change that has to come through our ability to create. The ability to affect humanity as it moves through time. Artists use their ability to draw out the deepest aspects of the human conscious and bring them to the light and change them for the better. We are the leaders, we are the healers, we are the soldiers.
Our path forward as artists will be one that will not leave people behind. People have grown up in poverty, they have been victims of racism and abuse. We have to fight for a time when no one has to be killed because the color of their skin. Starve because they do not have enough food to eat. Die in their homes because they could not afford the health care they needed. We have allowed our greed and fear to act dictate the way people live. We have not listened to the dangers that are in front of us because of our material grip to money and what it does for us. We cannot allow ourselves to sit back like the generation before and allow injustices and misdirection guide our future. We will act on reason and transparency about the issues we face, analyze our solutions and organize to move to change them. We are not the artists of the past. We are not the generation of the past. Our generation will transform the world.
I am an artist of this generation. I am African American man. I am a millennial. I am a fighter. I am a singer. I am so many things. These things have shaped me into who I am. I cannot change them. I can change how I am perceived but even then, I am still all of these things. My identity as a performer and as a musician are made up of all of these aspects of me. How do I share to the world who I really am? I tell my story. I stand on a stage and show people who I am. Who I always have been. Who I will become because I am my story. I am my truth. Everything I do that makes an impact in another person’s life can create change. Can cause understanding where there was misunderstanding. I will make my way forward with the intuition and determination to not leave the world the same. I believe I have the artistry that will make true change.
Aaron T. Jenkins, Tenor
