Ask WHS: What is art?

By J’Von Cooper

What is art? 

That’s a loaded question, with many ways to answer it. Yet, considering the sizable amount of students participating in the arts here at Wethersfield High Schools, it begs the question.

 With art existing in so many forms, is there any way to define it?

Well, according to the people participating in those programs, there are just as many answers as there are people being questioned. However, there is at least one constant within all of them: Emotion. 

As Andrea Haas, one of three art teachers at WHS put it, “Art is whatever you want it to be.” She continues to specify, “I see art as a means to send a message. Make an emotional change in the person viewing it.” 

That’s how many of her students view art. As Senior Brianna Boucher said, “Art is meant to mean something”, or in other words, elicit enough emotion to be meaningful. This theme of eliciting a reaction echoes through many of the people interviewed, including an unexpecting source. 

Jeffery Roets, the current play director and English teacher, had a similar response to the aforementioned people interviewed, and a little more. 
“Arts not only reflects our emotions, but makes us question them.” he said. “It makes us feel something.” 

Well, if so many people feel so many different ways about art, what is concrete? 

Well, as seen by the people interviewed, art means something. What that something is may be different depending on whomever you ask, but it means something to somebody, with everyone saying something. 

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