BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Art can come in countless forms – a melodic symphony that leaves an audience in hushed awe; an image that invokes the power, pain or beauty of a moment in time; the graceful sweep of a dancer moving across a stage to the ebb and flow of the music.
Here at Illinois Wesleyan University, our fine arts professors are more than instructors. They are active participants in their art. Three of our professors were posed the question, “How do you create art?” The answers from Associate Professor of Dance and Movement Jean Kerr, Professor of Composition and Theory David Vayo and Professor of Art and Design Sherri McElroy were dynamic and perhaps strikingly similar, reflective of a line from poet John Keats, “That which is creative must create itself.”
“There is a moment in the creative process when you have to give up all control,” said Professor Kerr. “You have to trust that what flows out of you is coming from somewhere that is smarter than you.” Kerr has been creating dance and fight choreography for the stage for more than 20 years. “I do believe in a rhythm in the universe, in life, in physics. I do believe that this thing we call our existence is a miraculous dance, and if I am quiet and open, I can tap into that.”