Student Artist Spotlight: Reese Mackenzie
Reese Mackenzie is a junior at Bridgewater State University. Originally from South Hadley, he is a double major in Secondary Education with a concentration in Art and a minor in art history.
Reese became interested in art starting in elementary school, but he doesn’t remember a time in which he wasn’t an artist. Despite hardships he was experiencing throughout school, he always felt as though art was a fun and exciting hobby that he could turn to. Luckily, this hobby eventually formed into a lifelong passion.
Reese’s favorite medium is acrylic paint. However, he also loves just graphite and paper, for it’s always an incredibly convenient form of art that he can do anywhere. As an education concentration, Reese hopes to transfer the love he has for art to his future students. He says, “Art is one of the best ways that people are able to express themselves.” Our conversation delved into the lack of appreciation for art classes found in many schools today as countless districts are starting to remove funding for humanities courses.
“Art education is one of the most critical parts of schooling,” he says. “If you take away the funding towards the arts, kids are not going to get a well rounded education. The world is going to lose its color, for children won’t be exposed to the basic humanities.” Reese wishes to take this passion for art and provide a space in which students can express themselves the same ways that he was able to in school. Without proper art education funding, both the humanities as a whole and the next generation of children will struggle.
Art isn’t just a crucial form of self-expression, but also one of the most reliable ways in which we learn our history.
Through Reese’s art history minor, he further explores the importance of art in our understanding of human history. “We know more about history because of the art left behind. If art didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have nearly as much of the history we do today.” If we want our future generations to have any understanding of what our lives were like today, Reese argues that art needs to be placed as a higher priority for school districts.
Reese truly urges for people to understand that “Much of the world is art. You can sit in a room and look anywhere and see art.” Without art funding, we lose our humanity, and therefore, Reese argues that we lose our identity as a human race.
