Meet Kelly Parks Snider | activist artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kelly Parks Snider and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kelly, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
As an artist, I explore contemporary social issues. With words and art I attempt to create awareness and generate change. I am interested in examining how contemporary social, political, and cultural issues are viewed and discussed and, through my art, find a way of creating imaginative dialog that is more expansive.

Art grabs and focuses our attention. It can invite us to ask questions about the world that surrounds us. I think that it has something to do with the brief stillness we experience when we focus on a piece of art. That brief moment is like a prayer–a space allowing us to put aside the chaos of our lives and attend to our most inner thoughts and feelings.

Many of us have become passive bystanders–viewers and consumers of a commercially-generated culture. We take in vast amounts of information, but we don’t always do an effective job of filtering it. My hope is that my art provides a critical lens–an opportunity to focus with a critical sense of truth and renewed openness.

I try to watch, listen and amplify my sensibilities in an effort to illuminate something worth revealing. I aspire to infuse the artistic expression of these observations with reverence, and hope that through the process of engaging with my art, audiences are moved to become active participants in a society that reveals injustice –a society in which people are motivated to think more honestly, and love more openly.

It is not my intention to tell anyone what they should think or how they should live. Rather, I use art and words to challenge audiences to look more carefully and critically within and around them, to see the injustices that are hidden in plain sight. The Exhibitions are about power and the fact we have come to accept the steady decline of equity and justice as “normal.” The Exhibition is about the need for new “normal.”

It’s hard to love and care about something you have never experienced. It’s even harder to fight an injustice you don’t perceive as wrong but rather just the way things are.

We have been trained not to see – my work is about that.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I have been immersed in art, activism and community organizing for the past thirty years. The role of art should be taken seriously.

Artist and activists have much in common – innovative problem solvers, bold, truth-tellers and are rarely satisfied with the statice quo.

Art gives us a moment, an oppertunity to focus, bringing us face to face with ourselves and the culture that surrounds us. That brief stillness allows us to attend to our thoughts that we feel in the chaos of our lives, unlocking our perspectives and opening our minds to a new way of interpreting this world.

In many ways, we have become passive bystanders, viewers of commercially generated culture. Through television and internet we take in a vast amounts of information but we don’t do the best job filtering it.

My hope is that my art and writing provides a critical lens allowing us with an opportunity to focus, with a greater sense of openness, so we can become thoughtful interpreters of this culture and
think more honestly and love more openly.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Camping, hiking and cooking amazing meals at our campsite with my family outside of Aspen in the Roaring Fork Valley is always my favorite.
I live on a small farm in the country so walking the Baker District is a wonderful backdrop change and I love grabbing a quick coffee and warm donut at Queen City.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I create art exhibitions and workshops in collaboration with many partnering organizations and creative collaborators. I work in a coordinated effort of movement building making connections with funders, activists, researchers, organizations and others who support civic engagement and social change. I have

My incomplete manifesto –

Communication is open.

Leadership functions in a flat hierarchy — a circle, not a triangle.

All collaborators have an equal voice and recognition.

We are all part of a greater whole.

Sometimes one collaborator or organization’s priority will be urgent and it may become the focus.

We will nurture our relationships and strengthen our social and our relational ties.

We accept our differences, enjoying an atmosphere of tolerance and peace, fostering togetherness.

We serve each without competitiveness which threatens balance and jeopardizes our sense of being one.

Collectively, we will foster new ideas aimed at benefiting the common good.

Website: www.kellyparkssnnider@gmail.com

Instagram: @kellyparkssnider

Other: my children’s book – Zilly: A Modern-Day Fable written and illustrated by Kelly Parks Snider “I like being me, and I am exactly the way I am supposed to be!” —Zilly Zilly: A Modern-Day Fable is the story of a wonderfully, out-of-the-ordinary flyer who loves being quirky, spontaneous, and free. Her best friend is a goat named Mingle who loves Zilly just the way she is. But the other flyers tease Zilly for being different, and her uniqueness and friendship are tested when she decides to take flying lessons for flyers who want to fit in (“No goats allowed!”). Author and illustrator Kelly Parks Snider weaves together eclectic artwork and playfully poetic words to create this fanciful tale. Readers will see themselves in this modern-day fable that celebrates the power of friendship and being true to one’s self. Zilly is an outgrowth of Project Girl (www.projectgirl.org). Project Girl, co-founded by Kelly Parks Snider, is a nationally recog- nized, award-winning program that combines art and media literacy into a unique, educational experience for children, parents and educators.

Image Credits
Beth Skogen – personal photos James Gill all other pictures