Let’s say there’s a kid who is just beginning his college career, and all he knows is that he loves to make movies. But not just any kind of movie; what he loves most is making documentary films- he wants to find a story and tell it through the eye of a camera. That all sounds fine, but when the day comes and someone asks this kid what he’s going to do for a legitimate career, what can he say? Yes, he’s got a hobby that he loves, but what will sustain his livelihood?
As someone who has faced similar questions, it has been my experience that whenever someone’s career choice or academic major falls off the beaten path, (poetry, music, film, etc.) people following the more sturdy walks of life tend to question the validity of our aspirations.

The filmmaker scenario is something Jeanie Thompson, University of Alabama alumnae mentioned as an example of what she said is one of the biggest challenges for creative people: to “Create something from nothing.”

Unlike other career paths, those who choose to follow the fine arts road, as Thompson has, are often faced with the challenge of generating their own niche careers.

As an MFA creative writing student at the University of Alabama, Thompson and her contemporaries felt the department lacked an outlet for the creative student body. Thus, she and other graduate students set to work remedying the problem. The solution birthed from those few students is the University of Alabama’s Black Warrior Review. Founded in 1974, BWR is a literary magazine aimed at highlighting the creative writing community from Pulitzer Prize winners to up-and-coming writers. It is this kind of initiative- the kind that sees a void and finds a way to fill it- that is a must have for the creative community.

Let’s take this same university student filmmaker, she said, he knows he loves making movies, so he starts to think that surely there are other people out there who love it too. = With this idea in mind, he decides to hold a two-week summer camp for kids interested in film. He goes to local schools to publicize the camp, meets with people in the community, finds a way to get the proper equipment, and lets say 10 kids come that summer. They pick a topic for their film that affects their community, and at the end of the two weeks they have a showcase of their work where they invite prominent figures in the community to see what they’ve done. After the showcase, this college-age kid is now likely to have these prominent community figures lend a helping hand in future endeavors, and, “Just like that,” said Thompson, “This kid can have something he can turn into a career.”

Stating what, to some, is obvious, Thompson referred to artists as a fairly disorganized group of people, saying the way they see and interact with the world often results in their minds being in a million places at once. Thus, community involvement in projects with the arts plays a big role in what artists can accomplish.

Seeing a project through from conception to completion is something Thompson says everyone has the capacity for, “We get off on it,” she said. This attitude has given her the drive to continue to create.

Whether she is writing a book of poetry (her latest being The Seasons Bear Us) or creating a statewide forum aimed at honoring and helping members of Alabama’s literary world, as she has done by founding the Alabama Writer’s Forum (a program which serves as a literary ambassador for writers writing in Alabama,) Thompson has created not only a career for herself, but also, an outlet for the creative writing community in her area.

“If you don’t see the job you want, go create it,” said Thompson. “Find someone like me to help you!”

Thompson went on to say that artists were not the minority; rather, they embodied the norm of humanity. She said everyone has the desire to create something and to take pleasure in the process.

With projects such as No Child Left Behind, our school systems and communities are seeing depletion in the attention given to the arts. And while creating something from nothing involves a great deal of work, if the creative community and the community at large begin to interact and are willing to put forth that effort, we can make our communities see that (as Thompson said) “The arts are not the lace on the dress, they are the dress.”

During the September 3, 2009 visit, Thompson along with Alabama Poet Laureate, Sue Walker participated in Poetry, Community, and Public Engagement: A Conversation. This afternoon discussion pertained to Arts in Alabama prisons. Additionally, both women shared some of their poems with a packed house for reading at the Bama Theatre's Greensboro Room.

For more information about the Alabama Writers' Forum, please visit http://www.writersforum.org/.

To read more about The Black Warrior Review, please visit www.bwr.ua.edu.

by Jennifer Jeffcoat