In a world plagued with problems day in, day out, we need agents to hope against hope. And there are no better candidates than artists. They give us reasons to overcome the pessimism and despair we sometimes experience. But why do they do what they do? Celebrities choose to be celebrities and the world of fame and glamour; artists strive to maintain their integrity and passion. But are they just driven by an incessant urge to simply create beauty out of nothing? Or is the drive to create undergirded by deeper and more profound motives?

The answer, of course, is yes. Novelists and actors, for instance, are driven by the will to narrate a story, to tell us something about the world or ourselves that has provided us meaning. Conversely, visual artists and photographers are driven by the will to alter people’s perspectives on their environments, inviting us to see other dimensions of our surroundings that previously remained hidden. And as poets dazzle us with the sounds of rhymes, dancers tantalize us with the corporal moves that defy what is possible.

This May, YoungArts is celebrating the theme of drive, or the will to create. We would like to encourage our readers to foster inspiration by recognizing the reasons artists do what they do. So what drives you as an artist? Or what drives those artists that inspire

Introduction by: Yaniv Kleinman, Public Ally / External Relations