CURRENT AGE: 14
NEUTRAL ZONE
Allison Correll, 18, likes to help people. She also likes to take photographs. When she joined Neutral Zone, she got to do both. Neutral Zone is an artistic teen center that gives teens opportunities to take up new hobbies and find new talents. For Allison, photography was just a hobby until she joined the Visual Arts Council, a division of Neutral Zone, which helps their community through visual art and gives young adults the opportunity to show their art to the world for the first time.
Neutral Zone was founded in 1998 by teens who wanted a place to explore new ideas and skills and help the community. One of the first projects Allison did on the council was to donate several photographs to the local homeless shelter, which put them up in every room. In addition, last spring the zone put on a show, Frame of Mind, in collaboration with the University of Michigan’s Depression Center to raise awareness of teenage depression and other mental illnesses. It featured speakers, performers, poems and art from the Neutral Zone that showed how to deal with mental illness through art.
Describe how art shows benefit young artists.
The first one that I really worked on was called Royal Hullabaloo. It was over 200 pieces of art with over seven different high schools participating. It’s a really great feeling being able to see people put their art up for display for the first time. And I know when I was able to show my art for the first time, it’s very empowering and it gives you that sense that oh, you know, I could do this for a living.
What are some of the challenges faced by arts programs?
Lack of funding has been a big part. Lots of school programs lose funding for art, and that’s very sad. … And I think there’s a lot of parental pressure sometimes that your kids can’t be artists because they’re not going to be able to make enough money, or it’s not a stable job or a respectable job sometimes. And I think that’s very sad that parents can’t sometimes support their children.
Why do you think it’s important to keep art alive in the community and accessible to youth?
I think it’s important because art is the basis of so many things, and it can teach you so much stuff about you and about the world around you, about your community. … It’s about other people and other things, how other people are seeing things. And you become so much more open-minded when you can look at other people’s art, especially when you help other people create that art.
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