By Grace Heimsness

Austin ArtWorks Festival Intern

As an avid consumer and producer of the arts—an art nerd, if you will—I am thrilled to be interning for the 2014 Austin ArtWorks Festival.

I was born and raised here by two great humans called Mark and Wendy Heimsness. My dad has probably fixed something of yours or your neighbor’s in the last three-plus decades as an HVAC specialist (a plumber, if you ask him), and my mother is an artist who has created everything from murals to permanent wall sculptures to her current abstracts.

I myself am first and foremost a writer. I grew up with my nose firmly in a book, and began penning my own stories at eight-years-old. Deep thanks goes to several lovely teachers who encouraged my distracted scribbling, which led to an enduring fondness for words.

While I continue to write, my involvement in the community transcends the pen. I’ve taken a roundabout path to this internship, and have collected a few hats along the way (as artists are wont to do, I suppose): my job titles include bike mechanic, substitute teacher, high school hockey coach, bartender and cellist.

These various arenas of life have taught me countless lessons, but one that seems to resurface again and again is that if you just pay attention, you find art in the most peculiar corners of the world. This I bring to the internship along with a passion for spreading creativity to the edges of our community and beyond.

My primary role as intern is communicator—I keep our committees on the same page, spread the latest Festival news to the community via social media, and make sure our artists know what they need to know. Beyond these duties, I may carve out other projects I find particularly inspiring. The broad strokes of what I would like to bring to our peculiar corner of the world: conversations not just around art, but also between audience and artist. Maybe the most heartening aspect of art, regardless of medium or origin, is that it tells a story. And that’s what a great conversation is: a story.

Art should be a conversation. As your intern, I hope to help make it so this summer.