some rough drafts

Okay picture 1 is black because it needs an image. The rest are section heads. I will choose one style of section head for the whole book/magazine. I just put a few different examples. I don't want all the section heads to be different.

From Democracy Now

AMY GOODMAN: Senator Akaka, can you tell us about your background, your family background, as illustrative of Hawaii, the population there?

SEN. DANIEL AKAKA: Yes. My family is a local family in Hawaii. My mother was pure Hawaiian. My dad was a mixture of Hawaiian and Chinese. His family came from Fukien, China, in the middle 1800s to Hawaii. And in those days the Chinese men married Hawaiian women. And this is where we come from. And my family now, I should tell you -- Millie and I have grandchildren, and in the grandchildren we have fourteen different bloods around the world. So this is how diverse Hawaii is becoming. And in the case of the Native Hawaiians, we want to bring parity and bring recognition to them and a relationship with the United States government.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- The Boise State running back who scored the winning points in the Fiesta Bowl, then proposed to his cheerleader girlfriend on national television, says he has hired security for their wedding because of racial threats.

Ian Johnson, who is black, and Chrissy Popadics, who is white, are due to be married Saturday in Boise.

Since his Jan. 1 proposal, Johnson said, he has received phone calls, letters and some personal threats from people who object to their marriage plans.

"You take it for what it is -- the less educated, the less willing to change," Johnson, 21, of San Dimas, Calif., told the Idaho Statesman for its Tuesday editions. "But we're not acting like we're naive to all the stuff that's going on. We know what's been said. We're going to make sure we're safe at all times. It's an amazing day for us, and we'd hate to have it ruined by someone."

"It's really sad because a lot of people that are probably doing it are the same people who were cheering me on," Johnson said.

A Boise State football spokesman, Todd Miles, said Tuesday that Johnson hoped to put the matter behind him and did not want to discuss it further. Popadics' family said she was not available.

At the Fiesta Bowl, Johnson used a "Statue of Liberty" play to score the winning two-point conversion as underdog Boise State beat the Oklahoma Sooners 43-42 in overtime. The Broncos ended their season 13-0.

poetry

Grr. Typography for poetry is hard.

I am working on the 1st issue of Guernica Magazine

I will definitely need help to get this done on time. Here is our official call of submissions if anyone is interested. We are looking for strong and graphic illustration. If your work is soft and precious, that's not the aesthetic I am looking for. Please forward this to your friends if you think they would be interested.

Guernica Magazine Call For Submissions: Graphic Designers & Illustrators

www.guernicamag.com is an online arts and politics publication featuring essays, fiction, poetry, artwork, interviews, and translations by great writers and thinkers from across the globe. We are currently in production on our first print publication, to be released in September, 2007, and are accepting submissions for illustrators and graphic designers to work with our Lead Graphic Designer. We are not able to pay contributors at this time, but a peek at our archives and masthead will give some indication of the caliber and connectivity of your associates should you be selected to participate. Students and interns are welcome to submit--we look forward to reviewing your work!

"There is nothing quite like Guernica, where you can find an extraordinary bouquet of stories, poems, social commentary, and art. It is always a pleasure to read." —Howard Zinn

links to artists

2) research:
a)who has done work in your area before you?
i.gather samples of the works of these artists writers,poets,filmmakers,psychologists,scientists, etc.

Still work on research:
These artists produce work that explores ethnic identity
Flo Oy Wong
Artists discuss ethnicity
Danzy Senna writes about being biracial, and growing up able to pass
Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural is an anthology edited by Claudine C. O'Hearn
Rebecca Walker is the author of Black, White & Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self

You Me and Everything We Know features a bi-racial family. The biracial kids just exist as who they are. But, there is no discussion of race in the film.

I'm finally back from the wedding.
I was thinking about the thesis/commercial projects on the plane and reflecting on my trip. A few thought that I had were:

1. This is the craziest idea. Making a font from blood. I admit I got the idea from Ian Curtis of Joy Division, who famously signed his record contract with Factory Records in his own blood. Blood makes such potent imagery. And its often used to illustrate equality, We may have different skin colors but we all bleed red, and family being related by blood. This imagery is made even more potent by the discovery of DNA. In the end, if you strip culture away and think about people as just highly intelligent animals. The only thing that really makes us different from one another is our DNA. My first impulse is to use my own blood. However, I don't think I could get enough from just pricking my finger, maybe one letter, not the whole alphabet. I could use cow's blood, but I am a vegetarian and I'm ruling that one out righ away. There is always fake blood, but I don't think fake blood is quite as potent.

2. When I was at the wedding I tried to think of ideas for my weekly project. Almost every guest (because duh, it's hawaii) was some lovely shade of brown. I was thinking about using those skin shade to create a zine called Blind, or Blur. Referring to the way that people always talk about an ideal society as color blind. I don't nessesarily agree with that. I think we should love our differences. Anyway, I want to replace the colors on a blindness test with skintones.

more drafts

for giggles

Animals have been known to inter-breed. Sometimes offspring are cute and sometimes not.

Additionally, I am hotter than you. An experiment by Gillian Rhodes, a psychologist at the University of Western Australia, showed that participants rated mixed race people more attractive than single race people.

Maybe I should do a lookbook, like Abercrombie, but with models of different races.

Thesis Research

I've been doing research this week on mixed cultures

I learned some really interesting things at the MET about portugual(my mom is portuguese) and China (my dad is chinese). It was the portuguese that brought porcelain to europe. Chinese porcelain designs inspired chinoserie, a whole decorative arts movement in Europe. Sometimes I use pattern in my work and I thought it would be interesting to intergrate this style into my designs.

Portuguese decorative arts, especially tilework, were also highly influenced by the Moors who invaded Lisbon in 711 A.D.

I have also been doing research on this idea of the other and ethnocentrism. The very broad, and loose idea that I had for my thesis was investigating how people percieve me to different that I see myself. I think anthropolgy helps me refine my ideas of different cultures, and how they percieve each other.

I think that part of the reason that we still have racism is that some people still have an ethnocentric point of view. I think most people see their way of living, their culture as the best way, the right way and as long as we continue the see the world through an ethnocentric lense, there will always be racism and there will never be peace. For example, you always hear in the media about how the iraqi people don't understand democracy. I don't think that they don't understand democracy. It's just that our idea our democracy may not work for them. If you can justify anythingif you are convinced that one group of people are different than you.


Another example which I mentioned in class is immigration. I hear a lot of commentary especially from the right-wing media about "those illegal immigrants", "we can't reward those who don't respect the law".

Interestingly, I read that intermarriage lessens ethnocentrism.

I read Karen's portfolio intensive blog and for a reason which I can't really put my finger on it offended me. Maybe I felt she was saying that there is something undesirable about having biracial children. I think why not mix it up. I mean it's been going on for centuries.

I'm not humorless, but the whole post feels unsettling.