TWO PAGES this time because I want to show you all what I’ve been working on! These are the first of 14 pages of a queer slice of life comic I’m working on called She’s So Hard, for my Narrative Forms class with Holly Hughes. I had fun working on it, but I’m not sure about the style so I’m thinking about reworking it over the break and pitching it to a local comics press. Feel free to share any feedback on how it looks!
A while back, one of my blog posts focused on the topic of race in drama. The inspiration for that discussion were my experiences in a class that—here’s a big surprise—examined race in drama. The class? RCHUMS 390: Contemporary Plays on Race in America.
When you think of plays by American playwrights, you might think of plays such as Tony Kushner’s Angels in America or Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. These works are often considered examples of America’s greatest plays—Arthur Miller was a U of M graduate, after all—so your thought process would be understandable. What I challenge you to do, however, is to consider reading or learning about American plays by playwrights of color.
As my professor, Kate Mendeloff, was exploring contemporary plays a few years ago, she discovered that some of the most poignant and interesting works she came across were written by playwrights of color surrounding topics such as race and disparity. Inspired by the discovery, she created the class to bring attention to talented playwrights of color and their works.
Just as the title suggests, my drama class had us study contemporary plays on race in America and other works by playwrights of color. The course included reading works representing a variety of identities, discussing them in class, and acting out scenes from several of the plays. It was interesting analyzing how the characters’ racial and ethnic identities impacted their stories and interactions with other characters. Immigration, drug addiction, and intercultural relationships were some of the topics addressed by the plays in class. They also tackled a variety of time periods and issues, such as the 1967 Detroit riots (Spirit of Detroit by Mercilee Jenkins, Detroit ’67 by Dominique Morisseau).
Facing Our Truth: Ten Minute Plays on Trayvon, Race and Privilege was a collection of plays written by six diverse playwrights as a reaction to the George Zimmerman verdict, while Flint by SMTD faculty member and playwright José Casas explored the water crisis through narratives based on the people affected by the city’s tragedy.
As our final project, our class presented a public performance to feature what we learned and worked on throughout the semester. Some students presented original monologues that illustrated personal experiences on race and privilege, while others presented mashups of monologues from Lorraine Hansberry’s famous A Raisin in the Sun and Joshua Harmon’s plays titled Admissions and Bad Jews. There were also scenes excerpted from plays read in class, like Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World by Yussef El Guindi.
Overall, the class was both enjoyable and educational. I challenge you to give one of the mentioned plays a try and comment your reaction below!
Photo Credit: Robby Griswold
Check out the RC for more classes and awesome opportunities!
Sojung Ham is a junior at Michigan studying UX Design at the School of Information. A talented artist, she is also a graphic designer for Arts at Michigan! I sat down with her to learn more about her engagement with art.
Like many others, Sojung says that she’s “been drawing since I was young. In middle school, people called me the ‘art kid’ so I accepted it. Then I started doing graphic design, and I really enjoy drawing what I like.” One of the perks of being a designer is that “You make cool things yourself instead of needing other people to do it. For me, art is drawing things I want to see and making them a reality.”
Sojung’s colorful, fluid style is influenced by many sources, including illustrator Sachin Teng and German design agency Kurzgesagt. She explains that “I used to make fan art and anime, and now it’s more random stuff I’m interested in, like Elton John or musicals like Hamilton.”
One of her favorite projects is a poster she made for M-Agination Films her freshman year. M-Agination had reached out to her to design a poster for their short film based on cowboy westerns, based in the Midwest. Sojung thought “it was hilarious,” and took on the project, the first time she really delved into digital painting. She says, “I’m still really happy with how it came out” and Sojung continues to hone her digital illustration skills through other work.
In the future, Sojung states, “The future is never very certain. But I’d like to balance a job and freelance work, drawing for myself. We’ll see where that goes.”
Outside of school and freelancing, Sojung also runs a successful Etsy shop selling prints, stickers, and keychains made from her artwork, many of which roam around campus on students’ laptops or water bottles. What a perfect holiday gift idea!
Hope everyone had a relaxing break, and if not I hope you can absorb some of the restful vibes from this comic. Besides giving my lads a chance to chill, I was excited about this page because I wanted to make it a bit more explicit that both of them are trans men. As a trans person myself it’s important to me to represent and normalize trans bodies in media, because we exist and we deserve to see reflections of ourselves in the world! Of course, Basil and Gideon aren’t representational of all trans masc people, but they’re a little bit of what I’d like to have seen when I was growing up and figuring out gender.
“The carpet is very beautiful,” the Chinese shopkeeper at the dry cleaning kept saying as he handed me back the prayer rug. “It is,” I said as I thought to myself yeah it is pretty.
The prayer rug is a piece of cloth, sometimes a carpet that a Muslim places between the ground and themselves so that they can remain clean when performing a prayer.
When the shopkeeper mentioned the comment, then only did I realize that this piece of cloth I’ve been keeping around and praying five times a day on, is a piece of art. Its vibrant colors, geometric and symmetrical designs and soft texture combine to create a peaceful praying experience. I recall admiring and tracing the designs with my eyes as a teenager during long periods of prayer (admittedly, not focusing on the prayer). The beautiful ones always struck out to me, woven with complementing colors and aesthetically pleasing patterns.
One feature of prayer rugs is that it never features animals or living things on it. This is because of aniconism. Aniconism is the avoidance of images of sentient beings in Islamic art. Sentient beings include animals and human beings. This is interpreted from a belief Muslims hold that creation of living creations can only come from God as well as a prohibition of idolatry. Thus over the centuries, religious art has always excluded any use of human figures or animals. Therefore, Muslims artists turn to abstract floral patterns, geometry and calligraphy for inspiration. 
Another feature that is sometimes seen in prayer rugs is that either the Kaaba or a mosque can be seen. Kaaba is the shrine in the most important mosque for Muslims and Muslims direct their prayers towards the Kaaba. The Kaaba is associated with various prophets, especially Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
When using a prayer rug, one is also suppose to orient the rug towards the direction of the Kaaba using the right side of the rug. In the first picture, the side of the mosque should be in the direction of the Kaaba, not the other way around. Prayer rugs also come in many colors and designs, from green hues to pretty pastels, making it impossible to choose just a boring one when you could get a prettier one (although more expensive).
Some prayer rugs tell stories too. Certain older designs from centuries back reflect patterns distinctive to certain tribes. Some prayer rugs are valuable depending on when it was produced, sometimes costing up to $300. Certain prayer rugs are displayed, deemed too precious to pray on.
In the end, this mundane everyday object is what made me think hm this too is art.
(Picture credits: Google Images)
It’s just been Transgender Week of Awareness, so here’s a comic about something very important to me. My partner Cam is working on helping UHS switch to an informed consent model, and this will give you some information about what that means. Here’s the poster for the upcoming town hall meeting:
If this is something you also think is important, come to the meeting and show your support! If you can’t but you’re interested in this issue, I recommend reading up on informed consent and transgender healthcare, and spreading some awareness to help celebrate this week.
Thanks for reading!
