Rising in the east,
we slowly wake up to a soft yellow hue
peaking into our bedroom.
Setting in the west,
the dynamic bursts of pink and purple
revitalize us after a long day.
The beauty of sunlight,
at every moment of the day,
is that it does not need our validation.
Whether we recognize the sun shine,
or see the colors change,
the sun continues to rise and set.
Day in and day out,
no matter what the season.
The simplicity of sunlight is its confidence.
As an art student, it is inevitable to meet people with different art practices and messages. As an art student at the U of M… this theory is further expanded because the art school is within a larger university. There is an infinite amount of opportunity here and one of my favorite parts about being a student in Ann Arbor is getting to see others use art as a form of discussion and watch them grow at the same time as myself. 
One of my favorite artists I’ve had the pleasure of meeting is Ariel Friedlander. I met her in my 2D Studio course that we were both taking as a requirement. I learned that she is both an art and art history major and I grew to like Ariel not only because of her personality and artwork but also because of her innate ability to constantly challenge our assignments and professor. Her confidence with what she was creating inspired me and continues to inspire me and how I create my own work.
In class I watched Ariel make art pertaining to her Jewish, queer, and diabetic identities. I loved watching her connect these ideas and start discussions about intersectionality as well as also focusing on pushing boundaries of other topics. My favorite moments were when she made individuals in our class and our professor question what something meant and then hear her educated and organized response back.
Ariel is always churning out a multitude of work at a time and is constantly updating her social media with the work she creates. It is great to watch her build a community with her art especially when she posts about her travels.
She recently has been working on curating a portrait photography and text series, “Queer As In”. In this project, she explores, “the nuances of queer identity through collaboration with self-identified queer individuals.” Ariel had noticed banners and pickets with slogans like “Queer as in fuck you” or “Queer as in abolish ICE” from activist experiences. This inspired her to create this series and have the model she photographed “fill in the blank with a
word they feel is important to their LGBTQ identity.” The color on the portraits are chosen by the model as the color they believe connects the most with their word. The final arrangement shows the photos creating one large pride flag.
Tonight from 7-9pm in the Michigan League’s first floor lobby is the opening of her “Queer As In” art exhibition on campus. The show will be up from February 11th until March 13th and is sponsored by Spectrum Center and RC.
As a community, it is important to show up to events and art shows like this to show support and interest. The effort of trying to learn and have an open mind is what sometimes is the most important part of the shows themselves. Ariel’s work is 110% worth the time to check out and I recommend you all go either tonight or within the next month to see her stunning curation.
Hope to see you there! 
P.S. Check out her cool ass earrings on her Etsy account!
P.P.S. Photo creds to her Instagram!
To my best friend. My love. My mother. My rock.
Everything happened so fast, I’m still in shock.
You are the strongest person I will ever know.
Now I hold on to our memories, but they seem so long ago.
Playing Candy Crush at midnight,
Teaching me to drive,
Watching Rema dance at Ignite,
You kept telling us “Live, don’t simply be alive.”
You were always right,
but I still liked to argue.
You said, “everything will be alright,”
I miss your advice.
You always put others before you,
never thought about it twice.
Now I hope you are finally at peace,
In your own paradise.
“I have cancer,” you said as a fact,
Yet you didn’t shed a single tear, you stayed intact.
Through all the treatments, the chemo, and pill,
You still smiled and had such a strong will.
You sacrificed everything for us.
You worked hard for us.
You hid back your tears from us.
But you were taken away from us.
Your beautiful smile,
Your quirky laugh,
Your ambition and drive,
I will always look up to you in awe.
You taught me to be adventurous and wild,
You were always the cool mom.
You taught me to be gentle and kind,
Determined and focused,
You said, “happiness is just a state of mind.”
I cry, I wish, I hope
that this is just a dream.
Because you, Rema, and I, we were always a team.
Now I’ll carry on your legacy.
Fulfill all your wishes.
I know you’re guiding me from above,
So I’ll be ambitious.
You lived, you loved, you laughed.
This I hope you see.
The only question I have for you is,
Are you proud of me?
Mommy you are my entire world,
You are as precious as your black pearl.
Every day I miss you more.
Signed…Your Little Girl.
I wrote this poem almost 4 years ago. However, it resurfaced recently through a conversation. Over the course of the semester, I have been posting poems that have been reflective of the environment around me. It felt right to post this one right now as I’ve been finding moments that remind me of my mom.
To your left,
a man with a briefcase
and slicked back hair.
His face is motionless,
as though captured in a photograph.
He keeps his head tucked down
and is lost in regret.
To your right,
a mother with a small child,
crying for care.
The mother’s eyes blink in exhaustion,
but the child commands her full attention.
Still, the mother carries unconditional love and gratitude,
for finally being able to hold a child of her own.
All of you cross the street
without acknowledging each other;
without realizing how different
your paths have been.
But somehow,
right now,
you all cross the street.
For the next ten seconds,
you will share your lives together.
And then,
you will never see them again.
What a magical effort of time,
to bring together people
in such small ways.
Loud voices, outspoken personalities.
The glimmering attraction of success all around us.
Seems as though there is only one
right path to take in this infinite world.
One right path for people to be impressed by me.
But is that what I want people to be?
Impressive should feel good, but it feels empty.
Impressive should foster change, but it falls short.
Impress. Inspire. Impressed. Inspired.
Ironic, how similar and interchangeably,
these words are used on the surface.
But how can people be inspired by someone
who follows the one set path to success.
How can people be inspired by someone
who stays in shallow waters and
does not explore uncontrollable waves.
I fall into the spotlight of success
and feel its withdrawals.
Impressive people fade away.
Inspiration leaves a legacy.
Hi Everyone!
I’m back again this week to discuss this week’s topic: the importance of photography!
Yes, photography, as in the term corresponding to the Webster definition: “the art or practice of taking and processing photographs.”
In architecture, as you may have inferred from all of my previous posts, representation is VERY important. Representation makes or breaks our works’ proposal, and that is kind of a very big deal, even within the stages of education before a job in “the real world.” In architecture school, representation refers to everything (all types of media) you use to “sell” your work to your professor(s), and this includes the exact words you use to talk about the project, how perfectly orthogonally pinned up your work, how nice and stable your constructed models(s) are, and how sharp or effective your photographs are.
Even outside of classes, powerful photographs serve arguably more importance than how well you preserved your hand-drafted drawing(s) or even your original model(s). I say arguably because, when we apply to jobs and internships, the employers are likely to only have access to your work virtually- which makes photographs EXTRA important because that is their ONLY window into your skills and personality as a designer! Yes, employers want to see perfection and thoughtfulness in your work in the portfolio, but they also appreciate the honesty of sharpness of quality of photos- it’s a sort of stunning thing to see, even if you did Photoshop some blemishes or glue-globs out!
Photographs not only serve to simply document you work to show to employers, but also function as a very effective way to remember your work and (potentially) locate your improvements within your work. Of course, the sharper and better your image, the larger the file, but I cannot stress what pain it is to have to go back to old files only to realize I did not document the stuff well enough, and now it’s too late because my models may or may not be rotting in my basement now, very obviously not photo-worthy quality. So, in other words, after you make a model or ANYTHING (if you don’t think it’s worth remembering right now in this moment) it is safest to just check out a nice camera (Nikon, Canon, etc) and deal with a million AMAZING photos now, than to just use your phone (even that cannot compare to a really good camera) and take a few subpar images, only to realize the quality degrades each time you uploaded it to different platforms. The ideal process is as follows: make the model(s), get a good camera, yes spend time and get all angles of the stuff you’re documenting, and upload it straight to google drive for initial storage. But, I’d recommend you go through and eliminate to the images you’re going to keep, Photoshop them to the best of your abilities (or satisfaction, I guess), and save as a Tiff or PNG (or PDF if that’s an option). Fair warning though, Tiff files can get pretty big and jam up your memory, so I recommend saving as a Tiff without layers, or PNG to save memory.
Good luck to you all, happy documenting!
If you have any questions or further insight, comment! I love hearing from you all
Have a fun and safe Thanksgiving holiday break, everyone!
Ciao for now
