6/20/13

underwater

Underwater, floating in cold.

Slow motion daze of light spinning backward and forward

Now down to the floor like a tidal wave.

You think you're at rock bottom,

But then up you rise.

There you see the sun.

The summer mist

The summer rain

The warmth

The sun.

The water rushes between my toes.

Sand glows like diamonds.

Freedom.

Heat.

Feet burning on sweating tar.

Sweating palms wipe against yellow dresses.

Sweat -- it drops to the ground.

Long hair in the cool room.

Air conditioning is blasting left and right.

Eyelashes wisp like summer curls.

Rays provide perms of frizz.

Strands of silk glisten down your back

Twinkle like gold dust under the blue sky.

Relax, take a hit.
Get high.

Two lids threaten to meet.

Stomachs grumble and dance under your skin.

Descriptive poems by me.

6/17/13

The Wandering

Hello fellow teenz. So I think I made a post about The Wandering a little while ago in January, but it has really grown a lot since then.

So back in the eves of January, I felt like there wasn't a place for teens to freely share and get acknowledged for their creative work with guaranteed publication. As a result, I started The Wandering, a collective established purely for the publication of teen art and writing. Below are a few of my favorite visuals from The Wandering.

by Isobel

by Maya

by Judith

by Dani

by Orla

by Rachel

by Dani

There is also quite a bit of written work: poems, stories, diaries, rants, and more.

The Wandering is still eager to get new contributors, so if you're interested check out this here link. Regular contributors submit three times a month. If you still want to contribute but feel you may not be able to do that, you can always submit your work here (be sure to read the fine print for info on what to do if submitting through the tumblr isn't working).

6/16/13

self

My room is in the process of being redecorated, as it seems to be every summer. I want to repaint the walls yellow, and the trim blue. It's my favorite color combination and reminds of my Mexican styled homes I've been in and adored. I'm planning on moving my bed somewhere, so I can put my record player, records, favorite books and trinkets under my windows. A little shrine to things I love. Things I'll include on that shrine will be my copy of Kurt Cobain's journals, my copy of Frida Kahlo's journals, the books Just Kids, Nobody Belongs Here More Than You, 1000 Journals Project, The Friday Night Knitting Club, Weetzie Bat, Rookie Yearbook, and my Mexican folk art coloring book. Things will obviously be added to it over time, but I feel like my room is lacking that special shrine of things I want to see everyday and worship as if they were the Gods to my religion. I'll also include all the zines I've collected, my Rolling Stones, Hi-Fructose, and National Geographics (vintage). I'll include my Italian Vogue magazine and glass necklace (which I wear most everyday) that my dad got for me when he visited Italy, and my Banksy and Warhol art books that I will leave open on either side of my record player, every morning turning one page in each as my ritual to the sun rising.

6/14/13

the mountains we call home

Sometimes I feel as though photos need explanations - like they have a story that needs telling. I often like to write anecdotes on my blog that correspond with the photos I've posted. Sometimes I feel like the photos I've chosen to post parallel my mood or attitude, or are simply inspiring and I want to explain why. Other times, I feel like photos or artworks speak for themselves, and words would simply take away from the wonder the image possesses. That would be the case with these images. They don't need words to tell their story.

6/13/13

the most popular girls in school

The most popular girls at school photographed by Lauren Greenfield

“This picture was taken in 1998, at a time when people were just beginning to realise what “mean girls” were, and how brutal and cliquey and excluding they could be. I was on an assignment for the New York Times magazine, for a special issue about being 13. They sent me to a place in Minnesota called Edina, right in the heartland of the US. It was so interesting: in a book I did called Fast Forward, I had been taking a look at how kids grow up really quickly in Los Angeles. But in Minnesota, where life is supposedly not as fast-paced as in LA, I found kids who were equally precocious.

This group of girls were in the popular clique at their school. Popularity was very codified: all the kids knew you had to shop in three particular stores, and that you needed to be blond, thin and blue-eyed. The girls were on their way to their first big party of the seventh grade. I spent a lot of time inside one of their houses, photographing them doing their makeup and combing their hair. Then we came outside. In the beautiful late-afternoon light, they lined up and started posing – it was very much their idea rather than mine.

What I love is that each girl has a different personality in the image, and you can read into it what their status is in the clique. Hannah, the third girl in the purple, was actually deemed the most popular girl at school. But she told me later that she wasn’t actually sure about her group of friends: they could be mean, and people would get criticised if they didn’t look a certain way. Even if you’re in the place everyone wants to be in, as she was, there’s still a lot of pressure to keep up the grade. In a way, she felt it was bad to be popular.”

Marie-France Pisier

6/8/13

mad to talk, mad to be saved

“Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. Results like these do not belong on the résumé of a Supreme Being. This is the kind of shit you'd expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me, in any decently-run universe, this guy would've been out on his all-powerful ass a long time ago. And by the way, I say "this guy", because I firmly believe, looking at these results, that if there is a God, it has to be a man.

No woman could or would ever fuck things up like this. So, if there is a God, I think most reasonable people might agree that he's at least incompetent, and maybe, just maybe, doesn't give a shit. Doesn't give a shit, which I admire in a person, and which would explain a lot of these bad results.”

-George Carlin

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

-Jack Kerouac from On The Road

photographs of american teenagers taken by Joseph Szabo, 1969-1988

Teendom is probably the biggest fantasy I could ever think to experience. It's just a completely symbolic time period. It's a symbol of freedom and rebellion and I just love everything being a teen stands for.

6/7/13

oh those summer nights

Summer.

Freedom tastes so sweet. I feel light as a feather. Everything is so sunny and warm even when the sky is overcast and foggy and the clouds are gray like concrete.

peace peace peace peaceful day.

I hate my bedroom.

It makes me cringe, having to look at it.
I want to paint it with yellows and oranges and reds.

My posters don't seem to belong where they've been taped.

I just need to figure it all out..

Summer Bucket List 2013:
1: explore
2: make room amazing
3: fall into a daze in your own world
4: take photographs of everything
5: stay out all night in a diner, people watching
6: take portraits of friends
7: enjoy the sun
8: find a secret place
9: make art
10: henna him
11: have him henna me
12: that boy...