Artist Statement - Calista Yokooji

I used the authorial strategies of motifs and structure and the literary device of imagery in my vignettes. In my second vignette I use my I.D. photo as a motif for my school experience. This can be seen in this line of my vignette : “When I finally got my picture taken on fall activity day I felt like it solidified who I had become since I came to this school. I was an extroverted, happy, secure student for the first time in a bit”. In both my second and first vignette I structure my stories into a continuous narrative. This transition through narratives can be seen in the following lines: “The next friend in this sequence is a social butterfly with the music taste of a main character in an indie film. He stokes most of the conversations, somehow managing to talk to everyone by the time lunch ends. When you’re near him you can’t help but notice the girl who seems to follow. She has the style of a coquette grandma with the personality of a yassified Michael Myers”. I also use imagery in my first vignette to immerse the reader in my lifestyle. “The first person I talk to is usually my depressed artist friend. We have most of the same breaks usually spent looking at photos of tiny frogs on Pinterest. Her dream is to be reincarnated as a crow in her next life. You notice after a while though that she’s not as depressed as she is just generally apathetic. She’ll often wryly crack a joke at your other friend, the sensitive academic. ” This previous line is a demonstration of my use of imagery. Overall, I used two authorial strategies and a literary device in my vignettes.

The first art piece I made was for Lucas’ first vignette. It displays a bowl of pasta residing on a napkin. A strand of the pasta is being eaten by the face in the image. The pasta is composed of the lyrics to the Spanish version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. I included this as Lucas mentioned in his story that he remembers the Spanish version of the song better than the English ones. The face in the image also has a star nose piercing due to the song. The napkin under the plate has the word ‘Manzana’s’ printed on it with an apple to the right of it. Manzana is the Spanish word for apple. I included this as Lucas mentioned that this was the first word his mother taught him in Spanish. I also decided to use food references in this photo, as the first paragraph of his vignette uses food as a metaphor for learning Spanish. For my second art piece I had to draw Kaleb’s second vignette. I drew the somewhat tense conversation he had with his remaining friends in the story. I drew his friends Kate and Lance opposite of him to demonstrate how he felt uncomfortable in the story. I decided to play the try of French fries from the story on a green tray so it stood out. The French fries are situated in the center untouched to symbolize the unspoken tension demonstrated in the moment. On the back of the booth where Kaleb is seated, I wrote “we’re okay, right?”. I wanted this scene to represent the presence of the elephant in the room his friends did not discuss.

I lived in one house for almost my entire life up until I went to high-school when we moved. Our house's location is in the center of Seattle in between Capital hill and Madrona my neighborhood, Madison valley. The valley is barely a valley though it’s all paved, dipping a bit down to a small park with a big drawing for when the rain that poured almost every day couldn’t go anywhere else. There were a bunch of steps leading up to our house with shrubs in-front of our house and peony bushes on the sides, my mom's favorite flower. Our house made it look like we were big time Seahawks fans which don't get me wrong I love the Seahawks, but it wasn't intentional. My mom didn't even want those colors, but we never got around to changing it. It was always gray outside contrasting our vibrant colored house. I didn’t particularly dislike it though growing up in such a dreary weather place. It was my home. Almost every room was painted a different vibrant color.

When you walk in there is a makeshift curtain we made of blankets. We always wanted to get actual curtains but again never found time. The blankets were to keep in the heat from our weird fireplace that for some odd reason had two ways to turn it on. We always take our shoes off and we would put them in this closet with an enormous door I grew up marking how tall I was as I grew up. My all time goal for many years has been to reach 5’ 7. I'd like to say that I reached it but I’m unfortunately 5' 5 as my friends remind me every day.

The biggest room on the main floor was the blue room. Others would call it a living room since our fireplace and furniture is in there, but we called it the blue room because the color of the room was like IKB 79. I learned about what that color was on our trip to Paris when we visited the museum of modern art. Our tour guide took us straight to the painting when we reached a room of beautiful intricate paintings. The only one that wasn’t intricate was the IDB 79 or so I thought. The tour guide said that it was made of crushed diamonds and that although all of the other paintings in this room were great; almost everyone who walked into that room would go to the IDB 79 because the color drew people in. The house had three levels. The kitchen was painted citrus orange. I’ve always loved oranges, specifically the dried and candied ones dipped in chocolate.

The biggest room on the main floor was the blue room. Others would call it a living room since our fireplace and furniture is in there, but we called it the blue room because the color of the room was like IKB 79. I learned about what that color was on our trip to Paris when we visited the museum of modern art. Our tour guide took us straight to the painting when we reached a room of beautiful intricate paintings. The only one that wasn’t intricate was the IDB 79 or so I thought. The tour guide said that it was made of crushed diamonds and that although all of the other paintings in this room were great; almost everyone who walked into that room would go to the IDB 79 because the color drew people in. The house had three levels. The kitchen was painted citrus orange. I’ve always loved oranges, specifically the dried and candied ones dipped in chocolate.

The back door opened to the patio and down to the large-ish back yard with our garden and gigantic pine tree that I forever worried would fall and crush our house. My parents used to rent out the top level when they were younger and just moved to Seattle. They eventually bought the entire house. The top used to have a kitchen but it was changed to a living room space that was mostly used by my mom for painting and meditation. Mine and my mom’s room were on the top floor as well. I had the biggest bedroom in the house with a long-ish walk-in closet painted dark purple. One of the four walls of my room was also painted purple with magnetic paint that made it so I could fill the wall with pictures and magnets. The walls were also filled with bookshelves and the best manga collection you could ever imagine. Now I have only the best ones in boxes in the living room of our new place. The walls here are all white while the outside is booming with color.

We live in Manoa valley and the valley is surrounded by looming green mountains. Our old house once full of colors and memories was emptied and painted white as well but it’s different from the white of our new place. The colors that made our old house so warm made it cold and almost unrecognizable when we moved. It wasn't really my house anymore; it was the shell, the blank canvas with nothing in or on it in a gray gloomy city. Now we live in a place with white walls but it’s not a blank, it's warm, and outside it’s just as warm and colorful.

Maya House Vignette

Story by Maya Sue

Photo Credit: Lucas Perry

Maya v2

I've never been good at swimming. Even when I was little I had to go to a place called “safe and sound” where the water was warm because normal water was too cold for me and normal lessons made me cry. I found a teacher named Katinka. She was strict but it worked and I learned to swim… at least for Seattle standards. Which isn’t very high due to the fact that it’s always cold, rainy, and gray almost all year round. Minus the summer where I always would travel with my family or go to camp.

When I moved to Hawaii I had to take a physical education class with Punahou, and although I knew a lot of kids were sporty I didn’t know they were this sporty. In Seattle physical education class would entail dodgeball, kickball, handball, games that were fun and relatively chill. I was pretty good at the types of games played in P.E. so I wasn’t too worried for P.E. here. I didn’t however realize that P.E. This entailed long distance running, weight lifting, swimming, and a biathlon.

Keep in mind that I had Ms. Mori as my teacher, and she is so kind and enthusiastic. I was excited for P.E. at the start of the year. A fun class that I (thought) I was good at. When the swimming unit came along I realized that I wasn’t very athletic. Due to the fact everyone was more athletic than me. I do still think that Ms. Mori is a kind teacher though. She was very supportive throughout the units which was especially helpful in the swimming unit. Because of her I got lessons from Coach Jayson in swimming which helped a lot as well. However I still was the worst in my class.

Every class I had butterflies in my stomach, was worried I would throw up, worried I’d faint, and most of all worried I’d drown. It made it worse that every class started at 8AM. Every class day I would wake up with a sense of dread. When I got to school I’d grudgingly go to the locker rooms that had a strong smell of chlorine to it, dawdling as much as possible. I am still surprised that I didn’t get a foot fungus from the incredibly slippery floors that were grainy with a hint of mold. Every single class my friends and I would have the same conversation.

I would say, “Will you save me if I drown?”

Lucia would reply, “Yes”

Then I would look at Hanalei and say “do you think it’ll be alright?” And she would say, “Yeah don't worry about it.”

We would then get in the water and have our lesson. After I would lie on the bench in the locker room after swallowing a gallon of water and contemplate my life. This was our routine for quite a while until Ms. Mori announced we had a tread water test.

I dreaded it for weeks. I never did well when we practiced. I always would go to the wall before the time was out and hang on for dear life. Ms. Mori knew I wasn’t good at swimming with my background and it would be fine minus the part that I could only tread water for a minute at most. The night before the tread water test I watched an insane amount of videos on how to tread water on TikTok and Youtube. Anyone when I told them that I couldn’t tread water would say but it’s so easy. The tutorials said it’s so easy too so going into the test I was nervous but I thought I could tread water if I just really tried.

I was wrong. I tried really hard. It didn’t work. Lucia and Hanalei held me up and we had this conversation.

I said, “Lucia I don’t know if i can make it”

Lucia said, “Yes you can. Hold onto my arm.”

I held on to her arm for a while and tried my best to stay afloat.

After a while I said, “I think I'll go to the wall.”

I was desperate. I needed to stop. I couldn’t do it anymore. Hanalei however came over and said, “Do you need any help?” to Lucia (she was referring to me).

And Lucia said, “Sure.”

I didn’t mention this but Hanalei is on the water polo team and Lucia surfs so both of them are extremely athletic and good at swimming. Ms. Mori came over, saw what was happening and said to me, “You have good friends.”

I replied, “Yes I do”

Good friends are great. That is the moral of the story… and to be good at swimming.