Art and Writing Contest

Big Straw hosted its annual Art and Writing contest to showcase the creative works of the CMU student body. This year’s theme was Renewal.

Below are some of the top submissions we received. A big thank you to everyone who participated and shared their amazing work!

Art Collection

Mikey Cao, 1st place

She named me Earnest

Work, meaningful work - as the solution to our late stage capitalism that isn’t as tinted in thinly veiled imperialistic expectations of work relegated to other, implicitly lesser bodies. Queer-platonic relationships, it takes a village to raise a child -no, a person. hello cool progressive.

Aunty who is a Real Adult but also doesn’t weep for fear of her daughter not-daughter because mom says they had no sex education back in China. Ernest Uno, PBS Asian Americans, a father named Frank and older brother named Buddy, there’s no shortage of wanting to be good citizens between the four of us, huh?

Work, meaningful, good work. The laundry is clean and the clutter is lovely. Today I’ll try calling him again.

Portrait of my Grandpa and Mother

Ever since I’ve been an artist my mom has been asking me to paint a portrait of her father, now passed away. Sadly, I never really knew him. I had to add color and merge two images together (one of him and one of her), as there was no one image they were both in my mom was satisfied with.

Orientalism

Thinking about my body as something cut away at, presentation out of fear for not fitting with a feminine convention, or confidence in spite of it. I couldn’t do this without my friend Emily Ngo who first confidently approached me with a pair of kitchen scissors in the single tone grimy yellow small bathroom as she sat me down backwards in a chair and we resigned ourselves to handpicking all the hair off the floor and tub. Not when the idea had only just formed in my head and I wasn’t sure what to do with all this desire. The girls in camp with black bleached hair and steady hands as they drive the needle through my lobe under the hush of night. Thank you all.

Little King

Excerpts from a short story.

Earlier this semester I was having vivid dreams, and through those the base ideas for this work sprung into being. I think a lot of influences could be read onto it, such as the ever-famous Le Petit Prince, or Caryl Churchill’s “A Dream Play,” but I personally like to feel this piece’s style emerged from an amalgamated subconsciousness of the cultural niche these sorts of works occupy. Not that it matters all too much, though - you’d get as much from little king reading it either way. This piece delves into non-answers and life circumstances in between the lines; I even feel I’m not in the same place now as I was when I feverishly started this project. Does that mean I disagree with its message now? Not necessarily. Would you? Do you?

First Love / Late Spring

Joan Song, 2nd place

[Content warning: sexual assault]

Officer, he slipped me on like a sock, the ball

of his white foot creasing against me, twisting

into the dirt as he adjusted his heel

deeper into my throat, Officer, he cried out

as his hips slackened like it hurt him, did it hurt him

when he bore through me, drawing blood, or when he

stole me from the shower, Officer, and laid

me flat across the bed, wrists clenched

and humming against the belts he called

hissing from below the frame like garter

snakes coiling around my brown ankles,

and he reached inside me, Officer, for the treasure

he left behind last time; Officer, his fingers

bruised past the padlock and wrenched

apart the chain around my hymen,

left behind when I was eleven by the doctor

at the Mosaic Clinic for Immigrants in Oregon, Officer,

the doctor who fondled my breasts then small

as cherry pits and spread my child legs to weld the lock

to my walls, who clenched his white teeth

as he forced me down, wailing, and tore a hole

through my labia to hook his thick white fingers through,

and soldered the metal to my skin, blistering

then charred and molten into the shape of his brand,

and when he finished, Officer, he tossed me out

crumpled with his latex glove, and he kissed me, Officer,

his old lips cold against my blackened flesh; and

I told you all this, Officer, when you plucked me

yet unripe off the side of the highway vine, when

you locked me in the back of your patrol car

and drove us down the US-20, Officer, and your

eyes clouded and bulged to the rim as you stroked

my shoulder, mouth taut with drool as you nodded

along to my story, Officer, but you don’t remember

a word of my story, do you, Officer; you don’t

remember my story, you don’t remember

do you?

I remember

surrendering myself to apathy, tendrils choking numb

around my jawbone, I surrendered my sight to wander blind

for forty days and forty nights, no flower between my thighs

to water, a field gone fallow, no light to follow

as my spine gathered crushed spikes of ungrown bone,

the refuse of forgotten years I refused to age:

afraid they would be taken from me, afraid that

the long -teen closing the numbers would

flip my skirt up and force the hard edge of its sound

into my body like a bullet, bent over worn eighth-grade

biology textbooks, afraid of high school and the prowling

shadow of the School Resource Officer, afraid

of starting my period and the surrogate father in Juno,

the movie my mom made me watch the spring

I didn’t turn twelve; but somehow I am twenty

and each month is renewed with copper tang,

welling with blood, more blood than when the first he

mangled into me for his first time, more than I can wash away

in the wild creek behind my bedroom window

as I ache to remain a tall child, and each month

I am reminded that I have grown old despite

my best efforts as even the most knotted scars

on my right hip fade and retreat from the shore,

keloids shimmering on my legs like pearls,

or when pollen swirls yellow along the spring

currents and I think of sinus headaches from

last year and not five years ago, the spring

another he forced his white skin into my mouth

as the cherry blossoms shuddered around us,

the spring I couldn’t lose my virginity

because it was already lost, abandoned by the roadside,

growing lush through sidewalk cracks and

buried deep-forgotten beneath the shining earth

but I remember, I remember, don’t I?

I remember enough for all of us,

I remember.

Mr. Egg

Anonymous, 3rd place

Not who I wanted to be,

I didn’t make the choice.

I’m not fertilized,

Where is the rooster?

First part of my sin,

my life won’t ever be happy again.

Sitting in the market,

stumbling inside the grocery bag.

Keep on lying,

a normal life.

Running away from the kitchen,

scared to make eye contact.

Praying for help,

weak-minded lying.

Already on the stove,

in a round shaped crater.

Speechless,

light- headed.

Surrounded by water,

taking a bath.

Unforgivable,

close to mutiny.

Gigantic flames,

the heat that engulfed me.

Coming back to hurt you,

showing some integrity.

Chemical reactions inside me,

a personality transplant.

Tell the truth,

unburden yourself.

Free roller coaster ride in a slotted spoon,

thrown into a cool pool.

Still not ready for what I knew had to be done,

the inevitable.

On the table,

saying my goodbyes.

Knowing the truth,

seeing the truth.

Still believing in my lies,

Can’t change my fate.

Just let it go,

a load lifted off my chest.

My shell now gone,

I need some clothes.

The weight disappeared from my heart,

good and free now.

Sharp teeth,

nasty breath.

I’m going to start over,

I want to be proud again.

Now give me a tour,

your intestines are too big.

Drawing Plans

Joseph Kurtz

Before Renewal can start, someone has to see the possibility of change. This church is beautiful, but is starting to grow stained with time. This scene could make a perfect photo, but there are power lines in the way. This picture may not actually restore the building’s original color or make a perfect snapshot of the view, but seeing what could be, instead of what is, can be the first step in that direction.

Renewal

Erin Park

I enjoy being busy and connecting with people all day. However, if you don’t see me running around campus for a while, don’t worry. I am recharging, spending valuable time doing absolutely nothing. Let’s not guilt ourselves for slowing down and enjoying personal time for renewal. Like a pupa in a chrysalis, I’ll soon be back even stronger than before.

renewing my chess club membership

Dylan Rossi

i walk down west tenth. i see

the steps are unchanged. as i press

the buzzer i come to understand the

eternal nature of scaffolding and how

i’m a lot like those skyscrapers— or at least

this run-of-the-mill brownstone. inside

the carpet creeps upstairs and as i reach

for that smooth oak railing two kids

not four feet tall brush past me and

i can’t help but smile. suddenly

it all crashes over me. everything is

a snapshot of some unfulfilled idea—

an unscratched itch— and this old man

is coughing but he cracks a joke and

the guy three tables down chuckles and

says something about his boy playing and

on a board in the corner is some

arrangement of pieces left abandoned

as if there were really something infinite to be found.