Sitting down at a coffee shop with Miss Strangename! (and the fabulous interview she agreed to with me)

Some people are just absolutely fabulous without thirsting for recognition. Miss Strangename is that girl. This interview is based off of the time I spent at a coffee shop in Urbana, IL with the girl who calls herself Elizabeth Jin, also known as "Miss Strange Name." Her blog is called The Fantasy of Miss Strangename and here she shares her inspirational style posts that are like no other blogger I've encountered, or ever will! She's so down to Earth- meeting her was a total joy. Enjoy the interview and feel free to leave comments and questions for her to read!

 Where were you born? What do you remember of your childhood? What were your favorite games?

Miss Strangename: "I am from Southern China, and I have been living in the United States for only two years- and that has been to go to the University of Illinois majoring in accounting. It's much easier to earn a 4.0 GPA in the USA. I started speaking English in primary school while attending a boarding school in China, and it has always been my best subject. I don't have any favorite games because I don't play them- I am terrible at playing games so I just don't want to hurt my own feelings," she giggled. "I did love playing with dolls as a child, although I had to save money and buy them myself. I eventually filled up my bed with dolls!"

 How did "The Fantasy of Miss Strangename" come about? It is such a unique name..

Miss Strangename: "I call myself Miss Strange name because my Chinese name is too hard for people to pronounce in America. Americans see the spelling of my name and say it just doesn't make sense to them- I have just spent a long time explaining my name. Another reason why I call myself Miss Strange name is because I like to remain anonymous. I don't need people to know me or think I'm fabulous or famous... I just enjoy dressing up and documenting it through my blog. I started documenting my style in May of last year and created a blog not too long after starting my Chictopia. I also call myself Elizabeth Jin as well, and Jin means "gold" in Chinese."

Who are your role models?

Miss Strangename: "Liz Lemon from 30 Rock is really independent and funny- the kind of woman who can take care of herself and live in a positive way-and she's super talented but she doesn't have style at all. Her state of mind is what I admire. She is my role model for this reason. Shanshan from Tiny Toadstool is a wonderful fashion inspiration for me. She really makes me want to visit Japan. My mother is also a style inspiration for me. When I look at old photographs of her in the 1970's- she looks so beautiful and young with her wedge platforms on. I was surprised to discover that she wore those!"

  Do you thrift shop?

Miss Strangename: "Yeah! Totally! There is a Cross Road thrift store in Evanston, Illinois that I really love. My boyfriend Sam is from Evanston so every time I go to visit him I spend almost half of the day there."
How would you consider yourself, socially?

Miss Strangename: "I am an Otaku," she laughed, "My mother used to tell me that I was introverted when I was younger and I didn't want to leave the house- Otaku means "some guys who are always at home watching anime and never go out and play video games." I feel I am kind of like- a female Otaku. My boyfriend is Otaku, too... that's why I like him... he watches anime with me. I am really into the show, Psycho Pass. It's super violent but in a beautified way. I also love Quentin Tarantino's films and the squirting blood. I don't even feel scared because it's so ridiculous."

"I always want to be young forever," she laughed, "I feel like "girly" style is really fashionable. Recently I am so obsessed with Soap Operas in Japan... because it makes me feel like a girl again, haha." She doesn't think height matters too much in relationships, and agrees that it's pure adoration.

Make sure you take some time to see some of her style posts.... they are incredibly inspiring! If you haven't seen our style post together with Hannah, here's one photo from the shoot below and you can see the entire post here!

love, polly

An Interview with Mural Artist Langston Allston

I've had mutual friends in common with Langston Allston for a couple of years now. We'd run into each other at parties, we attended the same university and even lived in close by neighborhoods. I always knew he was an artist, and I got to know his art better at one of his showings at the Basement Gallery. After hearing about his mural at the Bike Shop in Downtown Urbana- I decided to see it for myself. Langston gladly agreed to meet up and tell me more about his life over some dinner and drinks. He told me he's getting his degree majoring in Painting with a minor in Art History and that he grew up in Champaign, Illinois. The first thing that popped in my mind that I wanted to ask Langston was about his childhood and how it affects the art he created as a child and creates today. He told me that his father owned thousands of comic books stacked in his childhood home. He continued to tell me that each comic book was essentially a chapter in a chapter book- so to read the complete story, you would have to buy all of the individual comic books. As a child, Langston would grow impatient on waiting for the end, and decided many times to write and illustrate his own ending to the story. The Green Lantern was his most memorable comic book. He tells me that, "Comic books rounded my sense of storytelling. At the end of the day, though, it has to be about real life because it wouldn't resonate with people."

Langston has been habitually drawing every day for the last 15 years. As a child, he also made his own toys out of telephone wire just as the telephone companies were beginning to switch from copper wire to fiber optic wire. The wire was free and easy for him to get ahold of. It came in a variety of colors that he could work with. He told me he specifically enjoyed sculpting superheroes out of the wire. His favorite television shows as a child were Dragon Ball-Z, Samurai Jack, Batman and Rap City music videos.

 "My parents work very hard, as long as I worked hard- I was encouraged to do what I loved," he told me. In his childhood, he specifically mentioned how he would go to the library and read Spacejet books from the 1950's and loved to look at the illustrations. When it comes to murals and graffiti, he says that the 1970's &1980's graffitti went around the world and paved the way for today's large scale mural paintings. When I asked him about his tendency to use unusual colors when painting people, he said it is a style that developed from lack of paint, although he usually uses hues of red and blue for their skin colors. He'd often trade paint for tattoos, and has also tattooed himself. 

I asked him if he had ever made artwork on trains and he told me he generally stays away from them because they're moving. Even if it is a stationary abandoned train, he prefers not to draw anything because the point of tagging trains is exposure- trains travel all over the United States and other people seeing the art is almost thought of as the name of the game.

Another thing he told me was, "An oil painting should have the weight of a research paper," which I thought to be very interesting. His thoughts are that if you're going to spend the money and time on an oil painting, that it should be researched and well thought out. "I paint untraditional things so people re-examine what they believe about certain figures being portrayed."

 More of Langston's work from various places in his apartment he shares with another artist who I also admire, Mason Cosmo.

Thank you for spending some time with me, Langston, I really appreciate it!

love, polly