Campus Life – Page 29 – The Western Howl

By: Emily Pate 
Staff Writer

The Art and Design Club meets every Wednesday and Thursday at 6 p.m. on the third floor of Campbell Hall. They also hold free life drawing sessions on Tuesdays.

Wednesday, Nov. 4, the club spent their meeting finger painting on wooden boards procured by club president Max McEvilly.

McEvilly, a senior and art major, said that one of the goals of the club is to broaden horizons and give club members a chance to experiment with new mediums and styles.

He also wants to use the club to quell the anxiety art majors feel about their post-graduation careers.

The club is not just for art majors as they offer a helpful, relaxed, and nonjudgmental environment for anyone who wants to try their hand at creating art.

“It’s a small enough club that an individual can come up with an idea of what to do and we can just do it,” McEvilly said.

Raquel Graham, a first year psychology major, especially enjoyed a collaborative project when a dance instructor asked the club to make masks for a dance show. “It was cool that my work got to be shown,” she said. She encourages other non-art majors to join the club.

The Art and Design Club hosted a popular Halloween event last month. “I’m pretty proud of what we did,” McEvilly said, “I hope we can do something even bigger next year.”

McEvilly has a lot of ideas for the future for the Art and Design Club, including a commission booth in Werner and a painting wall. He encourages Western students to come give the club a try. “It’s a no strings attached kind of club,” he said.

“If you like art, it’s a good place for you,” Graham continued. “You have a lot of fun. You do a lot of things that you normally don’t get to do.”

The Western Howl

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One Month, One Novel

By: Stephanie Blair 
Photo Editor

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a creative writing Internet sensation started by author and Stanford professor Chris Baty in 1999.

What started as a project undertaken by 30 people has now grown in both renown and participation, clocking in at over 325,000 registered “wrimos” around the world last November. In fact, participants can be found on six of the seven continents.

As stated on the official NaNoWriMo website, NaNoWriMo is “a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing.” However, it’s not just a fun annual event; NaNoWriMo is also a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.

While companies such as Evernote, Kindle Direct Publishing, and Nook Press officially sponsor NaNoWriMo, participants are given the opportunity to fundraise for the non-profit programs as well.

NaNoWriMo has three nonprofit programs: Camp NaNoWriMo, the Young Writers Program, and the Come Write In (CWI) program.

The purpose of these, nanowrimo.org says, is “to empower and encourage writing and vibrant creativity around the world.”

Camp NaNoWriMo is a month long “virtual writing retreat” meant to help writers complete projects at any time of year, but with the same support and structure as NaNoWriMo.

“The Young Writers Program promotes writing fluency, creative education, and the sheer joy of novel-writing in K-12 classrooms,” the website states. More than 2,000 classrooms receive free classroom kits, writing workbooks, and other educational materials to assist in this effort.

The CWI program, which had 849 centers last year, is NaNoWriMo’s way to connect neighborhood spaces such as community centers, libraries, bookstores, and coffee shops with “wrimos” to create safe and supportive writing spaces.

CWI locations receive a “Come Write In kit”, which includes a window cling, a poster, and bookmarks to help promote the event. Additionally, NaNoWriMo connects CWI locations with others who are hosting events through an online forum, and local volunteers to help publicize, co-host events, as well as keeping the center informed about other events in the region.

This year, Western’s Writing Center, located on the third floor of the APSC, will be holding weekly meet-ups every Wednesday at 5 p.m. for “wrimos” on campus as a CWI center.

Among this year’s participants are “BookTube” stars Kat O’Keeffe (youtube.com/Katytastic) and Sasha Alsberg (youtube.com/abookutopia), as well as The Journal’s Managing Editor Katrina Penaflor, author of “Under the Surface,” and Staff Writer Emily Pate here at Western.

Although the month has already started, all who are interested are encouraged to join in. NaNoWriMo happenings, and more information, can be found on facebook.com/nanowrimo, twitter.com/nanowrimo, and nanowrimo.org.

The Western Howl

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Humans of Western

By: Megan Clark
Campus Life Editor

“I was a correctional officer for many years, and, uh, I think I stuck with it because I felt like I was perhaps making a difference in people’s lives. If they made poor decisions and they ended up in prison, maybe my role-modeling made a difference to them. But at the end of the day, I felt like I wasn’t making enough of a positive difference, so I wanted to change my life.”

“My mom had been clean and sober for twelve years, and then in April she fell off the wagon … Right now, I go back and forth between being really upset with addiction … and then also thinking about how lucky I was to have gotten to have those times with her in those twelve years.”

“The most memorable thing [about being a correctional officer] for me was an interaction with an inmate … she had made significant changes in the way she saw the world around her, what we call in the system ‘criminal thinking’… she got out, and it was probably about four months later, I saw her in a commercial for Goodwill and she had gotten a job and became a spokesperson for the company, and it touched me.”

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Flugelhornist Works Jazz Magic

By: Rachael Jackson
Staff Writer

Renowned flugelhornist Dmitri Matheny came to the Smith Recital Hall on Nov. 4 to perform with a local jazz trio. The trio consisted of Western instructor Dan Gaynor on the piano, Todd Strait on the drums, and Chris Higgins playing the bass.

For those unsure of what a flugelhorn is, Matheny explains, “A flugelhorn is like a trumpet that sounds good.” The response yielded laughter from the audience and helped set a casual mood for the concert.

The four musicians played a light and airy bossa nova by Bruno Martino, as well as “Stormy Weather” by famous composer Harold Arlen. Matheny left the stage for the next song so the trio could showcase their talents.

The trio played “Fried Pies” by Wes Montgomery. Both of Gaynor’s feet were occupied, one busy with the piano’s pedals, the other tapping in time to the rhythm of the song.

An unexpected mixture of breaks and solos characterized the song itself, and the stage came alive as all of the musicians grooved to the music.

Matheny rejoined the stage for “Red Reflections,” a song off his album “Sagebrush Rebellion” that they played as a double-timed samba. The song was inspired by sitting in traffic during a rainy day.

“You’ll see the reflections from the taillights of the cars in front of you, and on the pavement,” he explained. “You can get stressed out about that, or you can think, ‘Oh, this is a hip vibe.’”

The highlight of the night was when they played Eclypso, a piece arranged by Matheny’s former teacher, the late Art Farmer. The song was a fast tempo ditty that rang throughout the hall, but something was missing—dancing.

“Jazz has always been a social thing, people should be dancing to music like this, always,” mused Nick Nielsen, a bassist, and junior music major.

Emily Lowry, senior business major, had been unsure about whether she would enjoy a jazz concert, as she had expected that jazz would be far slower.

“The faster and upbeat tempo was unexpected. It makes you want to dance,” Lowry remarked.

The night ended with a bang as the jazz trio and Matheny performed their rendition of “Golden Lady” by Stevie Wonder.

Missed this show and feeling sore? Come hear Spanish Song Treasures in the Smith Recital Hall on Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 7:30 p.m. Check out the Music department’s website for even more events and ticketing information.

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Endangered Poetics

By: Megan Clark
Campus Life Editor

Peter Sears, Oregon Poet Laureate, introduced Dr. David Hargreaves and Dr. David Lewis, who presented about endangered poetics in the Werner University Center on Nov. 2.

Endangered poetics is a term for the disappearance of a language due to colonialism or hostility toward a home language.

Dr. Hargreaves is a linguistic professor at Western. His presentation focused on his translations of poetry written in Nepal Bhasa, a language that is in the process of dying out.

The Blossoms of Sixty-Four Sunsets by Durga Lal Shrestha has been translated before, but only for its accuracy, not for its inherent beauty of rhythm or sound. Dr. Hargreaves said that translators often use language “for data” and that “language never gets treated as art itself.”

He showed how he utilized rhyme and rhythm in his translations; his recitations of the poems in the Nepal Bhasa language showed there was a distinct melody and sound pattern to the lines uttered, which he tried to convey in his English translations.

Dr. David Lewis, who has his Ph.D in anthropology and is a direct descendent of Chief Santiam, presented next. His focus was on the translation and adaptation of a Kalapuya poem.

First, Dr. Lewis presented a version of this text as translated and made popular by Jerold Ramsey. The text describes a shaman who has a dream that foretells of a time when the white men would come and destroy the land.

However, Dr. Lewis has doubts about the accuracy of this translation. “Does this [translation] really have that native perspective?” He queried.

While there are earlier translations of the prophetic poem, Dr. Lewis wanted to have a fresh perspective to work from.

Kalapuyan, the language of the original text, is an extinct language, so Dr. Lewis reached out to two linguists to decipher a fresh translation of the text.

Dr. Lewis found that Ramsey had added in aspects of the poem that were not there originally, such as calling the whites “iron farmers.” In doing so, Ramsey changed the overall meaning of the text, altering the poem’s native perspective in the process.

Jasmine Trujille, a junior ASL Interpreting major, said, “[Dr. Lewis] shows us how there’s meaning in reanalyzing a poem … it shows more about the time period than the text.”

Much can be learned from the translations of the poetry, and, likewise, much can be lost if the language dies.

Dr. Hargreaves stated that translating texts is a “contribution to what beauty is in other places of the world.”

He continued, “If it’s not translated, not made accessible, no one would ever know.”

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NaNoWriMo Update

By: Katrina Penaflor
Managing Editor

NaNoWriMo Update : I am completely behind and writing will be what puts me into an insane asylum.

Melodramatic? Yes. Is this somehow even harder than I expected it to be? Absolutely.

With a daily word count goal of approximately 1700 words I’m finding it almost impossible to make the time to write enough to make that quota.

Sunday was a breeze (coincidently it was the first day). I had plenty of extra time on my hands, and I casually wrote while watching a documentary series on HBO. The rest of the week, I’m barely making a fourth of my daily goal.

I’m finding that realistically looking at it by “I need to type 1700 words a day” is not going to work into my schedule. I now need to focus on taking three or so days out of the week where I have more time, like weekends, and focus on filling those days with as many words as possible.

Currently I’ve written 3377 words (I’m writing this on a Thursday) and by the end of the week I need to have written 12,500.

If anyone needs me Friday through Sunday, I can be found with my hands glued to my keyboard.

EMILY UPDATE

How many times have you done NaNoWriMo?

This will be my fifth time doing NaNoWriMo.

How did you first find out about NaNoWriMo?

I first found out about NaNoWriMo in 2011, during my first year at Western. A friend encouraged me to give it a try, and I’ve participated every year since.

What was the name of the first novel you attempted with NaNo?

The first novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo was called Larkspur.

Give us a 1 sentence summary of what you’re writing this year.

In a fantasy version of the 1850s, city states struggle for dominance while trying to contain mages, river pirates, and the rising anger of the masses towards the people in power.

Why do you love writing?

I have always believed strongly in the power of stories, and writing is a way for me to channel that. There are books I’ve read that have fundamentally shaped me as a person, and I want to be able to cause that same change in someone else through my own writing.

6. What makes NaNoWriMo different from writing any other way/time?

NaNoWroMo is different because it makes a writer accountable for actually producing work. Writing every day is important, but it’s easy to push this to the side when there are so many other things that take up our time. During NaNoWriMo, I make a promise to myself to write at least 1,700 words a day. This is difficult, but it also gives me more practice with writing then I get any other month of the year.

As someone who wants to be a professional writer, NaNoWriMo gives me experience in having to produce a lot of writing within a set time frame. It also gives sense of community, knowing that other writers are also attempting this massive project.

The Western Howl

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Celebrating Dia de los Muertos

By: Megan Clark
Campus Life Editor

Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a Mexican holiday during which families honor their deceased love ones and help guide them back to the mortal world from the afterlife.

Western celebrated its own Dia de los Muertos on Oct. 28.

The presentation, held in the WUC, began with live music and offerings of hot cocoa. Dr. Jaime Marroquin Arredondo presented a short slideshow, which highlighted the history of Dia de los Muertos and its connection to Halloween.

The tradition of Dia de los Muertos began prior to the Spanish invasion. It’s now celebrated as a combination of All Saints’ Day, a Spanish holiday where the dead are remembered, and the traditions and religion of the native inhabitants of Mexico.

In modern day Mexico, Dia de los Muertos is celebrated by making altars for the dead and building arches covered in flowers to help guide their way through the living world.

Death is presented as a woman, the most notable representation being La Catrina, a skeleton wearing a feather and flower adorned hat, designed by Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada.

Sugar skulls are another famous image that originates from Dia de los Muertos.
They are colorful decorations made from sugar and clay. Making sugar skulls is a tradition that dates back to the 17th century, when local residents were taught by Catholic monks how to make them. These skulls were used to adorn churches and gravestones. They can be made to represent a deceased individual, often having a name inscribed on the forehead of the skull.

Dia de los Muertos is intended to bring families and friends together. Dr. Marroquin stated, “It’s community, it’s a familiar thing … It’s a family celebration, you have to drink and enjoy.”

The event was attended by a large and diverse group of spectators, including those who have celebrated this holiday before, and those who were unfamiliar with it.

Sandra Dominguez, senior education major, said, “It’s something from my culture, so it’s nice to see on campus.”

Those in attendance were offered pan de dulce—a sweet, sugary bread, the taste and texture being similar to a doughnut or sugar cookie—and tamales. Emily Lowry, senior business major, said, “I have never been to these kind of events before … I thought it was well organized and thoughtfully put together.”

Overall, this holiday is meant to celebrate the living and the dead. This holiday is not intended to be for mourning, but festivities and bringing community and family together.

“It would be considered something rude to be sad, so you have to drink your tequila … It’s a happy celebration,” Dr. Marroquin said.

Western Oregon University’s Land Acknowledgement
Western Oregon University in Monmouth, OR is located within the traditional homelands of the Luckiamute Band of Kalapuya. Following the Willamette Valley Treaty of 1855 (Kalapuya etc. Treaty), Kalapuya people were forcibly removed to reservations in Western Oregon. Today, living descendants of these people are a part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Community of Oregon and the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians.

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Western Art and Design Club welcomes new members

One Month, One Novel

Humans of Western

Flugelhornist Works Jazz Magic

Endangered Poetics

NaNoWriMo Update

Celebrating Dia de los Muertos

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