Alyssa Delatore

Here is a brief video of Alyssa Delatore, a Robert Morris University student. There should be more videos of her soon.

Poetry out Loud: Chauncey Alexander

Being the youngest of four children is not easy; therefore, to be heard Chauncey Alexander would write his thoughts down on paper.
Alexander is a college student at Robert Morris University in Pennsylvania, studying Communications/advertisement. Nevertheless, one of his most precious dream is to become an actor.
He started writing at a very young age, but he would keep all his poems to himself (hidden from everyone, including his family) until, one day, his mother accidently found one of his work. She was very amazed by Alexander's talent and would encourage him to share his work.
"She would bring it up in conversations, and offer me to read my poems," said Alexander.
The first time Alexander actually perform was in the fall of 2011 at an open mic night at his university.
"When I heard about open mic night, I was very excited and told myself to do it," added Alexander.
He also explained that he was very nervous the first time he performed. Nonetheless, as he became more of a regular performer, doing poetry out loud became more relaxing and easier to him.
He focuses his poems on soul-searching and redefinition and has for role models Nikki Giovanni and Joshua Bennett. The first poem that I actually saw him perform depicted him through the eyes of an outsider.
To learn more about Chauncey Alexander, please visit his blog, that-boysimba.tumblr.com

Becoming a writer: Elizabeth Fabien

Elizabeth Fabien is a young and upcoming writer who caught my attention when she created a facebook group, Poetry Corner, to help her network with other people and promote her book W.O.R.D.S.: Wisdom to Survival. The title of the book is actually an acronym for Wisdom & Willingness, Objective & Obligation, Reason & React, Dream & Dare, and Suffer and Survive.
Fabien grew up in Haiti where she completed her entire schooling and discovered the joy of writing. She explained that she was listening to the beautiful christmas songs written by candidates in a christmas song competition that was held in one of the Haitian channels. The well written lyrics inspired her to write a christmas song as well. She wanted to know how that would feel. She also explained that it seemed like an easy task. Indeed she wrote her first song, "sonje wou ton nwel," and realized that writing was something that she enjoyed.

Fabien used writing as a tool to practice English. She bought a notebook, numbered the pages and came up with titles for every journal entries that she wrote. Eventually, writing was not just a tool to learn English; Fabien started writing about entities that were dear to her heart, including her country, Haiti.
Fabien moved to the United States in 2005 to pursue her post-secondary education.  She continued to write and occasionally shared her work with other people. Many who admired her work encouraged her to publish it. Therefore, Fabien decided to put her manuscripts together. In december 2009, when she finally completed the book, she sought a publishing company, submitted her work and got published.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/words-elizabeth-fabien/1020978620

I haven't had a chance to read her book yet, but as soon as I do, I will tell you what to look forward to when reading it.

New print by Marlie Decopain

Marlie Decopain just added a new print in her tumblr blog. Check it out! http://marliedecopain.tumblr.com/

P.S. If you have a tumblr account, make sure you follow her.

Autumn

Can a photographer tell me if this pic is good, and what can be improved?

Thank you.

Marlie Decopain, The Accomplished Artist

Marlie Decopain is a motion graphic designer and digital fine artist with an impressive list of clients like Stardust.

She developed an interest for art at a very young age.

"Every night I'd draw and give the drawings to my mom," she recounted. It's for this reason that her parents decided to enroll her in a Summer art school at age seven.

At age 12, she joined Graffi Colori, an art school ran by her neighbor at her house, where she learned drawing techniques.

“She gave me a good foundation, which then allowed me to keep growing as an artist and expand my views and perception of art even after she was no longer my teacher.”

On her website, nicheeny.com, you can find one of her Graffi Colori drawings.

“I was 14 when I made it,” she said.

The neighbor, who was actually an architect, taught the class every Saturday, and Decopain was her student for three years.

Then Decopain moved at age 16 to the United States from Haiti and finished her last two years of high school there. She took a regular art class her junior year and an Advance Placement art class her senior year.

“In the AP art class in high school, we did a lot of figure drawing but the teacher also allowed us to work on other projects of our choice in order for us to develop a portfolio,” said Decopain.

After reading the story of a digital artist in a magazine, Decopain developed an interest in digital art and enrolled in the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan where she graduated with a bachelors degree in computer art.

Decopain is also good with animation, but she stopped working on animation three years ago. She worked on animation on a number of promos for HGTV, NatGeo and HBO to name a few.

As a hobby, Decopain paints.

“I loved painting,” she gushed. “I still do.” But the lack of space caused her to set this hobby aside.

“I'm hoping that in the future I'll be able to have a studio space so that I can start painting again.”

Nowadays, Decopain works mostly on her computer as a freelance artist.

“I bounce from company to company,” she revealed. She works on specific projects for several companies in Manhattan.

Some of the companies Decopain has worked for are Stardust, Nice Shoes, and Click 3X. Her first gig was with Comedy Central where she designed a promo.

She is currently working though with a program called, Art Quake, in which 10 artists will sell their original prints in a portfolio. Cybil Charlier who previously worked with Decopain for an exhibition invited Decopain to be part of Art Quake.

All proceeds from this project will go to artisans who lost their works or art supplies in the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Marlie contributed to the design of the video of Ricky Martin's song "Lo Mejor de Mi Vida Eres Tu"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9_Tudgl8KE

The surviving mind

It is no rare fact that Ireland is blessed with great folk tales and writers. On my trip to Ireland, I definitely anticipated on learning more about this creative side of Ireland. Little did I know that the tour guide, himself, was one of the gifted soul of this country.
Batt Burns who grew up in Sneem, a small town in Ireland, discovered the art of storytelling at a young age. His grandfather, Clifford, was a seanachie (storyteller), and Burns will spent relatively long period of time with him listening to the old tales of Ireland, including stories of the wee folks.
Batt Burns in turn became a seanachie, performing all over Ireland and the United States and keeping this old tradition alive. He laments about the gradual disappearance of this art, blaming it on technology because storytelling was a form of entertainment in a time when TVs were nonexistent. Nowadays, it is almost impossible to find a seanachie in Ireland.

Burns wrote an award-winning book, The King with Horse's Hears and Other Irish Folk Tales. As previously mentioned, Burns host tours of Ireland, and has incomparable knowledge of this land. For more information on Burns, please visit his website, http://battburns.com/.