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Thursday, D ecember 1, 2016 | Vo l u m e 1 2 1 | I s s u e 3 0
ASUNM Scholarship to benefit Mexican students hosts Arts and Crafts Fair By Brendon Gray
@notgraybrendon
By Jonathan Baca @JonGabrielB
For the 53rd year in a row, the annual ASUNM Arts and Crafts Fair is in full swing in the SUB Ballrooms, showcasing an impressive collection of artists and craftspeople from around the state. Hosted by the ASUNM Arts and Crafts Studio, the show invited over 70 local vendors in a holiday shopping extravaganza. The items on sale range from knitting and crocheted clothing, hand-blown glass figures, handmade soaps and body products, pottery, graphic art and jewelry. Senior English major Amanda Johnson is the assistant director at the Arts and Crafts Studio. Every year the studio has a table at the front of the show, where pottery sold by members of the studio is on display. “Every fall we give artists and craftsmen the opportunity to show their wares on campus. They come from all over the state, and some of the vendors are even students,” Johnson said. Lewis Wilson has been a craftsman of hand-blown glass sculptures for 40 years, and has had a booth at the show every year for the last quarter-century. “There’s an incredible amount of good people doing fine arts here, with pen-and-ink drawings, silverwork and jewelry,” Wilson said. “It’s a really good, varied show.” The annual show is a great opportunity for craftspeople to sell their products and attract new customers, but it’s also a terrific holiday shopping experience, said customer Tom Mallory. “Every year I come to this show, and I always find a couple gifts for Christmas,” he said. “The stuff here is always unique and affordable.” One of those unique vendors is Genevieve Brechtel of Making Medieval Modern. Brechtel makes jewelry and accessories using traditional chain mail techniques she taught herself. Bracelets and earrings are on display next to belts and a purse made of interlinked soda can tabs. “The atmosphere of college is always very much more open and accepting,” Brechtel said. “My stuff is fairly eclectic, it’s not really
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Crafts page 3
Last week, funds were granted to UNM to support students of Mexican origin in pursuit of higher education. UNM President Bob Frank and Mexican Consul Efren Leyva signed a Memorandum of Understanding at a ceremony on campus, representing a collaboration between UNM and the Mexican Consulate to provide for economically challenged students of Mexican descent. After the announcement, Leyva joined UNM Vice President of Student Affairs Cheo Torres in handing out checks from the IMEBecas Scholarship Program. The program is funded by the Mexican government to promote students of Mexican descent facing challenging economic situations achieve their higher education goals. Two specific UNM programs received funds — the College Enrichment and Outreach Program and the Center for English Language and American Culture. The University had to raise matching funds in order to receive the scholarship, an effort
Nick Fojud / Daily Lobo / @NFojud
Rafael Martinez, a graduate student in American studies, is a recipient of the IME scholarship from the Mexican Consulate that gives funding to students of Mexican descent. Martinez will use this funding to further his research in the American Studies Department.
coordinated through both entities. CEOP has been sponsoring the scholarship since 2011, and considering both IME’s support and UNM’s matching efforts, nearly $100,000 have been raised every year since. For Andrew Gonzalez, director of the College Enrichment Program, the continued support of the scholarship is a positive reflection on the University.
“It speaks volumes that the institution is invested in the program and said, ‘Yes, we’re going to do this,’” he said, considering the efforts made to coordinate the fundraising. He also noted that the University showed respect for students by continuing the fund-matching. Rafael Martinez, a third-year graduate student in American studies and a scholarship recipient,
reiterated that sentiment, saying the scholarship benefits him in more than just academics. “As an out-of-state and undocumented student, it made me realize there was a strong support system for undocumented students in New Mexico,” Martinez said. “That was a big impact. It made me feel welcome.” A different scholarship was made available due to the consulate’s donation for students enrolled in CELAC, an intensive language program designed to teach international students academic English. “There are a lot of Mexican nationals and students of Mexican descent that have career goals aligned with understanding English,” said Paul Edmunds, the director of CELAC. “The number one biggest hurdle is the English language, and the second is finances.” With this scholarship, CELAC will continue to provide for both those needs. CELAC and CEOP are just two of a myriad of programs designed to support students who face challenges similar to Martinez’s. Martinez was born in central Mexico and immigrated to the U.S.
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Programs page 3
Art student brings comfort to campus By Cathy Cook @Cathy_Daily With finals week approaching and the weather growing colder, it’s tempting to stay in bed. One UNM art student did just that on Wednesday, although she decided to bring her bed out into the cold. Grace Moreau, a senior fine arts student at UNM, brought her mattress to the center of Smith Plaza Wednesday for a performance art piece. Performance art is her focus as an artist and the piece is for her Art and Ecology class. “I am out here doing a performance that’s encouraging just moments of comfort and solace when things are crazy. So I’m inviting anyone to just come and get in bed with me and just hang out,” Moreau said. Moreau brought her mattress out at sunrise and stayed until sunset, she said. “The project was originally designed as a statement about how people are trying to get into our beds and taking it to where it’s not a place of comfort anymore — by trying to legislate morality by telling us who we can have in our beds and who we can’t have in our beds, and telling us what’s socially acceptable,” she said. “Then it just
On the Daily Lobo website
David Lynch / Daily Lobo / @RealDavidLynch
Grace Moreau (center) talks to a peer who stopped by her performance art piece in Smith Plaza on Wednesday. Moreau was in Smith Plaza from virtually dawn till dusk, inviting passers-by to the bed as a place of comfort and inclusion.
grew from there as I wanted to take back the idea of a bed as a place of comfort and solace, because it really is, and create that comfort and solace for the people around me.” Moreau said the project was originally inspired by the rhetoric of Republicans and Donald
Trump about women and the LGBTQ community. “Republicans, and Donald Trump in particular, have had negative rhetoric about women and what they can or should do with their bodies,” she said. The bed’s blue comforter was
spray painted with the title of the Maya Angelou poem “Come and Be My Baby,” a poem published in the 1975 collection, “Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well.” “When the world is crazy, come
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Comfort page 5
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