BOUNDLESS: Between the Lines

This year’s edition of Boundless celebrates Presentation High School’s creativity through art, design, photography, and literature. All works showcased are made and selected by students. We can’t wait for you to be inspired! Your directors,

All images and writing are the property of respective artists and may not be reproduced or copied without permission.

Aimee Santos, Class of 1994, is a Photo Editor for Paramount under the CBS brand. She earned her B.S. in Photojournalism and Masters of Fine Art from San Jose State University. She is currently working on upcoming projects for the Fall season to air on CBS, in her spare time she continues to create macro portraits and working on street photography with her widelux.

Alexa Parish

Aimee Santos

Stella Yang

Ready to be inspired?

Reading in the Rain

by Mia Tran photography

This piece was inspired by Point Reyes Lighthouse.

Lighthouse by Meredith Lin paper on cardboard

Letting Go by

Emilia Salistra

acrylic on canvas

This piece was inspired by cancer awareness and the thousands of lives lost and torn apart every year by it.

Self Worth

BY ANONYMOUS

O Moon! You are so heavenly

The brightest star in the shiniest sky!

O Moon!

When people are lost, They always look to you as a guide.

O Moon! You never cease to amaze

As the ripple of tide closes its seams.

O Moon! They write poems, and stories, and songs about you

For competing against you is just in our dreams. But O Moon! You can never beat the sun

Because your light only comes from it

In your eternal battle, you have never won

Because you are cold, and hard, and desolate

O Moon! When will you stop comparing yourself to others?

When will you realize what you can and can not do?

When will you find your own light?

Because we all look up to you!

O Moon! When you cry because you can not do anything, I assure you that you can do everything!

But O Moon! When you wake and watch me weep, You never come down and sing me to sleep.

O Moon! You think your only friend is the strong, competitive wolf, But he howls at you in his toxicity.

But O Moon! You ignore me as I watch you Who glorifies because you are nature’s beauty.

O Moon! Put down that facade of a strong, confident you For, it is certainly untrue. You are not what you claim to me.

And you can never be what you want to be. But O Moon! Your pride yet is so high!

But your self-worth so weak. You try to be the boldest, But you yourself are so meek. You try to be the strongest, Yet your muscles do not show. You try to be the nicest, Yet, you make everyone your foe.

Alas O Moon! How long can I love you?

How long can I tell you my words. It won’t really matter in the end, Because you are the only one that matters.

So Dear Moon, I will tell you the last time, You need to let go. Have faith in yourself- your failures and your successes, your faults and your shine

For you are beautiful, you are enough. Everyone has faith in you, everyone loves you But that can never be enough. So say Goodbye to your pitiful self, Say Goodbye to your sorrows.

Because O Moon, I love you!

And you must love you too.

In My Head: Anxiety

by Xochitl B photograhy

All Pho Me

by Allison Kemp

colored pencil collage

Kitchen by Sophia Rosito

digital media

Making the Most of It

by Mia Overbo

mixed media

I made smoothies for my family when our kitchen was being remodeled. Holding it together during that time was what I wanted my piece to embody; so, I constructed the blender to remain upright despite that its base is tilted off from the ground.

supermodel

by Gigi Dyche

mixed media

Shooting Star

BY SOPHIE JENNINGS

It’s said that if you see a shooting star, ‘make a wish!’

But I never did

As a child, I knew those wishes would never land

As a teenager, I knew those wishes would never come true

As an adult, I knew those wishes would come true if I worked for it

And oh by God did I work

The all-nighters, the cries, the breakdowns, the late-night phone calls to dad, the question of whether I shouldcontinue

But I became that star instead

So high up on the pedestal for everyone to see

Because of that damn shooting star, I fell and became one

Human Nature

by Tanisha Prasad collage

by Mia Overbo

This is a spread from a short zine about finding home in an unfamiliar place.

wednesday by Meredith Lin jeans on canvas

This piece was inspired by denim day, which happens on the last Wednesday every April.

Reflection

by Zoya Ahmed mixed media

This piece depics my current self holding a baby picture of myself reflecting on my childhood.

Milton Glaser

by Sophia Rosito digital media

Untitled by Ti Pham digital media

All the words left to be forgotten and thought to be better left unsaid

BY ANONYMOUS

If I could rethink every thought I forgot, recount every story left unheard, and say the words I once convinced myself would be better left unsaid, I wonder how my life would be different.

And what if you had done the same? I wonder how your life— our lives— would have been different. Because they could have been different. Now it’s too late.

Our thoughts, our words, our life.

Our thoughts begin to change our life the moment we decide to start saying them.

Fields by Abbeygael Cabuag ceramics

Cambria

by Hoai-Phuong Hoang acrylic on canvas

Unseen Face

by Alexis Higgins photography

Cyber City

by Laura Yeh digital media

“Cyber City” is an illustration that depicts a dystopian futuristic city and a girl trying to survive.

Tears of the Sun

by Jill Horowitz

graphite and digital media

City Tree

by Laura Yeh

digital media

This piece shows the contrast between natural vs artificial.

Climbing Mount’s

by Amaya Gomez photography

Orange

BY TANYA SUN

I hated the color orange, Until I knew it was your favorite. But now I look at you And I think:

Of persimmons, of candied rice, of the paper lantern, And I dream:

Of monarchs, of koi, of candles aflame; And I am so sorry I hated orange When I did not know orange was you.

Glossy Magazine

by Arushi Kharbanda

acrylic on canvas

In the mythos of the gods

BY JENNA RABBANI

No one can compare to the beauty of Aphrodite

Goddess of Beauty and love, But if she were to appear in front of me

She may take your shape

In hopes of garnering my affection

But no matter

How she steals your smile or

Replicates every which freckle I have memorized And charted as if the stars in the sky

She would still not compare For she would not have your laughter which rings in my ears long after we part

She does not carry your smell

Of lavender and sage

Of heartbreak and petrichor

For if I was offered the golden apple

To give to the apple of my eye

I would not gift it to you

For I do not wish upon you the wrath of the gods

But rather

I would consume the golden flesh

So that it may turn my blood into ichor

So my carcass may finally be worthy of your embrace

My love

How incomparable are you

That I cannot help but compare every being I come across

To every inch of your flesh and soul and spirit

And how every being falls short

Untitled by Jenna Rabbani

ceramics

This piece was inspired by dutch tulip vases, hand painted orange/red tulips with multiple spouts

Untitled by Jasmine Chang oil

on canvas

Beyond the Threshold

by Jiya Jagani digital media

Melodrama

by Arushi Kharbanda

acrylic on canvas

I was inspired to paint this piece from an album cover of one of my favorite artists, Lorde . This painting uses many colors meant to depict feelings of restlessness, sadness, and melancholy. (A response to the work of artist Sam McKinniss.)

Valiant Fate

by Marie “Goof” Purtell digital media

A sword, buried in a forest, calling for a hero...

Will you answer?

Baba Yaga

by Laurel Ashcom ceramics

Head of the Gods

by Kendra Vincent ceramics

Wontons

BY TANYA SUN

Zhang was one of those hundreds of quiet, plodding men who kept Chinatown alive. He had come to America as an exchange student decades ago, dreaming of becoming a civil engineer back home, designing apartments for the developing Sichuan. When he consumed alcohol for the first time at a college party, he’d forgotten those goals forever. The drink consumed him right back—leaving him to pick up the pieces of his life for the first time when it was nearly half over. Yet he had in the end; he’d learned a few phrases like “here’s your bill” and “don’t cheat,” enough to bargain at the market. Broke and broken, unable to return to China, he created for himself a little slice of home where he was.

He ran a little restaurant tucked in a back alley. In truth, it was an exaggeration to call it a restaurant. It was really a stall, with its rickety bamboo doors that were kept open by a broken brick to prevent them from getting stuck; the faded red spring-festival paper, peeling off with the wind; the dusty bulbs casting a dampened lighting that felt almost atmospheric. Yet he never bothered to change things, as he knew these were the reasons his customers came to visit, even more than the authentic Sichuan dishes: noodles in hot chili oil, stinky tofu, chicken claws boiled in a sour-and-spicy soup. His customers were college students from the nearby University of San Francisco—young men and women with pock-marks over their faces, plastic foreign bills still in their pockets, their accents apparent despite all their efforts.

They came because the splintering walls reminded them of their childhood homes, the dustiness of the lighting of the rusting oil lamps which lit their summer nights. They did not mind the dinginess; they had grown up amongst it, had grown to love it, to see it as home.

It was a sweltering summer afternoon when Zhang received his first new customers in ages; a young couple. It was immediately apparent that they were without the intimacy which came from a lengthy relationship. The man bore no resemblance to the majority of his other customers; he was tanned, and despite his Chinese appearance, he looked up quizzically when Zhang greeted him in Mandarin. He stepped in cautiously and tentatively, as though he was a traveler just arriving in a foreign land. The woman was rather tacky-looking, with a worn pink purse and a matching dress ripped at the seams; she hailed Zhang enthusiastically. They sat at the counter and each ordered a bowl of beef wontons. The woman took the pair of chopsticks in hand; the man asked for a spoon.

Even Zhang could tell he wasn’t impressed with her. The man watched her mouth insistently: her lips painted more brightly red than the American style; the way they curved upward too much, as though they were used to creating different sounds; the gap between her two front teeth which would have been corrected by an orthodontist, had she been born here. She slurped at the wontons with an intensity that betrayed her hunger for home, only stopping to cast around a nostalgic glance at the decor around them. When they were finished, she clung to the counter, examining

Coy Koi

by Tiana D.

cut paper collage

it intently as though she could be taken back to her parents’ dinner table by her pure imagination. The man was anxious to leave, to be free of the smog, of the language others spoke and he could not decipher, of the strange foods they were consuming. He pulled on her arm until she let go of the table, letting herself be dragged out.

They came every Friday, always ordering the same dishes. Zhang took to preparing these bowls ahead of time, watching the same patterns play out. The woman would chatter about nothing in particular in her nasally accent. The man would sit, uncomfortably and silently, rocking back and forth, as though to will the groaning creaks of his chair to drown her out. The man was one of those who were not mean-natured,

but he did have a selfishness, a natural need for reassurance which came from his youth. He did not mean to lead one on, but could not help his revelation which came from her—that he could be loved, admired. He may have found her quite disgusting, but kept her around because he enjoyed the reassurance that one might be dedicated to him, and the pleasant sensation of having a woman interested in him. He sat, determined to trade his comfort for the adoring words she spoke, determined to ignore the foreign-ness of the mouth which pronounced them and her differences which drove them apart. He tried to ignore the clattering of the mahjong pieces, and wrinkled his nose when the young lady asked him to buy anything else, like spring rolls with oxtails.

One day in spring, the woman came alone and waited, sitting with the two steaming bowls of wontons in hand. She checked her phone once, twice, three times. She tapped her foot, then tapped her chopsticks against the noodle bowl. She sat and watched a group of elderly folks gossip for about an hour before she gave up and headed out. She had not eaten any of the food.

From then on, this became a pattern; she came each Friday to sit at the counter with her two bowls of wonton soup, which always remained untouched. Holding onto them for warmth, she listened to orders being taken and shouted to the kitchen, the cheers of the old men as they bet on mahjong, and the whispers of grandmothers worrying about their children. She examined every detail of the restaurant; the crackled paint of the roof, causing steam to float through the top; the oil smeared on the countertop, running to the floor; and the ink tapestries hung haphazardly on the walls, their

images softened by age. She was as silent as those women in those paintings, silent with want and waiting.

One afternoon in summer, nearly exactly a year after they had first come, Zhang made only one bowl of wontons. It sat steaming in the spot where the young woman usually was. She came and sat in her usual spot. She hesitated, seeming to notice the absence of the second bowl; yet she was unwilling to acknowledged this difference. Eventually she reached out tentatively and cradled her hands around the single bowl, moving it with a swaying motion, as though she were rocking a baby. She stared straight ahead, straight at Zhang, in a way that seemed expectant—as though he were supposed to do something, as though he had made her a promise.

Suddenly, without knowing what he meant to do, Zhang reached over and seized one of her hands in both of his own. He gripped it tightly and said, “Us lao shang ( , those sharing a common home,) we have to watch out for each other, all right? This one is on the house, all right?”

The woman nods and looks down silently. She slurps down the wontons, letting her tears fall free to flavor the soup.

Of Gold and Glass

by Leisl Fernandes

digital media

fish

by Olivia Tumacder digital media

Chicken Family Portraits

by Allison Kemp

colored pencil

Master Copy

by Sahana Mahesh oil on canvas

Thao by HT Hoang

digital media

Pyrite by Victoria Begg

graphite drawing and gold leaf collage

The Author

BY SOPHIE JENNINGS

I wish the author writing my life would give me a break

My pages are chiseled, old, and dirty

A life so young yet feels so ancient

The body betrays and breaks its host

The spine of my book is twisted into a cross, it tells me to run

If there’s an author to my life as I think, who’s the narrator?

Who is the one bending my will when I feel in control?

The people preach I was given free will but there are rope burns on my fingers

My book is not yet filled but words layer the pages, overflowing with arcs

I wish the author writing my life would give me a break

Or finally end the chapter and publish.

Rapunzel’s Tower

by Sarah ceramics

Classic Beauty

by Amaya Gomez photography

let’s

be spontaneous!

by Mia Overbo

printing ink on cotton paper

Obstacles are just another opportunity for inspiration.

With Love

BY SASHA B WANG

One night I lay in quiet patience, waiting for Sleep to come with soft footfalls and lay Her cool finger upon my brow.

She opened my inner eye to strange dreams when I turned my thoughts inward unto myself.

I saw a great mountain rearing its veiled head through the gentle darkness of evening tide, its tumbled foot drowned in a sea of fog. The mists rose, laying their jewels of dew upon the moss-laden branches, and the moon revealed itself in pale glory from behind torn cloud.

That is when I saw, illuminated in the shifting light, a tower fashioned by human hands. Indeed, I believe, I was the only mortal soul to lay my unfortunate eye upon that ruin.

The highest chamber had fallen away from that roofless nail, and it now rested in a bed of wildflowers spreading their showers of gold and scarlett bloom across its broken shingles.

The corpse of that abode which still stood was rotting before the gentle endurance of nature, for vines and climbing roses had fastened themselves to the crumbling structure. No human who ever lived could destroy so beautifully. The wind and the rain and the living plants embrace ruin, honoring every stone and every branch as they return to the earth from whence they came.

I envisioned, for a fleeting moment, the tower at its height of glory, when lanterns shone from every lustrous window, and banners flew from the crowned heights. Yet, indeed, it could not match the beauty of its decay.

by Leila Sharafkah photography

That is when I wished, with passionate yearning, that the living world could reclaim all that it had lost, and destroy with gentle love the walls that are mine.

Untitled by Riya Kondepudy

oil on canvas

Untitled by Sophie Li

graphite on paper

after beauty

by Leila Sharafkah photography

Memory Lane

BY SOPHIE JENNINGS

I took a walk down memory lane today

I saw you standing in my way

And I asked you, why don’t you come my way? You became samller and smaller until I couldn’t see you among the gray

I felt so sad, why musn’t you stay?

I felt your hands in their old places every day

Holding my heart, it seems, much to your dismay

Maybe I’ll walk down memory lane, and see you another day

Origins by Hoai-Phuong Hoang

watercolor, colored pencil, and graphite

by Micaela Barr-Gutierrez

pastel and ink

fountain

platter by

Bella Conti ceramics

by Hana Forzano photography

Is it Really Too Much to Ask?

BY ANONYMOUS

I dream of a world

where no one’s heard of war

There the shelters are empty

And the sirens are silent.

Is it really too much to ask?

There young men aren’t given guns

And they aren’t sent to die.

There parents don’t lose their children to air raids

And homes don’t explode from bombs.

Is it really too much to ask?

There people are free to state the truth

And governments don’t retort.

There life is serene and carefree

And peace is always a constant.

Is it really too much to ask?

There youngsters can dream of the life they will have

And know they will live to try it.

There survival isn’t a question

But rather a matter of birthright.

Is it really too much to ask?

I doubt I will live to witness my dream

Yet I look around and I think:

Maybe someday someone will read this

And wonder what other place could exist.

Is it really too much to ask?

locked by Olivia Tumacder

graphite and oil pastel

7:31 AM

by Hana Forzano photography

7:28 AM

by Hana Forzano photography

Natural Line

by Yixin (Cindy) Gao photography

Publicity:

Team Lead 1: Sahana Mahesh

Team Lead 2: Michelle Lu

Brianna Rivera

Allison Kemp

Tiana Do

Photo Jurors:

Team Lead: Amaya Gomez

Tanisha Prasad

Brianna Rivera

Mia Overbo

Meet the team!

Literature Jurors:

Team Lead: Michelle Lu

Avni Desai

Laurel Ashcom

Sasha Wang

Shreeya Goyal

Lead Directors:

Anusha Jain

Mia Overbo

Art Jurors:

Team Lead: Ti Pham

Team Lead: Allison Kemp

Laura Yeh

Laurel Ashcom

Phuong Hoang

Sam Saravanan

Tiana Do

Anusha Jain

Sahana Mahesh

Moderator:Ms.Deak