ART DESIGN LITERATURE & PHOTOGRAPHY
*Images, writing, and digital content are the property of respective artists and may not be reproduced or copied.
DIRECTORS’ NOTE
On behalf of the directors, I wanted to thank everyone who submitted their talented work. We received a great number of submissions and we couldn’t have put together this publication together without your wonderful contributions! In this time of crisis and isolation, the role of art allows us to connect to a world where anything is possible. We hope that this magazine can bring you some joy and positivity during these circumstances. We are grateful to Ms. Deak, as well as to the rest of the Boundless team for all your time and efforts. - Jasmine Wong ‘21
MEET THE
ALUMNAE JURORS This year a team of alumnae, who are currently working in creative fields, were asked to select the most outstanding pieces of literature, artwork, design, and photography, from the pieces chosen by the student jury. *Alumnae selections are noted by a butterfly in the magazine
Karen Santos ‘06
Karen is an editorial portrait photographer, who received her BFA in Photography from the Academy of Art University. Her clients includes NPR, Uber, Phenomenal Woman Campaign, and is an Adobe Premium Artist. She runs her own photo studio in Oakland, and often works in NYC creating for artists in the Broadway community.
Selected work
Photo I: Ivy, Emily Iburg ‘21 Photo II: Heavy Lies the Head Which Wears the Crown, Sierra Golbetz ‘22 Art: Belonging, Juliet Kuhlmann ‘20
Alyssa Wigant ‘12
Alyssa is a graphic designer, illustrator, and handletterer currently working at a digital design agency in San Francisco. Her creative upbringing in the Silicon Valley drove her to pursue a degree in Graphic Communication and Studio Art, where she learned to solve problems with design and digitize her craft.
Selected work
Photo: Float, Ciara Ruiz-Earle ‘20 Art: Honey Eyes, Varsha Chilukuri ‘22
Jean McDougal ‘90
Jean has been working in museums since she was 15. She is the Senior Registrar at the Anderson Collection at Stanford University, which is a museum of modern and contemporary American art.
Selected work
Literature: Mother Stranger, Winter Jung ‘21 Photo: A Rare Word, Katelyn Lohbeck ‘20 Art: Mauve Portrait, Victoria Kerslake ‘21
Samantha Clark ‘09
Samantha is a photo editor at National Geographic, where she works on stories about science, the environment, and climate change. She previously worked at NPR and Pier 24 Photography in San Francisco. Her writing about photography has been published by NPR, The Washington Post’s The Lily, Fast Company, and Broccoli magazine.
Selected Work
Photo: ALEXA!, Jasmine Wong ‘21
Emily Luthra ‘95
Emily is a user experience writer for Google, where she was the lead writer for the Material Design guidelines. She graduated with a BA in English Literature from Whitman College in 1999 and an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College in 2007. She has a post-baccalaureate in Visual Arts from UC Berkeley Extension, specializing in oil and acrylic painting.
Selected work
Art I: Scarlet Seeds, Varsha Chilukuri ‘22 Art II: Two Soles One Soul, Madison Goffney ‘22
Juliann Larese ‘12
Juliann graduated in 2012 and was involved in both art and dance while at Presentation, and focused on Product Design at the University of Oregon. From there, she started working at Nike in Portland, and has been on multiple projects including the 2018/2019 World Cup Jerseys, and had designed some equipment for their swim line.
Selected Work
Art: Crystal Clear, Varsha Chilukuri ‘22
Autumn Mirassou ‘07 Autumn is an actress, singer, writer and producer
living in New York City. After Pres, her path took her to Sonoma State where she fully intended to become a wine business major — until she took her first acting class. She fell in love and couldn’t go back, starring and participating in 17 plays and musicals in 2.5 years. She later attended graduate school at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
Selected work
Literature: Mother Stranger, Winter Jung ‘21 Art: Mauve Portrait, Victoria Kerslake ‘21
Gabriella Escobar ‘19 Designer Gabriella Escobar is a recent graduate
from the Class of 2019. While at Presentation she participated in drawing and painting, design, graphic design, and even took a summer ceramics course before entering freshman year. In her senior year, she was involved in organizing of the first issue of Boundless. She found a love for graphic design and studies design at the University of San Francisco.
Selected Work Art: Untitled, Kay Ngo ‘21
Lynnea Jeung ‘19
Since graduating last year, she is taking various art, design, and photography classes as well as working on other freelance projects. She is currently intending to study visual communication or industrial design at the University of Washington.
Selected Work Cedar Waxwings, Fiona Donovan ‘20 Photo: Float, Ciara Ruiz-Earle ‘20
Ashley Guarino ‘12
While growing up in the Bay Area, Ashley always loved the arts and continued that passion in college. She graduated from Washington State University with a BA in Creative Writing, Class of ‘16. She has since transitioned from creative writing into marketing for a tech company in the Bay Area, which has taught her to use her creativity when expanding the social presence of apps.
Selected work Literature: White and Black (AEF), Terese Durand ‘20
MET·A·MOR·PHO·SIS /ˌmedəˈmôrfəsəs/
“The transformation into a completely altered form, shape, or structure as a result of development by natural or supernatural means.” Alas, the process of metamorphosis for caterpillars is a challenging, but a rewarding adventure, for it gives them the opportunity to transform into beautiful butterflies.
*Alumnae selections are noted by a butterfly in the magazine.
Untitled Kay Ngo ‘21
Heavy Lies the Head Which Wears the Crown Sierra Golbetz ‘22
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Gazing Woman Vianne Sedlack ‘21
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Terese Durand ‘20
WHITE AND BLACK You are white and I am black, You move forward and I move back, You are privileged while I am a thug, You are clean therefore I am on drugs, You are expected to be perfect and white, While I am the shadow, hindering the light, I am low, therefore you are high, Standing on a pedestal up in the sky, Whatever is mine, you gave to me, When I take one step, you take two, Somehow I am always behind you, We have been taught to take one look, To make the cover the entire book, You judge me and I judge you, We take the stereotypes and make them true, While we are equal in the eyes of God, We are apparently not in society’s laws, The German Shepherd is the hero’s hound, Chasing the pit bulls and bringing them down, Defending its master, the best of them all, Ignoring the situations that caused the pit bull to fall, The abuse, the wrath, the rage, The hatred that perused it day after day, No one mourns the death of a bad dog, But pit bulls are hidden behind the media’s fog, The pit bulls are hated and the shepherds are loved, One beaten for living, the other handled with a glove, The cover is the book, and that’s all it’ll ever be, Even though you are you and I am me, No one will ever look deeper than our skin, Our education or our ancestral kin, So we fight and rage to be seen as one, 10
To be able to walk together in the sun, To be seen as people, one and the same, Sadly, we are forced into playing this game. Society might not bow its head, But I’ll fight and fight until I’m dead, I hope that it won’t always be this way, I have a dream of another day, When we can be seen for what we are, By everyone, near and far ~AEF~
Drifting Apart Gurmehr Klair ‘20
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Anonymous
BACKYARD EDEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN NAMED ADAM. MY THROAT HAS BEEN DRY FOR A MONTH NOW, CLOGGED UP WITH PHLEGM OR TENDER TISSUE BURNING. A FRIEND SCOLDED ME WHEN I PUT MY TEETH ON AN ORANGE. UNPEELED. ONLY JOKING, OF COURSE. I WOULD NEVER TAKE A BITE OF SOMETHING I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO. I SHOULD HAVE BEEN NAMED ADAM. MY CHEST HURTS. IS IT FROM THE DEFECTIVE HEART RATTLING MY RIBCAGE OR THE LUNGS THAT CANNOT TAKE IN AIR OR THE FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO MAKE MY BODY FIT A DIFFERENT MOLD? CASTS HAVE FAILED AND FALLEN APART. DOCTOR, DOCTOR, IRON ME FLAT. I SHOULD HAVE BEEN NAMED ADAM. WHAT’S IN A NAME? ROSES ARE NOT PLANTED IN ORCHARDS YET TREES STAND TALL IN GARDENS. WITH THIS STUFFED UP NOSE I CANNOT SMELL THE SWEETNESS. CITRUS POLLEN STILL STICKS TO MY LIPS. TEETH ARE BARED. MINE? I WEAR NO COLLAR TO TELL WHO I AM OR WHERE I BELONG. I SHOULD HAVE BEEN NAMED ADAM. I AM MY OWN BEST FRIEND AND I AM DIGGING. I GNAW ON MY OWN BONES. I COUGH WHEN I LAUGH. SOMEDAY I WILL SINK MY TEETH INTO FORBIDDEN FRUIT AND BE FORGIVEN. CALL ME SICK. CALL ME BROKEN FOR I HAVE BROKEN EVERY RULE SET LIKE CHEAP PLASTER. CALL ME ANYTHING BUT MY NAME. I DON’T HAVE TO WANT IT JUST BECAUSE IT’S GOD-GIVEN.
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Untitled Emily Iburg ‘21
Waffle Olivia Medal ‘21
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Reach for the Roaches Maahi Shah ‘20
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Volleyball in Action Jordan Rizzo ‘21
Spin Alicia Solis ‘20
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Electric Boogaloo Sloane Polhemus ‘20
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Feeling Blue Medha Mukherjee ‘22
Sunlight Mallory Robbins ‘22
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Serenity Victoria Kerslake ‘21
It’s a Succulent... Enjoy Chloe Wu ‘21
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Art By the Window Maahi Shah ‘20
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Winter Jung ‘21
MOTHER STRANGER 이유, reason The statue in the plaza looks like my mother. I’ve been holding its gaze for the past ten minutes, and the more I look at it the more striking the resemblance becomes: upturned eyes, a gently sloping nose, delicate mouth. The slight tug at the corners of her lips is stern, but her face is relaxed, smooth stone forehead uncreased. At home. Like my mother never was. Was this home for her? Seoul, this bee’s nest of a city with its incessant hum of faces and jostling shoulders? If she loved it, she loved my father more to follow him across six thousand miles of the Pacific, to uproot the kind of familiarity that makes a life worth living and coax it into the dry, choking soil of Carroway, Arizona. The roots would never quite take place, and neither would my father. I was three when he withered and repotted himself, leaving a single navy button-down forgotten in the dark underbelly of their bed and the knowledge: if he loved her, he loved another woman more. The urn in my lap shudders, then tips, falling gently against my chest. Above, the statue’s eyes cast down towards the urn are my mother’s eyes, and when they speak it is my mother’s voice that begs take me to the ocean.
사과, apples The summer before sixth grade brings Carroway its first noteworthy achievement: a record high of 113 degrees. It sticks to skin like popsicle melt and though July has only just started, it already holds the Fourth at the tip of its tongue. Lawn chairs begin to pop up across the neighborhood, standing watchfully over the children who step through sprinklers in bright swimsuits and birdlike hops. I watch through half-parted curtains and taste the lemonade trickle of sun, still young enough to be wistful but old enough to be ashamed of it.
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If I’m not careful, I can picture myself opening the door, crossing the street, saying hello. In my mind’s eye, the children stop playing; their laughter drifts away like soap bubbles and they watch me through eyes
as blue as Earth, snug in their own stratospheres. They say nothing, as if waiting to see what language will come tumbling out of my
mouth. Do I know how to play tag? Do I really live across the street? And I think about answering their silent questions: Yes, hi! I live just across the street. I run through every possibility — Hey; What’s your guys’ names; Can I join? — and then stop, wondering if I have an accent. So I’m careful. I let the curtains drift fully shut and go upstairs, fish in my sock drawer for the nail polish I found lying in the back of the science room. It’s a bright red, the color of lipsticked smiles on magazine covers, and when I put it on I can pretend I could walk into the frame of our television, sweeping long blond hair over my shoulder. Sitting on the floor beneath my window, I paint my nails one by one; the window stays open to let out the fumes, because my mother has never let me so much as look at the nail polish display at the CVS. Bad for your health. Finished, my hands wink up at me and whisper of secrets; then, more urgently, rebellions. I have to scrape off all the polish before dinner, but even as I hold my hands out the window, raining tiny red flakes onto the lawn fourteen feet below, I feel my first mutinous thrill of triumph. Emboldened by the saying of the day in her ESL workbook — as American as apple pie — my mother drives to the store five blocks down and returns with her arms an ark of butter, sugar, cinnamon. Apples spill glossy red onto the countertop, dull thumps hinting at something almost unbearably heavy inside. Braeburn. So many types of apples here, my mother says almost reverently, and I know what she’s really saying is So many things I haven’t seen. I think of the Korean workbooks shoved beneath my bed, of the dust bunnies now starting to consume the looping, apologetic shapes of forest and capital and America. I realize, suddenly, that we never went to Disneyland last summer as she’d promised. As she stands at the sink, peeling stickers off the apples, I slip away into the study and find her ESL workbook lying neatly atop a dictionary. The cover is bright blue and yellow with a red sticker in the top right corner: LEARN TO TALK LIKE A NATIVE SPEAKER! Inexplicably, gently, I peel it off. It’s a promise, stuck there to the tip of my index finger, so I form a fist and break it. This is the summer I forget my first five words.
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** A RECIPE FOR APPLE PIE ** First, let inexplicable, cherry-ripe adolescent anger simmer, then steam. Marvel at the surprising ease with which it boils over, leaving weeping red welts on what used to be comfortable silence. Tell your mother, with a pinch of lemon zest, you no longer want her to pack your lunches. This resolution has already been pre-diced — last week, Anna Glenn wrinkled her nose at your neat rows of rice and stir-fried fish cake, pointed an accusatory finger at the delicate clump of kimchi. Ew, what’s that? The next day, you ate quickly, guiltily, with the haste of a murderer doing away with a body, then tossed your chopsticks haphazardly into your backpack to deflect the curious looks. What’s that? Three days ago, you left class early to duck into the bathroom and upturned the contents of your lunch into the garbage, missing the note resting on the lettuce leaf atop the rice. What’s that? Yesterday, you bought a slice of gloriously tasteless pepperoni, a bag of Ruffles, a pouch of fruit snacks, a Coke. Today, you come home to find your mother waiting in the kitchen and greet her: I can just buy lunch from now on. Don’t worry about it anymore. Leave her teetering in the doorframe, hands uncertain and idling at the pockets of her apron. Set aside this sight for later and let sit; you will grow used to it. Tell your mother, with a dash of salt, that you want to start speaking English at home. She worries her bottom lip on her teeth and a slim crater appears between her eyebrows, but she only nods, wraps her hands tighter around the slender teacup in her hands. Don’t look for yourself in the color of her eyes, in the poised fragility of her shoulders. Guilt is an unnecessary garnish. Discard it on the way out. Josh from fifth period, the one with the grating cough of a laugh who asked if you had brought any dog meat for lunch last year, wants to take you to the winter dance. I’m into Asian girls, he says by way of explanation, and his hand weighs heavy on your thigh like a warning. It dares you to disagree, so you swallow around the fishbone in your throat and learn to take a compliment, stomach the offhand comments about your eyes and allow his blind slimy beast of a tongue into your mouth. The key lies in three teaspoons of grateful. If your smile doesn’t rise at first: try, try again. Piemaking is an art. An American art. Take pride in it.
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사과, apology I board bus 382 out of the plaza. Urn in one hand, swaying plastic handle in the other, I turn and watch the statue wink into nothingness.
Crystal Clear Varsha Chilukuri‘22
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Earl Grey Riya Pallikala ‘20
Ageless Amanda Page ‘20
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Harvey Adriana Lamano ‘21
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Queen of the Playground Jasmine Wong ‘21
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Gazing Shweta Arun ‘22
A Rare World Katelyn Lohbeck ‘20
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Untitled Kiana Martin ‘20
Hummingbird 2 Erica Barandica ‘20
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My Merakix Shrobana Sengupta ‘22
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Groove Fountain Kyra Morris ‘21
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Moraine Melody Apoorva Thanvantri ‘22
queen of the playground Jasmine Wong ‘21 Golden. Anonymous ‘20
Chapel Mia Gallarate ‘21
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Groove Fountain Kyra Morris ‘21
Cedar Waxwings Fiona Donovan ‘20
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Mauve Victoria Kerslake ‘21
Violette Alexa Parish ‘21
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Untitled Shweta Arun ‘22
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Honey Eyes Varsha Chilukuri ‘22
Belonging Juliet Kuhlmann ‘20
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Alexa Parish ‘21
FIVE TIMES Five times. That’s how many times I watched the movie. I was first in a theater. I watched it with my breath held tight in my lungs, drowsy eyes flickering across yellow subtitles as the characters conversed violently. Their voices were sharp, like two jagged knives that jab and jab until the other is left wordless by the others’ demise. It’s strange how it draws me in, as if the knives were beckoning me—threatening me—to enjoy this violent bloodless film. The second time I was alone, sitting small and sulky in the depths of my tiny, twin-sized bed. The vibrant computer screen made that sullen room seem less sullen; it burned a gaping, square-shaped hole through the encapsulating darkness. The brightness stung; it hurt, burnt like those same vicious voices, piercing me in my eyes and ears and heart as I replayed the film. Then it was with Henry, but I don’t know if it counts or not. “I wanna watch!” He came to my door, booming like a loudspeaker. He can handle it right? I asked myself as I eyed the flashing television screen. Of course. Henry’s superhuman; he’s strong and his eyes are dark, made of black glass that’ll keep out the rays. “Okay!” He brought out a plastic bag of what I presumed was food and sat down beside me. “What are we eating?” I asked as he pulled out the dishes, wasting no time and opening his bowl. “Ra—men.” The boy pronounced the words with a twinge of amusement. He smiled to himself as he held a chopstick-full of sopping wet noodles to his mouth. The bowl was big, as big as him, big and blue and filled to the brim with fleshy, white tubes doused in
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broth. He inhaled it, hands moving like machinery: chopsticks down into the bowl, up into his mouth, down again, up again, insanely fast. About halfway through the movie, the television screen clicked off, the screen rotting rapidly into dark evergreen. Now it was just our faces in the reflection, a glass face in a glass screen. “Oh no...” Henry said, a short tsk sound leaving his lips. He stared at me, a sheepish grin on his face. “What now?” “I dunno.” He just hummed, setting his bowl down onto the nightstand. Silence. He turned to me, perplexed, his perfect head cocked to the side like he’s an action figure bent out of shape. “Why do you love this movie so much? It’s so sad,” he asked. “I don’t know...it makes me feel weak.” Weak. That’s a word that sparks a malfunction. “W-what?” Henry stuttered, before chuckling nervously. “What do you mean by that...?” To him, I was talking like a madman, a crazy person who hollowed out my own eyes since the movie stung them so bad. I didn’t though. I guess the sting is a thrill, like how people eat sour fruits or something. People like the bitterness and pain that comes with it, the way their mouths crumple into little lines and their eyes turn red and watery. We’re all weak masochists; Henry isn’t. Henry probably doesn’t know what weak means. He’d eat a lemon whole and wouldn’t bat an eyelash ‘cause he’s so strong and his eyes are made of obsidian. “... It’s like...when you eat a lemon candy ‘cause you like the sting.“ “I prefer chocolate.” “Bitter? Or sweet?” Henry laughed, seemingly comfortable again. “...Can’t tell the difference.”
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Scarlet Seeds Varsha Chilukuri ‘22
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Shreya Dixit ‘22
REMEMBERING YOU You left - without a goodbye But I love you still There’s a place in my heart for you That no one can ever fill When someone says your name My eyes - fill with tears Still so hard to remember Though - it’s been all these years I can’t believe - you’re gone Seems like just yesterday When you left this world So many things I didn’t say I remember the huge smile Always on your face Your contagious laugh, Whenever you won the race I will never stop missing you When I see the rising sun You’ll always walk beside me Your life - had just begun I know you’re watching over me Whenever I see the night sky You’re dancing with the stars Telling me - this is not goodbye 40
Bold Combat Jasmine Nguyen ‘22
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Two Soles One Soul Madison Goffney ‘22
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Untitled Naina Gupta ‘22
Untitled.png Iz Bernhard ‘21
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FOCUS Camille Babida ‘20 Still Water Grace Jackson ‘21
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2 Realities Anonymous ‘20 This was a reflective self-portrait that I was inspired to draw to emphasize a deeper meaning about myself and what others tend to see/judge by (myself in the mirror) and the reality of how I can feel sometimes (myself in black and white).
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Float Ciara Ruiz-Earle ‘20
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Ivy Emily Iburg ‘21
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ALEXA! Jasmine Wong ‘21
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STUDENT TEAM MAGAZINE DESIGNERS & DIRECTORS
Jasmine Wong ‘21 Angie Leung ‘20 Winter Jung ‘21 Casey Hemphill ‘21 Emily Iburg ‘21 Ariana Santos ‘21
LEAD WRITING JUROR
Angie Leung ‘20
WRITING JURORS
Alexandra Parish ‘21 Ariana Santos ‘21 Stella Yang ‘21 Winter Jung ‘21
LEAD ART JUROR
Alexandra Parish ‘21
ART JURORS
LEAD PHOTO JUROR PHOTO JURORS TEACHER MODERATOR
Shewta Arun ‘22 Zachary Fernandez ‘21 Casey Hemphill ‘21 Allison Kemp ‘23 Sanjana Lingam ‘22 Kyra Morris ‘21 Caresse Po ‘21 Chloe Wu ‘21 Emily Iburg ‘21 Sela Nequist ‘20 Jasmine Wong ‘21 Ms. Deak
