Me

So I've told you about my stats and my dancing a few times before, but you've never really seen me.   I did a photo shoot today.  Enjoy the highlights!

Photos by K. Cupp

New Artwork

"Bright Dream" (In the style of Peter Max)

Ink on pointe shoe

"Peacock Feather"

Ink on pointe shoe

Managing your look: How to be hipster without overdoing it

**Disclamer--Opinion based**

So there's this look/persona making its rounds... the hipster look.  For those of you who don't know, it's sort of a hippie revival, but, like, so much cooler.  Google pics of young men who live in Portland, OR to find out more.  While some peeps are "true hipster" with their body odor and mustaches and tight kakis and such, the more mildly "hipster" look has become Seventeen magazine cool, just like the rocker look and goth look and surfer look...

I know, I know your not "real" unless you were hipster before it was cool and all that, but I want to talk fashion for a minute.  I am not turning this into a fashion blog, I just want to discuss this thing which has been on my mind.

There is this phenomenon in teen girls and young women.  My young gum-popping coworker perfectly exemplifies this.  This phenomenon entails making (copying) certain fashion trends because many other people wear them and many stores stock them.  Said coworker came in to work with this story about how she had bought some pants because they were "cool" and she was going to "force herself to wear them" until she felt comfortable with the new and previously foreign style.  The hipster look has become ubiquitous enough that anyone shopping at Target or Forever 21 can come out looking like a pot smoking, music fest loving, free range chicken eating documentary filmmaker.

Because I'm big into sincerity, I advocate caution when taking on a hipster look (unless, of course, you are 100% committed to the hipster lifestyle.  Signs that you are a true hipster include drinking locally sourced homemade chai out of mason jars, loving your bicycle but not enough to put on more sensible biking trousers than tight jeans, buying recycled notebooks on principle,  playing an obscure instrument like a kazoo and calling yourself a musician, and "liking things before they were cool".)

To avoid being mistaken for a true hipster, be careful with the fashion and follow these tips:

1.  Be sparing with your tattoos and piercings.  Any tats that contain mustaches or stylized doves are especially hipster.  As are septum piercings and gauges (on everyone) and nose cartilage piercings on men.

2.  Big/heavy glasses are to be chosen with caution.  Especially plastic Ray-Ban frames for non-sunglasses.

3.  Be careful with hairstyles including some shaved parts and some longer parts.  Men (and ladies, I suppose), watch the beards and 'staches.

4.  If you choose any of the styles above, choose ONE.  Never all of them.

5.  The same concept goes for relatively permanent/rarely replaced clothing and accessories, like your winter coat/boots, backpack, and purse.  Choose between zero and one of these items to have in a hipster stye.  Keep the rest classic or stylistically ambiguous.

6.  Follow basic fashion rules, such as baggy top = fitted bottom and vice versa.  One telltale hipster trait is unapologetic sloppiness or disproportion in an effort to look "effortlessly cool" (sorry if that sounded rude).

7.  Use t-shirts, shoes, scarves, and jewelry to add hipster accents to your look.  Especially hipster items include: plaid big shirts, knit hats, mustache prints, bow ties, chunky framed sunglasses, plain colored Toms,  and Converse sneakers.  Use these items sparingly, and never more than a couple at a time.

By following these tips, hopefully you can manage your look to be "cool" without being extreme or insincere.