michaelelizabeth johnsonUniversity of NebraskaGraphic Design/JournalismSophomore, Spring 2015

2015

Making my own clothes has always been a fashionable, creative way to save money. In fall 2014, I designed for the Fresh Start Fashion Show. Fresh Start is a nonprofit, transitional women’s shelter. All proceeds benefitted them and the only rule was that all the clothes had to be recycled from thrift stores. I repurposed some drapes and a simple top to make a suspender skirt with matching blouse. I modeled for myself and the judges awarded my designs “Most Innovative.”

Costuming is an important part of drag, too. It’s much more than just appearing male— if I wore the same thing to every show, it would get boring! From

From the Stonewall Riots to RuPaul’s Drag Race, the success of the American LGBT+ movement has been tied to the acceptance of drag by the mainstream. It proves the power theater has to foster change and highlights the value of camp and humor. At the end of the day, kings and queens do drag because it’s fun, and fun doesn’t need labels.

tailoring thrifted men’s clothes to making “bling” out of old keychains to mastering open-shirt binding (binding where the breasts are taped back to mimic pecs, allowing a king to perform with a completely unbuttoned shirt), I try to have a different outfit for each song I perform.

In the fall of 2014, five friends and I entered our University’s 72-hour film festival. We had 3 days to write, edit, and act a 7-min film. We titled it “Murder Most Fowl” and it was frantic, fantastic fun.

I designed the costume (seen below) for our movie’s monster: a demon bird who may have been the product our hero’s own guilty conscience all along. I made the mask out of cardboard and paper-mache that I painted. The rest of the costume I created out of trashbags and a scarf.

My favorite in-class project from my freshman year, Spring 2014, was when my art class got the chance to design 3x life size Styrofoam puppet heads for a local production of “Daisy Pulls if Off!” We were given the script and little else, but the whole class worked together to come up with cohesive character designs. Working on this scale and getting to see my hard work in action on stage was amazing! It was during this project that I was first introduced to Heart of the Beast by a professor and when I first became really interested in the idea of wearable sculpture.

GRAPHIC DESIGNOur second semester we spend working on advertising and marketing, the culmination of which was the first Friday on March 6, 2015. We are currently still analyzing our data, but the event seemed incredibly successful. In addition to working with various PR personnel throughout the city, we created stickers, buttons, posters, and flyers. Despite our limited budget, we were able to order all of these things in time for the show.

My sophomore year I interned with the International Quilt Study Center and Museum, which houses world’s largest single collection of quilts. I and a partner worked through the Fall semester to research and design new museum guides for the IQSCM. The museum is on UNL’s campus, but the typical museum-goer is in their 60s. Students don’t visit because quilts don’t seem relevant to them, so our goal was to engage this younger demographic to visit an underused resource.

In the wake of Ferguson during the winter of 2014, I created an interactive, social practice piece. I invited my community to simply voice their opinion. The Night Owl Pub gave me wall space to put the poster up in their monthly art gallery.

Race is a controversial topic, so I designed the poster’s yes-no questions to be as un-biased as possible. I also provided stickers for people to cast their votes with, rather than a pencil or marker, so that nobody would be tempted to write anything potentially insulting.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

GRAPHIC DESIGN

PHONE: EMAIL:

POSITION: AVAILABILITY:

515.556.2667m.e.johnson613@gmail.comVolunteer InternMay 18th- Aug 7th 2015

Available for interview via phone, skype, and google hangout.