The Kivi Weeks Blog!

  To earn some extra money while looking for a job that uses my degree, I've been working at Dairy Queen. It's a pretty good job, all things considered. I like my coworkers, my bosses are relaxed, and I earn a good hourly wage for working in fast food. And, not that this is much to brag about, I'm pretty good at being a "Chill Artist," as they call their front-of-house staff. I've memorized most of the recipes, I'm fast, I willingly clean, and I work well with my coworkers. I'm also pretty good with the customers. My bosses regularly have me working on the headset, in the drive-thru window, and at the front counter, directly working with customers.  I had customers ask to talk to my manager twice in one day this last week. Of course, I had a cold chill run up my spine, wondering what I'd done wrong. But both times, the customers profusely complimented my work to my boss while I stood grinning in the background. It gave me this incredible, warm fuzz...

In the final semester of my undergrad, I took a beginner printmaking class. I'd wanted to take that class throughout my time at Hamline, but couldn't fit it into my schedule until then. This was partly due to the class structure, which was 3 hours in the middle of the day when my other classes were usually taking place, and also because popular courses were more challenging to get into as a first- and second-year student. In my final semester, I only had one class left in my degree path, so I had a renaissance of trying new things. Three of my classes were ones I chose out of delightful, dilettantish curiosity. That printmaking class was one of them.  In that class, I learned several techniques. We started out etching copper plates but quickly moved over to woodcut, and we ended with a linoleum print as our final project. I've always been drawn to the motif of cats in windowsills, so I started there, looking for reference photos. In a bit of cosmic luck, my mom sent a pictu...