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HELLO!

My name is Emily and if you're here, you probably know me already, but in case you stumbled here, or came through a friend's friend's friend, then hello! I'm a 2010 graduate of Walla Walla University.

To give you some background, I fell in love with the rhythms of a village back in Chad, Africa where I worked as a nurse in 2009.  I wasn't a nurse, but simply a phlebotomist, and so the year challenged me if you can imagine.   While I was there, I began writing.  Writing helped me pay attention better, it helped me engage with and process through the things around me.   When I returned after six months,  I put the writings together into a book, African Rice Heart--a memoir that conveys alot of naivety, learning, and I hope love for the family of 19 people I was living with--people who became sisters, brothers, and mothers to me.

After sifting to the roots of the plot of earth I've felt so drawn to, trying to understand where I should step next in this path called vocation, I've enrolled in writing school--a low-residency MFA program in LA whose emphasis is writing for social justice and change in society.  I would like to do just that--write to better communities from a place of immersion--from being a member of them.

So about these t-shirts and sweat-shirts:  I've been sewing them over the last few months and I think this week, I'm ready to sell them.   The clothing is all constructed from used clothing--stuff people got rid of.   And so, it's been given new life!  This blog is going to feature different people who model the shirts.  Each of them will be sharing something which they've re-purposed in their own life.

LIBERATION=JOY is reviving t-shirts and sweatshirts, giving life to clothes left for dead--because what we have is plenty, excessive even. So, this is an attempt to gather up the threads, the scraps, and theshirts left dead and bring them back to life.