photo by
Dustin Seelinger
Interdisciplinary Book and Paper Arts MFA
Graduate Ambassador

That was a crazy summer. Now it’s time to get my hustle on. We just got back from a month long super vacation and it was pretty awesome. The highlights involved some very nerdy expeditions. First off was a trip tracking down a bunch of filming locations from the coming of age—and very important for us 90’s kids—show Dawson’s Creek. My wife and I spent an entire day driving all over Wilmington, North Carolina taking a bunch of pictures along the way. Maybe I’ll turn them into a zine. We finished the trip off finding set locations from another young adult pop culture world, that of the Hunger Games.

We found ourselves walking around the ghost town of Henry River, better known to the modern world as District 12, home of the heroes Katniss and Peeta. It was the this weird duality of cultural importance. It was not only the starting point to what has become a blockbuster franchise and a point of reflection of what the world might become, but also a real world analysis of where we came from. The town was a self contained textile mill town from the industrial revolution. Cue introspection…

Now that I’m home I need to get a lot of work done before the semester starts. I have a bunch of drawings and illustrations that are in the works that I’m thinking about in a historic vs. contemporary view. Being on campus while Lollapalooza was happening helped me think in these lines too. Sort of an us vs. them while being culturally connected sort of thing.

And in the zine world I’m currently trying to wrap up a collaborative project with a fellow zinester and massive inspiration to me, while working on a submission for another major inspiration to my work. Big things could be happening in the small world of independent publishing.

This last month before school starts is a little more stressful than usual. I’m going into my thesis year. One more year until I get those three letters that I’ve been lusting after: M-F-A. Dustin Seelinger, Master of a Fine Arts. I still need to finish drafting my final proposal for my thesis project, you know that thing I call Post-Punk Parenthood, which has started me trying to get other things in order before the final penning, namely getting my thesis show in order. Because yes, I need to start at the end of the year in order to get through the beginning. I’m not relying on just my artwork and zines for the show, no, there will (hopefully) be a concert happening. I’m in salty negotiations with a couple of bands, one of which will be a band out of the UK remotely playing their first ever American performance. Technology!

So much to do. Not a lot of time. And that my friends is graduate school in a nutshell. Now it’s back to the literal drawing board. See you all in a few weeks!