As I danced to the throngs of music, basked in hot light

swimming in contented coffee mugs and peoples’ co-op,

I thought about my life, though small, like a tadpole, being flung to new countries and heights

My world was still too small, tiny, like the speck of dust and sand sinking to new degrees

No, this was not enough.

Though I had thrown myself off the cliff and into the unknown

this island, this vast land was still too small for my liking

Better a shark backpack than a teddy bear sitting still.

His eyes a glaze, my eyes wandering. When will I ever settle for the norm?

Her majesty slapped me in the face and screamed “are you out of your mind?- you’ll never be normal, you just be yourself”.

That’s when I awoke in fear and trembling, out of a dream so true, I knew it was real.

My soul, atmosphere is shifting, so fast, I can’t grab onto anything.

I just let my stability move me into strange and awkward places, places so foreign

I can’t help but throw up indigestible norms, that never belong in the first place.

I can’t help but feel a little lonely, my mind is shifting too fast, I’m becoming an alien

existing on earth, but finding no spaceship to fly away.

I am a fire being lit and burning every thing in my way down and up.

My Designs- Photo Credit Rustin Michael

http://prints.rustinmichael.com/HITC2011

Hope In The City is the premiere charity fashion event and community for the city of Los Angeles. Organized by Mosaic, Hope In The City creates a space for fashion designers, fashion enthusiasts, models, hair & make-up artists, photographers, and all to come together and use their unique gifts to serve the city and connect with one another to build a community of hope.

Over the last four years Hope In The City has become a loving force in the L.A. Fashion community — giving much needed opportunities to experimental and emerging designers to showcase their collections as well as opportunities to “behind the scenes” artists to display their talents. In the Spring of 2010, Hope In The City joined LA Fashion Week as an official showcase.

I BELIEVE IN FAIRY TALES. NOT.

So I started blogging more on Tumblr because it is easier to use. I got super inspired by some traveler’s blog and thought, how did I not post all my travels? Because internet was super slow in China. Also I didn’t have a computer in Europe. I was basically homeless wandering the countries.  So if you want, you can follow me on twitter or tumblr because WordPress will be my “main blog” for my fashion/art work. Thanks! 🙂

http://jagree.tumblr.com/

By http://www.aaronsjogren.com/

My piece in there! So is me.

More pictures to come from professional photographers.

My design above.

Thank you for enjoying!

One World- Unite the Artists.

Perhaps those that want to express the essence of life, both the pain, the hardships, and the beauty of life

Come out, from your hiding cave.

Maybe we’re really the last hope of this world. Consumed by practicalities, money, and surviving.

Let us not survive, let us struggle, let us grow, let us thrive.

Artists, arise.

Jafar Panahi- IMPRISONED FOR 6 YEARS

It is hard to fathom the idea of being incarcerated for six years simply for speaking my mind, or to be banned from making films for 20 years.” – Oscar-winning filmmaker Paul Haggis (“Million Dollar Baby,” “Crash”)

Help free expression prevail over persecution. Defend human rights in Iran and the world over with a gift to Amnesty International.

I have often gotten in trouble for opening my mouth, but I could never imagine being imprisoned and silenced for making a film.

Distinguished filmmaker Jafar Panahi and his artistic collaborator, Mohammad Rasoulof, were each sentenced to an exceptionally harsh six years in prison because they make socially critical films in Iran, where a brutal artist crackdown is escalating.

Jafar and Mohammad were also outrageously forbidden to travel, make movies or even speak to the press for an unimaginable period of 20 years.

They broke no laws. They expressed their views peacefully. Yet they are paying an awful, inhumane price for exercising their human rights.

Stand with me today against this travesty of justice. Don’t let Iran silence filmmakers and smother free expression. Help secure basic human freedoms for Jafar and Mohammad and artists the world over with a gift to Amnesty International.

Gagging artists and suppressing art are corrosive and dangerous threats to civil society. Repression of dissent is growing at a frightening rate in Iran.

Still, we know the voices of freedom and human rights can overcome the forces of persecution and injustice. Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi was once held in Iran’s notorious Evin prison on trumped-up charges of espionage. Roxana was freed after Amnesty International and other organizations rallied for her unconditional release.

I urge you to raise your voice now, for Jafar and Mohammad and courageous human rights activists everywhere, to say, “Stop.”

Joining you are Sean Penn, Harvey Weinstein, Martin Scorsese, actress and AIUSA spokesperson Nazanin Boniadi and dozens of other artists. These great talents are working with Amnesty to raise awareness of Jafar and Mohammad’s plight and dial up the international pressure on the Iranian government to drop the preposterous charges against the filmmakers.

When we shine our lights together, we can open prison doors and set the innocent free. No special effects needed, just the unwavering commitment of human rights defenders like you.

Please make your contribution today and help Amnesty continue this vital work.

From- Amnesty International.

Love is about respecting a human being, whether red, white, yellow, black, brown, or purple.

Love is about respecting them even if they done lots of wrong in the past, treat you bad, or even if they look ugly.

Love is seeing human life as precious, each person unique and special.

Love is about forgiving them even if they still don’t give a damn.

Love is setting boundaries and allowing yourself to be in environments that offer encouragement.

Love is also loving yourself and not letting others step on you.

Love is allowing another person to be fully them, and encouraging them towards their goals, not yours for them.

Love is taking a risk at times, allowing yourself to be hurt.

Love is loving those that are vastly, widely, extremely different from you, in idea, in perspective, in actions, in looks, in lifestyle, in beliefs, in dress, in finance, in habits, in hobbies.

I will not stand and sit in silence.

I will not give into the lies that the world screams, in pictures and words, songs and lyrics.

I will not believe that my body is a tool of pleasure which only satisfies the needs of others.

I will not believe that I can’t do anything,

about the women and kids forced into sexual slavery, crying for help, numb from poverty.

Only having left, their bodies, like corpse.

Tell me to not care. Please

Please tell me not to care, because I like a phoenix will rise and not hear,

those lies, which perform their duties of killing souls, slowly but surely.

Tell me not to care, because I will sing on, I will shout, I will scream until all the chains are loose,

captives run out the gates which bind them, those gates sometimes that are not at all, visible.

I will not be silenced.

I will offend with words, with music, with actions, that will offend the compromised, the conformed

Please tell me not to care, about the barely child, given to brothels, given to sex tourists, to houses

that offer no love, but brutality and abuse, of hate, and devilish grins

which comes straight from the pits of hell screaming to us, “your life is worthless and temporary”.

I scream back- go back to hell, you and your lies, your influence that has killed souls and generations, numbing us from what is right and true. Telling us that love doesn’t exist lest you give your body away.

No, I only have to speak a word, and it is done.

Free the captives, free the captives, free the captives, loosen those chains, loosen those chains, loosen those chains.

Let the tears come again, let the tears come again, melt this heart of stone which kills others and yourself.

I will not give in until my body lies in that coffin marked with love.

your lips annoy me

they are like bees on a winter day

stinging, cold, your lips say words that I cant understand

it annoys me so

I want to punch you out, bloody and cold, on a gray day

Clouds spinning, so that you will remember my hate

So cold, freezing my intenstines, even the blood within my womb

Yes, I stand, keep walking I say. Your lips annoy me

So stop speaking.

Sappy love stories are for fools, they don’t exist within my world where

People say things that they don’t mean, cheat on you with the next door neighbor

In my world, sappy love stories are for fools alone

Hearty Fool

Hearty fool, like babies, crushed and seamless

Carrying drugs to hibernate, yes, hatred. The more I try, the more I fail.

Its this never ending cycle, sometimes the hand of god touches my being

And so long, I see heaven, hills and rocks, this cold heart, like a crystal

Shining every color, I could not see, iridescent

Why cant people just be bitter and honest?

Those fake smiles, are like nightmares on elm street, haunting me in REM stages.

Your eyes confuse me.

Where are you looking, that soldier running away, being eaten by noah.

Eaten by the ocean, swallowing you alive.

Your eyes confuse me.

If you cant do anything for me, please do me a favor and close the door.

Walk 20 miles up the hill and never come down.