A major part of art is curation. It’s bringing together different components like colors, textures and style, and combining them all to create something beautiful and expressive. Though I’m not very good at painting, drawing, or any other fine art, I do know how to shop.

      In some ways, thrift stores are like art supplies shops. You never know what you’ll find, but there are more varied textures and shapes and patterns than you would ever expect. When I go thrift shopping, I tend to look for pieces that I don’t see in chain stores or on other people. Instead, I try to curate a unique wardrobe that I feel like expresses my personality accurately.

      Thrift stores can be full of potentially wonderful items, but you have to dig for them. You have to go through layers of stained t-shirts, discarded underwear, and clothing that honestly should have gone into the trash. But once you get past all of that, there are often fun and affordable finds just waiting for someone to scoop them up.

      One of my favorite thrifting finds is a pair of shoes. I’m not even sure what to call them, because I’ve never seen anything like them anywhere else. They’re bulky and suede, with soles around three inches off the ground. When I fished them off the rack at my local Goodwill, my friends begged me not to buy them. They grimaced when I told them that I loved them.

      Despite their disapproving comments, I bought the shoes. I had never seen them anywhere before, and I knew that they could be a unique and personal touch to any outfit. After that day, I wore the shoes constantly. Yeah, it took a special kind of outfit to make them work and I teetered when I walked, but when I wore them I felt cool and confident.

      A part of thrift shopping is having the bravery to do something unconventional. To wear shoes your friends all say are ugly, or to rock a jacket that clashes with everything else you own. Thrift shopping presents you with the opportunity to do something daring and odd with almost no risk. Instead of dropping half a paycheck on something you’re not positive you’ll ever wear, you get to find those same special items for a fraction of the price.

      Thrift shopping is about the thrill of the hunt and an openness to the weird. If you go into a thrift store with a willingness to try something out of your comfort zone, you’re almost certainly going to find something for you. It could be something you’ve been looking for or something you’d never before imagined, but whatever it is, I hope it makes you feel like a work of art.

      On Feb. 1, The Student Activities Board (S.A.B.) hosted a coffee house in Jammin’ Java with the theme “Singing through the Ages.” Performers played songs from bands throughout the decades, such as Bob Dylan and Journey, as well as some originals too.

      Krista Barnett, the S.A.B. Advisor, says that events like this are often thought of and planned out long before they actually occur.

      “For all of our events, we pretty much come up with a list of ideas and brainstorm what we want to do either at the beginning of the year, or for this semester, it was back in November to kind of plan out ahead of time. For coffee houses in particular, we have a few different sub-groups. We call them committees in S.A.B. We have the performing arts committee, the special events committee, the marketing committee, and dances and entertainment committee. Performing arts is the one who does a lot of our coffeehouses.”

      Organizing these opportunities is not as simple as it may seem though. Katherine Beatty, head of the performing arts committee, is responsible for making sure these events go off without a hitch.

      “First we plan a theme for the coffee house. So, this past event was decade themed, like 70s, 80s and 90’s, and then after we come up with a theme we have to find decorations that are in budget to go with the theme, along with refreshments,” said Beatty. “Then, we do auditions. Auditions are usually a week or so before the coffee house, sometimes two weeks, people come and do their audition, and usually everyone gets to go in.

     And then I communicate with them throughout the week to find out what song they’re singing, and for this one I wanted to know which decade it was from. And then the day of, we get there two hours early and decorate everything, set up the stage, set up all the refreshments and do soundchecks to make sure all of their sound stuff works, and after all that, we finally start the event.”

      Coffee houses are a long-held tradition at Eastern, with S.A.B. hosting at least one per semester. Though unsure of when they first began, Barnett agrees that they are a familiar event on campus.

      “I know we have some old files from the early 2000s, and if you do some deep searching on S.A.B.’s Facebook, you’ll find some real throwback pictures from around the early 2000s of people doing coffee houses. So, it is something that has been a tradition at Eastern,” said Barnett.

      The same tradition that drives coffee houses also serves to motivate SAB to keep every individual event fresh. Despite hosting three coffee houses this year, the performing arts committee works to be sure each time offer a fun, new experience.

      “I think that’s why we try to spice it up and make something new, because it’s great to have traditions, but I think doing the same event over and over again gets boring, I think that’s why we try to have different themes and have different people perform… we like variety, but we also value the tradition of the event,” said Barnett.

      Despite the fun and the tradition of the event, though, Beatty says the most important part of the coffeehouses is providing a space for people to celebrate their talents.

      “I think coffee houses give everyone a chance to be out there, because not everyone is super open with being able to sing, like, I know people who can sing but they won’t do it in front of people usually, so it gives them the chance to be out there and express themselves through song or spoken word or dance in ways they may not have been able to before,” Beatty said.

      If you are involved with or even interested in theater at Eastern University, you have likely heard of Morgan Leavy. Though she has only been at Eastern for 2 semesters after transferring here last spring, she has already made an impact.

      Remarkably though, Leavy has not always been involved in theater. It was not until her first year of school at Heston College as a theater scholar that she began seriously participating in shows.

      “I started acting in every show because my director made me a theater scholar,” said Leavy, “I did not know that if you’re a theater scholar, you are required to audition for every show.”

      With only choir experience under her belt, Leavy found herself thrown into the world of theater.

      “I found out the day of auditions that I needed to audition with a monologue memorized, and I had never memorized a monologue or anything like that before other than a song. So, my director gave me something, and I butchered it, and she put me in an ensemble role in a play. But then it turned out that I loved it,” Leavy said.

      From there, Leavy has continued pursuing theater, even despite switching schools. She says she was drawn to it because despite how naturally acting came to her, she wanted to continue to get better.

      “And I wasn’t afraid of what that journey looked like,” she said,  “It was the first thing I really wanted to dedicate myself to that wasn’t a daunting task.”

      While her love for the theater may have been unexpected for Leavy, those around her were unfazed.

      “It was funny, because when I told my family that I was in a show and I started to really like being a part of it, they were like ‘Oh yeah, we’ve known you were an actress since you were three years old.’ So I was like, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’” She said.

      Leavy says her favorite role she’s had while at Eastern was Masha from the Fall semester performance of Three Sisters, because of how heavily she identified with the character. Her favorite role of all-time though, was Frog from A Year with Frog and Toad, and it’s her favorite for a much different reason.

      “I got to play a character in a children’s show that had to interact with children and be very bright and happy, like, I was hopping on stage, but I had to play someone, or something, that was completely different from how I live, and Frog brought that out of me.” Leavy said, “I had to just be peppy and the positive one. It was a challenge, but it just gave me an appreciation for playing something completely separate from me as well.”

      Every role requires an immense amount of preparation, though. Leavy compares the process of preparing for a show to that of athletes training.

      “A lot of people are familiar with athletics, because they had to be a part of it when they were four years old, or they watched their friends that are athletes go to their practices, and they’re always dressed up and stuff, but, I would say that theater is just as time consuming as a sport would be. Just because we have rehearsals like athletes have practice, but then we also have hours outside of rehearsal dedicated to memorization and characterization, and meeting up with your scene partners, and things like that, and that’s all on you. So, I’d say the process is a lot of time dedicated to those things,” She said.

      Despite all the hard work and effort it takes, Leavy believes the outcome is worth all of it.

      “My old director, Rachel Jansey, used to say theater is one of the most Christ-like things she could think of doing because you dedicate yourself to a show only to give it away to an audience every night, and if that’s not the most selfless thing, you know, your time, dedication, sweat , tears, all for the enjoyment and pleasure and emotion of someone else, strangers, family, friends, whatever, I think that’s a really beautiful thing,” said Leavy.