Charlotte Exantos, Randolph, NJ
Red Heart Super Saver
Yarn and fun with foam alphabet letters, and crochet.
Treat the people you meet…. Is a personal mantra that I think about at times when I’m feeling sassy and disconnected from the human race. While I was thinking about what to so for my panel, me and my classmates suffered a great loss with the passing of a student who was also my friend. For a little while we were all full of so much grief. There were a lot of tears and breakdowns and the general feeling in the hallways was very somber. I remember spending time in the dark with people sitting silent for hours not knowing what to do with ourselves. However, out of this dark time I witnessed unimaginable amounts of love from my fellow students. Love was just pouring out of the walls and there were random acts of kindness everywhere. People who I’ve never ever spoken to would stop me in the hallways just to talk about how they feel. We were no longer just people but together in this building making art, we were family. I felt a close personal bond to every one of those people. That wonderful capacity for compassion made it completely impossible to make a panel that was all doom and gloom. Believe me I as going to do a doom and gloom panel but now I didn’t know what to do. At the same time I had just began studying Buddhism and the idea for my panel came while I was reading a chapter of the book Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner entitled No Sex With Cantaloupes.
