Katie Miranda Studios Interview

Tell us a bit about yourself?
My name is Katie Miranda, I'm an illustrator and painter from California. I have an etsy store that sells jewelry, scarves, fine art and prints. I have a BFA in illustration and an MFA in graphic novels from the Academy of Art University. In 2005 I left California to volunteer with the nonviolent resistance movement in Palestine. I lived in the West Bank for three years where I divided my time between being a volunteer human rights worker, a political cartoonist, and an art teacher to children. Now I live in Oakland, California and just finished the first issue of my comic book called Tear Gas in the Morning which is a story about the nonviolent resistance in Palestine.

Apart from being ‘creative’ what do you do?
Apart from being creative, I volunteer with local anti-war and anti-occupation organizations.


What inspires you to do the kind of work you do?
The bravery of other citizens, standing up to occupation and repression like Palestinians, like Egyptians, like Syrians, like struggling Americans whose homes have been foreclosed inspire me. I don't mean to leave anyone out. I should say the bravery of "The Protestor" like Time magazine named. These people inspire me, the martyrs inspire me to work for a world in which the atrocities and injustices we are seeing today won't continue into the future. The gifts and generosity of God inspire me.

Do you look up to anyone? Who? Why?
I look up to a lot of people, activists like Neta Golan and Huwaida Arraf. Two teachers of mine: Michael Buffington who taught me character design and Ehab Thabet who taught me Arabic calligraphy. All four of these people are masters at what they do. I'm lucky if a little has rubbed off on me.

What other passions do you have in your life?
Other passions... well my husband and I are trying to figure out how we can build an earthship. I think this is the future of building.

How do you promote your work?
I promote my work on my Facebook page, on Twitter, and using google adwords. I've had some success with google adwords. I also try to promote myself by trying to meet my customers needs, by giving good customer service, making them feel like someone cares about them. So much customer service these days is depersonalized and cold. What I like about Etsy is that it's not that way.

In the future I’d like to be…
In the future I'd like to be doing more of what I am doing.

Facebook Landing Page

I've been trying to figure out how to make a Facebook Welcome page. since it's the "in" thing this month. After days of research and learing new HTML code, this is what I've come up with for my page:


I'm trying to make it similar to this page for branding purposes, but I'm going to try different image sizes to see which one ends up working for me.

More New Necklaces

I can't seem to stop making necklaces. Lately I've taken apart some Afganistan necklaces that I bought at the Seattle Gift Show last year and put them back together with modern beads and clasps.

Triangle & Clear Bead Necklace

Triangle Red & Blue Necklace

Square Jingle Red Necklace

Then I found this great pendent from the company Blue Moon that I fell in love with and create a necklace with it too.

Diamond Black & Blue Necklace

New Necklaces

On Monday, I went to my friend Rasha's house for a bit of tea and conversation. While there, she mentioned that she missed me not making necklaces anymore. I seemed to recall that she was the one that purchased my very last original necklace design from my home show two years ago.

So inspired by Rasha, today I locked myself in my studio and came up with these two designs. What do you think?

Afgan Coin & Amber Necklace

Berber Blue Necklace

I haven't decided if I'm going to list them in my Zibbet shop yet, or for how much. I just felt creative today and wanted to share my finished product.

How low(e) can you go?

I'm really trying very hard to wrap my head around what is happening with the controversy between All American Muslim, Lowe's and the Florida Family Association. I just can't seem to understand what it is that the FFA wants to accomplish with all this.

First thing that happened was the FFA issued a statement against AAM and sent this statement to all the advertisers on the show. Basically the statement was about how the show showcases Muslims in too much of a normal light. They wanted to see more Muslims on the show following jihad, sharia, and basically blowing things up. Because that is the only version of Muslims that they know from having interviewed various Muslims around Florida (I hope you read the sarcasm there). Ironically, one of the companies (Lowe’s) decided to listen and pull their ads. I say ironically because these blowing up Muslims would have needed that company to supply the components to blow up things.

In their press release, Lowe's acknowledged that it received messages from a "broad spectrum of customers" and that is why they decided to pull their ads. So basically Lowe's also felt that AAM needed scenes of Muslims going into Lowe's to buy supplies to blow things up.

So now there are sides saying that everyone needs to boycott Lowe's, while the other side thinks that Lowe's should be free to advertise on whatever show they want. I think Lowe’s should look into shows that highlight true American values, such as Sister Wives, Toddlers and Tiaras, 20 Kids and Counting, and of course my all time favorite, Hording: Buried Alive.

So here lies my dilemma with trying to figure out what it is that America wants from its Muslim society: After 9/11 there were lots of questions asked about 'Where are the moderate Muslims?!?' Now here is a television program showing America where the moderate Muslims are existing (Dearborn), living very boring lives (adjusting to motherhood, marriage, job transitions), and not blowing things up. But now we have a group that is asking 'Where are the radical Muslims?!?'

In the words of Seth Meyers "Really...?"



P.S. If you click on FFA or Lowe's in my first paragraph, it will take you to the petition from Sign On. Yes, this was intentional.

Submission Guidelines for Intersections: Woman, Artist, Muslim.

This is a call for submissions for a new project, the anthology Artist Intersections: Woman, Artist, Muslim. As you well know art and all its various forms, such as poetry, performance, film, illustration, fashion, are often misunderstood and even demonized in the greater Muslim community. The intent of this project is to reflect on the experiences of creative/creating Muslimahs to (insha Allah) dispel some of these myths as well as to inspire others to maximize their God-given talents and the blessings available through doing so.

As this project hopes to reveal (notice we didn’t say “unveil”!) a wide scope of the artists and artistic happens, both visual and literary, across the ummah, we are open to accepting a diverse array of writing styles, including and by no means limited to essays, dialogues, creative non-fiction writing and poetry that is directly relevant to the subject matter. We would also like to include some inspiring, entertaining and/or insightful interviews of artsy sisters. You are welcome to put together an interview for submittal, contact us for suggestions of sisters of interest, or run by us ideas of potential interviewees.

Works which include excerpts from Quran, hadith, and other Muslim Maxims are of course welcomed in this project, however if your style or preference does not include such, your work is also welcome as we strive for inclusion of a diverse representation of believers, respecting the individuality in each Muslim point of view. This is not an anthology of “Islamic Art,” rather it is an anthology of Muslim Women Artists. In the spirit of inclusivity we ask that writers consider their readers and therefore cannot accept any work which includes vulgarity or explicit depictions of sex. Submissions from Sisters of Color are especially appreciated.

We would love to hear about issues related to being a Muslim woman artist, such as:

Internal and external struggles with accepting yourself as a artist
Rectifying your culture, art and religion
Epiphany-like moments related to being an artist
Art and dawah
Art as ibadah
Art as rizk: Being a working (as in selling) artist
Accepting yourself as being a creative being or non-working (as in selling) artist
Creativity and your community
Reflections on historical Muslim arts and artists which inspire you
Anything else related to your being an artist, a woman and a Muslim

Submission Guideline Details:

Email all submissions both as .doc and pasted in the content of your email to intersectionsanthology@gmail.com
Maximum 5,000 words
Include a 2-3 sentence biography
If you have one, include website or blog url
Submissions due March 1st, 2012
Information about compensation, copy rights and similar will not be available until a publisher has been secured, minimally each accepted entry will receive a copy of the anthology.

Please help spread the word! Share the submission guidelines for Intersections: Woman, Artist, Muslim on your blog, website, social networks and with all of your creative sisters.

intersectionswomanartistmuslimanthology.wordpress.com/

intersectionswomanartistmuslim.tumblr.com/

www.facebook.com/IntersectionsWomanArtistMuslim