My name is Anne Starke. I am a freelance graphic designer in Eugene, Oregon; my business is Starke Design Studio. This interesting time (coronavirus pandemic) has slowed my business considerably, so I decided to take the opportunity to expand my skill set and add tools to my business toolbox.

I enrolled as a Multimedia Design major so I could learn how to work with video, audio and photography. I am toying with the idea of learning animation as well. I don’t know if I will ever complete the degree – a lot depends on what happens to my workload when the pandemic has run its course.

I guess returning to school when I don’t like my other life options has been a pattern for me. The first time I went to college was in 1988. I went to California Lutheran University, mostly because that’s where my stepmom thought I should go — I didn’t have a clue. I ended up graduating in 1992 with a BA in music, with the idea that I wanted to be an opera singer. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the life of an opera singer is not for me: you pretty much have to live in New York City and participate in competitions and auditions as much as you can stand. And then when you get a job you usually have to travel all over the country, living in hotels or the houses of strangers. I can barely stand doing a recital, so competitions and auditions are like pulling out my teeth with pliers. Agony.

After realizing I didn’t want to live the life of an opera singer, I moved to Eugene (because my sister lived here) and joined the opera chorus here in Eugene just for fun. I met my husband while singing in Die Fledermaus. After a couple of years working at various jobs I ended up in a clerk job at the Register Guard. There I got a glimpse of what graphic designers do; it looked like a good career option for me, so I enrolled at LCC to learn. I graduated from the GD program in 2003.

After graduating I had a couple of graphic design jobs that I didn’t like very much and I was too scared to try freelancing, so I went back to school again: in 2007 I got a second BA from the U of O in art while doing the Waldorf teacher training program at WTEE at the same time.

After teaching and doing graphics for a number of years at a Waldorf school in Boulder, Colorado, I got burnt out and decided to start freelancing. My husband and I decided to move back to Eugene in 2015, where, for the most part, my business has flourished. At least it has paid the bills!

Hello everyone! My name is Michael Cleghorn but most know me by Mike Lucid at this point. The name was given to me while attending Burning Man years ago and stuck with me through many years of DJing around festivals around the northwest And our quaint town of Eugene.

I am currently a self employed web designer and have decided to revisit LCC and finish the degree I started working on over 5 years ago. I am also very interested in music production, so I am in the process of obtaining a second degree in the music program. The picture above is me and I am wearing a shirt designed by me and produced by my now defunct clothing company Timeless Creations.

“Everything has already been done. every story has been told every scene has been shot. It’s our job to do it one better.”

Stanley Kubrick

I have built many websites based on WordPress and it was my CMS(content management system) of choice for quite some time before I learned php and decided to build more customized as applications using frameworks such as Laravel.

I am in no way a professional full stack developer but I can throw together some code that works in a pinch, to get a project off the ground. I am not afraid to try and learn new things on my own and I have found just about anything you have a question about has probably already been asked and answered somewhere on the internet.

By: Michael Cleghorn

Hello all! My name is Eryn Leatherwood and I like to tell stories. Whether it be through writing, drawing, acting, or telling tall tales at work, I find telling stories is highly therapeutic and ultimately greatly entertaining. At the end of the day all I want is to make someone’s day a little brighter by telling my silly tales. That being said, however, I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of talking about myself, so this is a bit of a challenge! 

I have two sisters, both of which are older, and it is with great passion that I annoy the snot out of both of them, as is my right as the youngest spawn. My family and I have way too many cats in our household, (my mom has a bit of a bleeding heart for the neighborhood strays.) I typically enjoy drawing in my freetime, though I’ve recently picked up embroidery, and I’m appreciating that. 

I honestly am still trying to figure out what I’m going to be doing after college is, or even my major– yes, I am aware it’s the third term I’ve been here, It’s a work in progress, I must admit. Thus far I’ve tentatively said that I’m getting an associate’s degree in art, but who knows if that will change? I for one, am more excited than nervous about it. The future is but an adventure that I’ve yet to experience.  

By Alex Abele

Hello, my name is Alex Abele! I am a dual enrolled student who has been taking classes at the University of Oregon over the past year and now enrolled at Lane. I am currently an undecided major, but after taking a few courses about journalism and media studies, I am exploring this area of interest more through this course. I was initially interested in sports journalism when I started taking journalism classes at Oregon, but since then my interests have diversified. I am looking to not only learn more, but also improve my computer and multimedia skills through this course. Despite the current safety precautions resulting in remote learning, I am still excited to learn and explore the possibilities of multimedia studies.

A little more about me: I was born in the UK, and grew up in Southern California in Ventura county. I always lived close to the coast, which always made me close to activities involving water. I love swimming, water polo, rafting, fishing, and just about anything involving being close to a body of water. Aside from aquatic sports, I can land sports too, I love to shoot hoops, skateboard, and go for walks in nature. I identify as a night person and I am bilingual (Spanish) and biracial (Asian-American). I am curious by nature, so I ask lots of questions. So, if you have any questions about me, do not hesitate to ask:)

I like this photo taken a couple of years ago after I had a fresh hair cut. I like it because it captured a bitter feeling in my eyes with a belief on the top of it. I believe the truth and kindness and equal rights. Nevertheless, I feel a bit sad to see where they do not exist for all of the people.

I was a journalistic TV producer for news and documentary. I had been worked as a producer and freelancing fixer for western media for over 10 years before I moved to America. My husband and I stetted down in Eugene 5 years ago, then we had our son. We are happy about this change as we can breathe free air here and enjoy a peaceful life as we wished. In the past years, I have been thinking a lot about where to start our new life and what I should do for our further in small scale for my family a bigger scale for the society, only recently I nail it down finally that I am clearly aware of continuing working in media. It is a different media age, media was massively controlled even highjacked by politicians as their tool to empower their regime even to use it spreading fake news on their behaves to sacrificed the rights of the public to know about the truth. This is even worse for some authoritarian countries. It betrayed the basic moral line of journalism and damaged the media’s public credibility. One the other hand social media is taking the role of critical traditional media’s function, but the public still needs its own judgment to distinguish what is the truth from scam.

I am so glad that I am able to come back to school to have the first step for expanding my knowledge and skills comprehensively and having myself prepared for doing media work in a new environment in the future. I knew that it is not easy to start academic studies as a non-native English speaker, I will try my best to graduate in the following years. By then, I hope I still can see my belief in my eyes in my selfie. –by Jimila

Hello everyone! This is my first blog ever so HERE WE GO! Hi, my name is Gyllian. I’m 18 years old and I go by any pronoun, so whatever pronouns you are comfortable with, I am also comfortable with. 

This is currently my third term in college and I am working for a multimedia design degree. Before I attended school I spent a lot of my time editing photos and videos at home, editing cosplay pictures, making fan edits, as well as memes. From my list of things I’m really passionate about besides editing is movies, music, voice acting, anime, D&D, cosplay, art, and so much more, things I can probably share with you later. 

When I signed up for my intro to multimedia class I was pretty excited for my next term, but when Covid-19 showed up I got a little nervous. I was hoping things would be better so I can attend school in person and see all my buds again, also so I wouldn’t do school online, but things got unsafe and what I hoped wouldn’t happen, happened, oops. So far I’m doing well in quarantine, my family and I are safe, and it’s nice to have everyone here with me. Not having a problem with being isolated because I was homeschooled for most of my life, so I’m used to it. I hope my online classes are just as good as learning them in person, so fingers crossed.

But anyways, that’s the end of my little post to get to know me, and I look forward to meeting everyone! See you around, stay safe, stay home, and wash your hands!

-Gyllian Mullins