Virtual Art and Creativity Festival

STEVE FIGUEIREDO

Sr. Director, Student Accounts, WPK Campus

Edited home video footage along with an original song written on an acoustic guitar. One day I found my daughter "down in the dumps" and wrote this song entitled "Just Smile" as a way to cheer her up.

ALLYHA PHILLLIPS

ALUMNA, NYC Campus

Cartoon art; Make people happy.

Lindsay Fiorellini

Student, Justice Studies, WPK Campus

Video; This is a spoken word that highlights the importance of self-love in a world where many people are treated as disposable. You are worthy of love, but be warned, you do not need anyone else to understand that.

GAYITRI NANDAN

Student, NYC Campus
Pumpkins Carving Designs For Halloween

SHARA MAE LINTAG

Student, WPK Campus

Adobe Illustrator; I made this piece right after schools closed down back in March. All the characters represent activities that can be done to keep yourself occupied at home or in the neighborhood! I had a lot of fun designing this during quarantine and I reinvigorated my motivation to keep designing during those hard times.

TAQUEILLA GREEN

Student, ONL Campus

I Strive

I strive to be better because when I was born the doctors told my mother

that I wouldn't make it.

I strive to be better because when I was born I had to fight the first day of

my life to live.

I strive to be better because I was born different I was like no one but me.

I strive to be better because I watched my mother work hard to give us

everything and she lost it all.

I strive to be better because I want and am going to be a better person to

be humble.

I strive to be and make a difference in this life

I strive because life is not easy and you have to work hard to get where you

want to be.

I strive to be better to finish school and go to college to make something

out of my life to make my mother proud.

I strive to be better to show my mother she made the right decision bringing

me into this world.

I strive to make better decisions in my character and how I impact my

peers.

I strive to be open minded to other people's opinions and feelings to be

charismatic to others' vulnerability.

I strive to keep putting up a fight for my future to be bright, different and

prove myself.

I strive for continuous improvement instead of perfection.

I strive for perfection, but I’m not perfect. But what I can say is my morals

are totally different than any other 18 year old my age now. I look at life

totally different. A whole other aspect. I have different views and morals on

life in general.

When my mom was giving birth to me, she couldn’t move because the pain

was too much. She had a drink of tequila to ease the pain and out I came.

Ever since my mom always said, tequila is the best thing that happen to

her. Which she named me and changed the spelling to keep my name

unique.

Motivation

AIDA BODE 

Alumna

Listen

I remember

when I heard

the first heartbeat.

***

I was 5

playing with my doll,

using my father's

stethoscope and was

searching on its plastic body

for a beat.

My grandma had told me

that everyone has a clock

inside their chest

at times it makes

a soft noise

like a cricket in a hot

summer night,

and other times

it just gives up

and e x p l o d e s

like a bomb.

So I was checking

my doll for

a cricket,

or a bomb.

***

It was a winter afternoon

and I was staying

close to the stove

hoping to fool the cricket

and praying for the bomb

to be calm.

But I didn't hear a tick

Poem - a reflection on the duality of human heart.

MERYL HERMAN 

Alumna, Health Services Management, Clinical Data Specialist
 

Nature Day

Clouds as white as snow

Brown hoppy bunnies with no place to go

Red, orange leaves are falling down

While all the people are still in town

Birds are flying high

As trees touch the sky

Bears roaming all over the earth

Children playing in the dirt

Sun burning bright

As the breezes waves thought-out into the night

Sandy beaches laid within the sand

As the planes are waiting to land

Forest trees rustle with the breeze

As the lake is calm with ease

Streams flow down with fish

As families catch them to make their dish

Energy from the nature remains

Even when as it pours and rains

Energy from the sun goes down

As the winds and rain go down

As last it’s time to say goodbye

As the sun comes down from the sky

Inspiration of Nature

STEPHEN WOLF 

Faculty, NYC Campus

“Prologue” to Central Park Love Song

One night soon after the ball dropped in rowdy Times Square for 1977, we began our journeys to Central Park. Bo sniffed only a few cold yards ahead keeping close on the unfamiliar blocks of Bleecker Street. It was well-named, Bleecker, though surrounding streets were as badly wounded. Much of the city lay in shambles then, aluminum gates ripped from empty storefronts, dark brick walkups crumbling, graffiti’s mad, white lines over everywhere: in the distance far downtown, the slender shafts of the World Trade Center glittering between the gaps of the potholed cross-streets.

Just before descending the stairs to the Broadway/Lafayette subway station, I fixed Bo on a short leash. From my coat pocket I removed a thin, white, fold-up cane with a bungee cord running through it that snapped open long and straight, put on a pair of Roy Orbison-style sunglasses, then tapped my way downstairs; this late at night fewer people would see us if anything about my plan went awry. The white cane’s red tip touched just to the left and crossed over to the right, always low to the ground to detect a rise or drop. Everything was so dark in these glasses.

We passed the drowsy attendant in the booth as I tugged Bo slightly toward the turnstile and, in character, fumbled a little with the token while seeking the slot: fifty cents a ride back then. Once through, we moved to the uptown tracks, descended the stairs with steady taps, and waited on the empty platform, Bo patient and curious though never having seen anything remotely like a New York City subway platform. Someone hunched in a pillar’s shadow along the downtown side, never looking at us.

Bo was a border collie the color of graham crackers, with a muscular white chest, lively brown eyes, and a floppy ear torn in a fight he picked with Cerberus. He ran free on a college quadrangle fastened to Illinois soy bean fields when he adopted me a decade ago. He ran free ever since until a few nights earlier when I romantically landed us on a battered street of New York’s Lower East Side with no other plan than the next few beats of my restless heart. Though past his prime Bo still needed more than a walk around the block twice a day, so we headed to Central Park. When I felt the cold air pushed through the tunnel by the incoming train I rubbed Bo’s flank, his fur soft as talcum: “It’s okay,” I said just when the leash grew taut as Bo pulled forward, prepared to protect me from any challenge. I had worried Bo might be skittish as a rapid subway rushed toward us, but when the D train burst from the dark tunnel, then slowed with a screech, stopped, and the doors gaped open, Bo confidently guided me inside.

Only a few people were in the car though I couldn’t really look around since I was blind. As the subway clattered and clanked, shimmied and sparked, I saw myself in the reflection of the subway door’s window: wavy brown hair needs trimming, worn black coat, could be taller, and looking unconvincingly blind despite the dark glasses, white cane, and handsome dog.

Before fleeing the Midwest I had mulled over ways to get my old dog to Central Park, nearly four miles from the apartment I had rented. Taxis were expensive and I had low funds and no prospects. With confidence in the one bold, outrageous option, I headed to the medical supply store off campus for a guide-dog harness.

“A dog must be fitted for one,” the pharmacist told me. He was elderly, thin, serious, and I knew Bo would never fool him enough to pass the audition.

“May I see that?” I asked, pointing between the bedpan and catheter at a white cane with a red plastic tip in the display case.

Soon the train came to a gradual, jerking stop at Columbus Circle, the southwest corner of Central Park. The doors opened and three people grudgingly made way as I taped by. Along the platform were other travelers of the night, in couples or alone, and once off the train I vigorously rubbed Bo along his strong neck.

“Good doggy!” and he leaned his weight into me.

 I tapped along a trash-strewn, foul-smelling corridor, then down another, wadded, wet newspapers along the rank gutters. Ugly lines, mad and thick, covered cracked, tiled walls, every poster for six-packs and cigarettes, every subway map made useless, and each ethnic group biting into Levy’s rye bread.      

I was heading for any exit when suddenly Bo hesitated, narrowed his eyes and sniffed the air, then pulled me in a different direction. Down another dreary, piss-reeking corridor, a lone traveler never glancing at us as Bo kept pulling toward a darkened corner of the station where from a stone staircase cold, fresh air descended. He was heading for Central Park. All exits at Columbus Circle Station lead to the streets above but only one directly to the edge of the park, and that was the one Bo found; he could smell it. We walked up the steps into the cold night, the city bright and churning but a vast plain of darkness to our left which we entered at the first opening in a low stone wall. I broke down the cane and slipped it into my pocket, removed the sunglasses to see better that New York night, then freed Bo an instant before he scampered for a thin grove of trees and I lost him in the dark.

Together we made dozens of visits to Central Park: without him, I another five thousand. This book is what I found in those wanderings.

An introduction to a book on my 42 year relationship with Central Park
 

AMY SORICELLI

V.P. Career Services, NYC Campus

Take Me With You 

I don't leave my head, but it seems you are on a mountain

with just your camera.

You climbed it without a crew, or safety gear.

Your mother didn't know.

I ask myself if the other side of the street would be safer,

better lit.

I wonder if it's worth the extra turn of the block

to see what really happens there.

Then I find you are under the ocean with a turtle,

deciding if his foot is okay, or if the jewels

on the bottom are real.

Sometimes I'll stand before the pesto chicken,

thinking,

each day I have grilled,

and when it's my turn I give the same words in the same order;

an alphabet of lunch.

I heard you just climbed a tree to taste the native fruit,

then sliced it into thin strips with some meat cured by centuries of one family.

I would picture that in my head, too,

if there were room.

I follow a marine biologist on IG who saves turtles and jumps off cliffs. I have a hard time making the switch from AOL

ADSON DENIS 

Student, WBR Campus

The Power of a Woman

She has been captured by this flying breathing firing beast yet in her eyes she sees a handsome man.

She’s admiring his exotic body yet deep within is a beast capable of setting a whole country on fire.

The power of a woman is between her legs yet her mouth is her own destruction.

She smells as if she has been bathed in a pool of lilies as her smile that excels the Mona Lisa’s is stronger enough to light the world.

Descendants of Eve who gave Adam the forbidden fruit like Delilah who had lied Samson head on her lap to grant him to the enemy together they hold the key to seduction.

Her tongue carries the venom of a snake though sweeter than honey, her touch feels like heaven but at the end it pierces like an arrow.

The power of a woman is like the hand of a god capable of taming a dragon.

The power of a woman is capable of reaching the dark deep of the ocean yet money is her master.

The power of a woman has no limit enabled to bring any man to his knees yet the last one has the last word.

The power of a woman can conquer the world yet she still doesn’t know it exists.

The power of a woman is what makes a man strong still she realizes it a man will always be a man.

This poem has found its inspiration from the movie "I am dragon"

BERMARY MARTINEZ

Student, NYC Campus

What Do...

What do you think we are expected to do after

You killed one of us?

Nothing

What do you want me to do if I can’t help

The ones that are killed by you?

Nothing

What do you think hurts more

Then killing a colored man?

Nothing

What do you think that can

Refrain you from killing him?

Nothing

What do you want us to do if

We can’t step in to help?

Nothing

What do you get from killing

Us minorities?

Nothing

What do your actions provoke

Us to do?

A lot of things

What do you think in your head

That you decide to kill innocents people?

Nothing

I wrote this because of the Black Lives Matter.

 

BERMARY MARTINEZ

Student, NYC Campus

When Autumn Comes

When the cold breeze of Autumn comes
I know it’s time for Hoodie SZN
When we have our hoodie on
We feel great. We feel loved.
Our hoodies wrap us with its’ smell
It has the smell of our fried chicken last year.
It still has the stain of the ketchup.
Oh, hoodie I love you so much.
If it wasn’t for the Autumn I would have never met you.
I don’t want the Autumn to leave but
It will because there comes the Wintertime.

WILLIAM HUGHES

Student, WPK Campus

Words are powerful

I don't really care if you try

If you try to hit me up, then I'll decline

because you didn't want me, then why'd you switch sides?

So everything you told me was a lie

Man, your heart was dead

And It was messing with my head

I know your plan was to push me off the edge

But I grew a pair of wings from standing on the ledge

Why do you want to see me in a coffin?

You were sick, and you're the reason that I'm always coughing!

But I'm the wrong one for taking you back so often

If my heart were a diamond, then you would be window shopping

Because you can't buy a thing, this is not an auction

I know you think you can buy it all but its not an option

If I were to let go of myself, I would have nothing

And if I didn't have God, I wouldn't see you plotting

I just want to let you know I see the tree is rotten

If I were to take a bite, it'd make my mouth like cotton

And that's a web that I don't want to get caught in

been tempted, but I'm still cautious

Knowing what the cost is will leave me nauseous

Trying to seduce me with the smooth-talking

With words that have no meaning trying to get me lost in

How exhausting!

Is the energy you put out

You rip the good out

Hard to see your sneaky ways, but to me, it stood out

You put your foot out

while I was walking by

Could've caught me by surprise

You do that once again; there'd be a homicide

It's just a warning in a deadly note

My minds a gun, and this pen in my hand will be the scope

So the moment that you read it murders what he wrote

 I'm counting sheep in my sleep; you're trying to be the goat

My mom was a drug dealer; she conceived the dope

Being down and low is what made me believe in hope

That's the only thing I could hold onto like a rope

hanging off a cliff

(Yeah) Get on a boat and then be off a drift

I think I visited Hell when I was off the sh*ts

And that's the reason why I'm off the sh*ts

I called the quits

Wave the white flag

Asking God to save me

I just want my life back

feel it. Then I write that

Put these lyrics in a bottle, throw it in the ocean

Ten years later, some guy finds the bottle floating

He was fishing used the net to grab it, then he opened

 flooded with emotion

Saw the person wrote it with devotion

What's the commotion?

his friend said

 and then read

The explosion threw her off the ledge

 and now she's dead

Damn, I didn't mean to do that

But I guess I am to blame so can you move back

 instead of CPR

I looked her right in the soul, and she was deeply scarred

Then she was told

Wake up! You've just been sleeping hard!

The woman rose to her feet after seeing stars

Instead of dying, she's complete but can't remember far

What motivated me was to write about a girl and a relationship that didn't work out because it was one-sided. What inspired me was the saying, "you're too nice." As people, If we're not grateful, we can end up taking advantage of the person who is "too nice." However, the oppressor, in the end, feels the worst. If the person who was getting taken advantage of were to ever speak about it, it would kill them with guilt, but that's not always their intention. I've been in this situation and didn't won't speak up because I thought it would hurt them, but now I feel like things like that should be said to get it off our chest, and it could humble the person  who's been taking advantage. My technique was a freestyle one. I got the theme of a one-sided relationship. After that, I just let it flow.