InterCulture Vulture; Adrienne Norris of AfroTriangle Designs...

Every once in a while, I get a chance to meet someone who really embodies the idea of interculturality and global nomadism. I rarely have a legit excuse to interview such a person(because to me, that's normal, and it's creepy to interview people about being normal) but in my other other job as a knitwear designer and craft networker, I had an amazing opportunity to interview the graphic artist and designer Adrienne Norris of Afro Triangle Designs. Adrienne is quite the global nomad, and she's managed to be so in several ways, making her a nomad among nomads, so to speak. She's a Bajan-born and US-raised ex-Marine, a capoeira practicioner, an alumni of the United World College, and an extremely gifted artist. The interview is more art-oriented and is posted in full on my SweetShop Creations blog, but a few of Adrienne's responses are very applicable to this blog as well. With her permission, I'll share them here as well...

Without further ado, I present to you...Adrienne Norris of Afro Triangle Designs!

Image courtesy of Adrienne Norris. Shirt available for purchase here

Welcome Adrienne! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Where are you from, where are you now, where are you going, that sort of thing?

Well, I was born on the island of Barbados (which is in the Caribbean, for those who don’t know) and came to the US when I was 5. I lived in New York with my mom, grandmother and brothers until I was about 12, when we moved to New Mexico to live on the international school campus my dad taught at, the Armand Hammer United World College. So I’m Bajan by birth, but American by culture.

When I was 17, I had the opportunity to attend the United World College of the Adriatic in Italy, which is part of the family of international schools I grew up in. What should have been a two year experience turned into only one, though. I mean, it was Italy and I was 17. Studying just wasn't a priority. So I had a chance to start over at the school in New Mexico where I graduated with my International Baccalaureate degree.

After that, I joined the Marines to be an Arabic linguist and spent 5 years doing what people told me (sort of) and translating “things” from Arabic to English. Sorry, if I gave you more details, I’d have to kill you. ;)

These days, I’m working as a freelance artist here in Denver, designing t-shirts, business cards, logos, as well as drawing and painting portraits when I can. I would love for portrait painting to be my primary source of income.

Can you tell us a little bit about how your life inspires your art?

People fascinate me. I think that’s why I love drawing faces so much. We all have the same five features – two eyes, a nose, a mouth – but they can be configured in so many different ways to make each face we see so incredibly unique that even twins who share almost identical genes, can look different from one another.

I am also amazed by what the human body is capable of whether it’s pull-ups, hand stands, or flips. That we can use our muscles to create enough momentum to launch ourselves into the air is astounding to me. 


That' the preview, y'all...the rest of the interview, including loads of info about Adrienne's art, can be found HERE.

Interview with the dictator's grandson; Kim Han-Sol talks about travel, culture, and his grandfather Kim Jong-Il...

There's a couple of obvious demographics that contribute to global nomadism and the intercultural experience...missionary, military, politics and the arts are probably the four biggest global nomad fields--both for professional nomads and for creating new ones.

Of the four, I've been wondering whether it's politics or art careers that are the rarest of intercultural professions. I'll talk about artistic nomads in (several) future posts, but today I'm more focused on politics. Blame the upcoming US presidential elections and the upcoming UK referendum vote.

If you count all of the military nomads who go on to ambassadorial careers, politics isn't a rare thing at all. In fact, military and political are often so closely intertwined in the global consciousness that there's no distinction at all. But if you narrow it down to ambassadors, embassy workers, envoys, and diplomats, the demographic becomes much narrower.

It gets even narrower if you think of the interculturally raised children of globally notorious politicians. Which brings me to a video I found, courtesy of The Korean's Facebook page.

Apparently the late Kim Jong-Il's 18 year old grandson is studying at a European university and granted an interview to Finnish TV. His candor and open-ness are refreshing, as are his simple insights on his experience as a global nomad and an intercultural child of political origin.

Here's part 1;

And part 2;

Watch this space--I'll be keeping media tabs on Kim Han-Sol simply because I hope he survives to be a diplomat or whatever else he wants to be. The saddest part of this whole situation is that all of the things that make this a charming, interesting interview also may be placing this young man's life at risk. His uncle, Yi Han-Yong, when caught publicly speaking about his defection, was summarily murdered.

Spy and assassin are two demographics of global nomad that I don't want to address in this blog. Best of luck, Kim Han-Sol