Alexis, 33

'Outside the Box'

“No, I don’t have a house. I’m living on the streets right now. I do have some family, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you actually have a place, do you know what I mean?  ‘Cause they don’t have room for me there, and I tried to live there and it didn’t work out, ‘cause, you know, I’m the “thieving drug addict” so [they assume that] everything that goes missing, I took but I’m like, “I’m expecting an apology when you find that.”

I like to do art, I love to draw. I like creating. I used to make jewelry, like out of wire wraps. I like to dance and sing. That’s pretty much it. I like to write lyrics and stuff, but, yeah, I’m kind of emo.

[One of my favorite childhood memories is] going to Minnesota and visiting my mom’s family. It was so fun. It was just farmland so it was just all, like, there was nothing out there but it was so magical, when you were little there was like all these little places you could go in the trees and stuff and make believe whatever you want, you know?  That was cool. I remember having lots of memories there. Which I liked. Family reunions were kind of fun, we’d go up to our cabin in Farmington… but after my grandparents died it kind of stopped. That was a bummer. Once they died it was kinda like the house that they lived in got really spooky. I never thought of it as a haunted house, but it got really haunted. That was weird, but not in a bad way.

I went to college for graphic design and art, just to make something out of my art. I like printed design mostly. I think print, it’s like, more tangible, people still like tangible things, you know, and I wanna like, be innovative with that, I don’t wanna do the whole business card thing, I wanted to make things that people would keep around and re-use and stuff like that ‘ cause I think that’s cool, too. That’s interesting to do. I just want to come up with new concepts and new things, be innovative in our ideas. I’m not like an inventor or anything but I can definitely… I’m a critical thinker, you know. I like to think outside the box, what can I use this for? What can I use that for?”

Photograph and story documented by Kelly Hannah.