Do you have a love of odd art, cats, plant life, and vintage fashion? Then Anna Teiche is your kind of person! She is one of the most unique and wonderful people out there, with interests ranging from dance to graphic design to welding. We sat down with her and asked just a few questions to get to know her better—check it out!
Her Campus Cal Poly: What is your major and concentration?
Anna Teiche: I’m an Art and Design major concentrating in Studio Art, I’m a third year, oh and my name’s Anna, in case you didn’t know. I came to Cal Poly with a Graphic Design concentration and decided to switch to Studio Art at the end of my sophomore year.
A few things influenced me to switch; I still like graphic design and plan to work in it to some extent in the future, but in my introductory drawing class I realized that I like the hands-on aspect more than the digital aspect, so I switched to Studio Art. But I like that I studied Graphic Design for almost two years because it gave me a good base understanding of Graphic Design as a whole; now I can apply Graphic Design concepts to my Studio Art.
HCCP: What about future plans?
AT: After I graduate I plan on going to grad school either for Studio Art or Curation of Art Pieces. I would like to go to another country… maybe Norway because I have lots of family there. Generally I’d like to become some sort of practicing artist and hopefully travel a lot, as well as have a lot of cacti, and a cat that travels with me.
HCCP: What are your current projects?
AT: Well, I’m taking a public sculpture class so we’re making one to go into the Arboretum, possibly for long term, and when we made proposals of different sculptures mine got chosen along with one other! We’re kind of rushing to get them done right now before the quarter ends and we’re welding which is not something I’ve done before so that’s interesting to learn. I am also working on a series of paintings of people and plants in domestic situations. I have been making paintings exploring different techniques and exploring what styles I want to paint in.
HCCP: Favorite thing you’ve ever made?
AT: Last quarter I found a free chair on Craigslist and it was so comfy! But I wanted to make it more comfy and I’m really interested in fiber art so I found all these yard sale crochet and embroidered fabric pieces and ended up making all these lumps on the chair stuffed and covered with the pieces. I think of embroidery as a very stationary art that takes a lot of time, so to put it on the chair that I can imagine someone sitting in and making these pieces, it sort of makes it come alive. I love seeing people’s reactions to the chair because some people think it’s the most grotesque thing and others think it’s the comfiest thing so that’s really interesting to see the different interpretations of it.
HCCP: What jobs are you working right now?
AT: I work as one of the graphic designers for the library making swag items (like for WOW and Open House) and anything they need at the time. I also do some exhibit design for special collections and kind of just whatever we need done there.
HCCP: What are some of your extracurriculars?
AT: I’m involved in the Swing and Blues dancing clubs on campus; I’m the graphic designer for both clubs and have been for about 3 years. I do the designs for whatever we need like shirts or for our big events throughout the year, as well as the decorations for our big events. I actually got into dancing because my WOW group went to a Blues WOW event. Instantly, I was like this is amazing, so I took my freshmen roommates back the next week. Funny enough, one of them is going to be the president of the Blues club next year, so I claim credit for getting her into that. I also got into Lindy Hop shortly after because the clubs are related. When I was deciding on colleges I visited Cal Poly and saw the Lindy Hop booth and then when I was deciding I made pros/cons lists, and for Cal Poly a pro included learning how to dance and now I’m really involved in that!
HCCP: What are some of your favorite things besides art and dance?
AT: I just love making things, so weird crafting things and jewelry making are some of my hobbies. I also love art museums and traveling, as well as just wandering around neighborhoods and petting random cats I come across.
HCCP: Your fashion style is really unique; what influences you?
AT: When I was in high school, I really liked vintage fashion and odd clothing pieces. The other day I was talking to my professor and she said my style is kind of awkward and I feel like that describes me well. I enjoy fun colors and patterns as well, and I’m very fond of my extensive earing collection; I just like funky stuff.
HCCP: Anything else you would like to share?
AT: Fun fact: when I was in 6th grade I wrote a children’s chapter book about my two cats traveling the world studying science topics, like the deserts, rainforests and oceans! I started it because my science teacher had us do a project about an element on the periodic table and I got magnesium so I wrote about my cats going on an adventure to find magnesium in nature. Then my teacher said I should write more and self-publish it so I did. It’s called “Marlowe and Linus’s Astounding Adventures Around the World” and it’s about 5 chapters long. I also used to make jewelry out of little ceramic cupcakes with smiley faces to sell at the local farmer’s market to benefit the Cancer Society. My jewelry business was called Cupcakes for Cancer!