KATIA NOVAK

I'm Katia. I'm an artist from California, going to school in Paris, studying politics and film. I created this webpage to share my art along with some of the things that inform and inspire it. I mostly use pencil, pen, watercolor, acrylic, gouache, and oil. I like fashion, film, politics, language, science, history, music, world cultures, and swearing.

[katianovak]

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Go here for my new official website.

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We only see the violence of change...Are we aware of how much violence goes on just to keep things the way they are?

Slavoj Žižek

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What a waste. 

I loved Anthony Bourdain and I’m pretty broken up about his death. My favorite food show host. Not too smiley. Never patronizing. But I didn’t watch for the food as much as the culture. The more I ruminate on it, I realize how much he and his show taught me about the ways other people live. I feel like maybe 60% of the stuff I know about other places was something I picked up from him over the decade or so he was on air.

And on top of that, his latest show was so beautifully put together. (I once literally tracked the editor down online and professed my love). With his fame he spread beauty, empathy, and a reverence for human existence. He was such a nice addition to the planet. 

What Tony taught me: Every culture, big or small, world-renowned or little-known, has something to offer. Food, music, art, opinions - any place or people is worthy of the spotlight. And Tony shined his generously.

I’ll miss him a lot.

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Ya know that women never really faint! And villains always blink their eyes!

The Velvet Underground, Sweet Jane

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My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.

Henry Rollins

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WE’LL FACE UNAFRAID THE PLANS THAT THEY’VE MADE!

Like the new Tax Bill, just in time for X-mas. Here’s a list my congressman, Mark DeSaulnier, distributed about how it will affect Americans financially:

Huge tax breaks to the top 5% in perpetuity, with the biggest gains going to the top 1% and corporations;

Many middle class families will pay more in taxes by 2027;

Adds $2.2 trillion to the national debt over ten years, and leading to future cuts to programs middle class families rely on like Social Security

Causes 13 million people to lose health coverage by dramatically undermining the Affordable Care Act.

And don’t forget the environmental impact. 

How long are we gonna stand in the middle of the living room watching as they lift our furniture out the door and set fire to the curtains? This is OUR house. OUR earth. OUR money. And they’re STEALING from us. HOW LONG ARE WE GONNA LET THEM?

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Sneakily included in the recently passed Tax Bill is a provision that allows for drilling and oil production in the ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE.

1.5 million acres of precious...irreplaceable...dellliiicate Alaskan wilderness will be stripped of its protection, allowing fossil fuel producers to rape and pillage yet another plot of nature which is rightfully everyone’s to enjoy, protect, and benefit from.

This land is also “critical habitat for foxes, polar bears, and caribou,” and “could also threaten sacred lands for the Native Alaskan Gwich’in tribe...”

Let it be known, Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski is really dropping the ball here. Or rather, she never picked it up. She’s actually the one who requested the drilling provision be added. She and other Republicans have been whining for decades about how much cash “we” could make if we’d just allow big business to rip the refuge, which sits atop admittedly large oil and gas reserves, to shreds. 

Not to mention, “The measure...essentially broke Senate rules about what can be added to the tax bill. The provisions, according to Unruh Cohen, “stepped on the jurisdiction” of the Environmental and Public Works Committee,” but that’s no prob for Lisa, apparently...

And this isn’t the only anti-environment legislation in the Tax Bill. It also repeals a $7,500 tax credit for electric car buyers, includes an amendment that allows, “...some income from oil and gas companies to be taxed at a significantly lower rate,” maintains, “...tax provisions for the oil industry, including deductions for drilling costs...”, and undermines alternative energy companies’ “capacity to use renewable energy tax credits.”

And the money we’ll no longer be spending on the environment will help to subsidize the massive tax cuts the elites will be receiving. Congress is still hashing out the discrepancies between the Senate and House versions of the bill, but the top corporate tax rate will most likely be lowered from 35% (which they rarely pay in full anyway) to 20-22%. 

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Magazine clippings on mixed media paper

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...There is no such thing as a language. There are just lots of different ways of speaking...that are more or less similar to one another. Some of them may have prestige associated with them. For example: the speech of a wealthy or conquering group...And we may decide those are the good ones...But if the social and political relations reversed, we'd make the opposite conclusions...

Professor Noam Chomsky

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...Evil is not something that can ever be conquered or defeated. Evil is natural. It is innate in all humans. But...it can be controlled. In order to control it...you must learn to see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two.

Hayao Miyazaki

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Some of the many gorgeous looks and sets from The Cell, (2000). 

There’s something about the way Tarsem Singh does surrealism that reminds me of my own dreams…

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Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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Childhood patterns. 

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He drew a circle that shut me out- Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in!

‘Outwitted,’ Edwin Markham, 1914

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“They want to create an uninformed electorate which will make uninformed choices; often against their own interest.”

-Noam Chomsky, Requiem for the American Dream, (2015)

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The purpose of civilization...is to be able to reach out and empathize ...with other people.  And for me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy. It lets you understand a little bit more about  different hopes, aspirations, dreams, and fears. It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us.

Roger Ebert

[lateafterhours]

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[katianovak]

“Kick over the wall, ‘cause government’s to fall

How can you refuse it?

Let fury have the hour! Anger can be power!

D’you know that you can use it?!”

- The Clash, ‘The Clampdown’

[buenosviajes]

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