New Albany

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My name is Ellice. I am in “the best suburb in America”. But a couple cities by the sea have my heart.

[Photo of Ellice and her youngest Brother, Josh in the New Albany neighborhood]

I grew up by Boston, in a town full of rooted Italian Irish Catholic families, and the world’s brightest immigrants joined together by innovation, scholarship, history, and liberty. Boston is tough, competitive, and hearty. 

I lived in the Bay Area, where the brightest and most innovative technological engineers re-imagine society and culture. The Bay is suave, cool. Berkeley is a school known for its progressive student body history, and close proximity to states that welcomed the first East Asians as citizens in the United States. 

I moved about some more. Now, I am in Ohio. 

There are only a few constants in my life of transitions: Faith, Family, Friendship, and Food. When I was growing up, faith and family were the boundaries for the spaces in which friends and food mingled. As I moved repeatedly–faith and food have become the spaces in which family and friends mingle. Everyone has a higher power to give them hope and purpose, even if that higher power is themselves. And everyone needs food to sustain their bodies. Faith and food are the great humanizers.

As I participate in Jeni’s project, I am in full time Masters studies at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio. The Methodist Church has a beautiful migration history settling into the MidWest, and my graduate school has a history of being involved in the Civil Rights Movement. MTSO has built hoop houses, installed energy saving panels, and run a farm to table operation. Jeni’s socially conscious, performative ceramics are connected with the land and its people. This art piece intersects perfectly with my own journey. I anticipate getting to know more about Ohio, and go deeper in my young Ohioan friendships. I’m all in.