Selenia Gangari

 Hello!

Like we said on the Table Manners page, Syrah and I have chosen to work under pseudonyms in order to maintain privacy. For a while I had a hard time thinking of a name-how do you pick a fake name, right? After some thought, a name that stuck with me was Selenia. I wasn't sure why, so I decided to look further into it. It turns out, Selenia is a Latinized version of the Greek Goddess's name Selene – the Goddess of the moon. I've always felt a really strong connection to the moon – in high school, I used to joke that the moon was my girlfriend (that's rough, buddy). So, Selenia was definitely the first name. For my second name, I wanted something that represented my dream to travel. One day, I was listening to a recommended playlist on Spotify, and heard a song I really liked. I checked the song and band name and it was The Lost Viking by the band Gangari. I liked the name Gangari, and I love vikings, so I looked further into the name. I found the name Gangari is another name used by the God, Odin, specifically meaning wanderer and traveler! Obviously, my mind was made up and Selenia Gangari was the final decision.

I was born in California, but I grew up in the Midwestern United States. I moved around a lot within the Midwest, switched schools several times, but we stayed in the same general areas. My dream, though, is to travel the world. I love nature and camping, and my ideal life would be living in a decked out RV, traveling the world, and camping in the wilderness. I'm not quite there yet – money tends to be a big factor in these things – but I'm working towards it! I've started buying campsite necessities for long term solo-camping, and I love to try them out and go camping locally when the weather is nice. I want to see the world, live in tune with it, and create art the whole way.

I've had many interests, but art is the thing I keep coming back to, it's what makes me feel grounded. For careers though, my passion has been much more transient. As a kid, I wanted to be a paleontologist (did anyone seriously not want to study dinosaurs, though?), but then I thought a marine biologist would be pretty cool too. Then I thought being a botanist sounded nice, too....maybe a biologist, or a veterinarian? I knew I wanted to do something with nature and animals, I just couldn't put my finger on it. But give me a break, I was a kid. Around 8^th grade, I decided to be more “practical” and work toward something more “attainable” but profitable. One of my parents strongly suggested being a pharmacist, so I figured that would be a good path to follow. I cracked down on my grades and graduated high school with honors. I started a pre-pharmacy program at a community college, and quickly found out that organic chemistry kicked my ass. Like, met me out behind the school and beat my ass, then threw me in the dumpster. So, after a good long two years of crying over my textbooks, I thought maybe that wasn't the path for me after all. I've worked here and there since then – a chicken factory, an Amazon warehouse, security, a bar and grill, even McDonald's for a little bit. I kept drawing, always dreaming I could make my art into a career, but never believing in myself enough to really make a go of it. That changed though when Syrah asked me to work on this project with her.

She told me about the story a few years ago, and I knew this was an important project for her. Of course my first reaction was excitement...and of course a crippling anxiety of not being good enough to pull it off. However, I decided to face my self-doubt head on and agreed. Working on this project has given me a new sense of direction and motivation with my art, and I'm working even harder on getting a career rolling in the field I love. I've even expanded my horizons into new mediums, specifically graphic art, and I'd love to take you on the journey with me as I navigate this latest path and finally follow a dream that only a year ago seemed too elusive to capture.