Jacquelyn Meiners, St. Louis senior, has a lot of ideas. Cooking inside her colorfully decorated house on Kentucky Street in Lawrence, or smoking on the front porch, Jacquelyn's imagination is always working. She wants to make a zine with her friends, she plans to put a swing on the tree in their front yard, she wants to live in a self-sustainable village. Someday she wants to have a park full of art work, so people can wander through the park to observe or interact with the different works.
An art major, Jacquelyn describes herself as a conceptual artist. She's best at creating the concept of an art piece, but bad at going through with it. Her friends would agree, describing her as creative and contemplative, but also prone to procrastination, however talented she may be.
"I've always been her #1 fan. When she draws people she gets a lot of them in just a few lines," Huelman said. Huelman, St. Louis senior, has known Jacquelyn since their freshman year of high school. Huelman understands why Jacquelyn is not always able to make her ideas come to life; she has a lot of distractions.
Over the summer Jacquelyn studied abroad in Japan through the University of Kansas' study abroad program, turning 21 while she was there. She began working as a barista and waitress at Global Café when she returned. Jacquelyn moved into her house on Kentucky Street after studying abroad. Her roommate and co-worker, Anna Sobering, remembers when Jacquelyn first moved in.
"She tried to give us this soy bean candy she brought back from Japan. She was so proud of it. She really likes that kind of stuff. But it tasted terrible," Sobering said.
Jacquelyn's family has been facing tough situations that are also distractions from any projects Jacquelyn wants to pursue. Her grandmother on her mother's side is suffering from non-hodgkins lymphoma, a blood cancer like leukemia. She is taking her last round of chemotherapy. Jacquelyn's mother, Christa, believes that there is nothing her family has not dealt with and they will endure. "We're doing fine...We're prepared," Christa Meiners said.
Jacquelyn's younger brother, Kenny, was planning to be a professional lacrosse player, when he suffered neck injuries, including a broken vertebra. Doctors believe he should not risk any trauma, or he may become paralyzed. Despite their warnings Kenny plans to play his last season of lacrosse in high school, before going to Mizzou.
Since transferring to KU last year, Jacquelyn has felt much more at home. Truman State University in Kirksville Mo. was not ideal for Jacquelyn, although she did have a free ride with an academic scholarship, and spent almost an entire year there.
"It was really lonely," Jacquelyn said; remembering breaking up with a boyfriend, learning in a bad art program, and living in a small town without culture.
"No one wants to live there." Jacquelyn said.
Transferring to KU was an interesting challenge for Jacquelyn. After already planning to leave Truman State University, Jacquelyn was suspended for a year when she was arrested because of a misunderstanding, and forced to spend a night in jail. Jacquelyn had gone to the art building at Truman State to get her violin case, when she saw that she could climb to the roof, and there was no sign warning against doing so. From the roof she had a great view of the town. She was also spotted by someone who mistook her violin case for a gun case and called the police. Jacquelyn was searched and the police found a small amount of marijuana with her. Jacquelyn's mother, Christa Meiners, was already on her way to help Jacquelyn move out when she had to make the detour to bail Jacquelyn out of jail. Jacquelyn was let off with trespassing and was sentenced with 20 hours of community service. Christa Meiners believes the transfer went smoothly from such a small school to a much larger one. She also knows her daughter is much happier now.
"I think she has many talents and this brings up the top tier of her talents," Christa Meiners said.
"You're a lot freer to do what you want," Jacquelyn said of KU's art program. The art program has an expanded media department, which includes Jacquelyn's passion, instillation art. Jacquelyn has always liked art to be outdoors, she has never been interested in galleries where art pieces are treated like artifacts, but she believes are is alive and meant to be experienced.
Distractions aside, Jacquelyn still volunteers at the Solidarity library, a social center in downtown Lawrence. She is teaching herself to play violin, and continues to study Japanese language at KU along with her art major. Her parents describe her as multi-talented, and believe she could be a Supreme Court judge, or a writer, but support her artistic and linguistic interests.
"I think it's great. We support her. We don't worry about the financial future. We think more about spiritual fulfillment. And she's going to do great," Christa Meiners said.
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