PHOTO BY KARRIGAN MONK
ASHLEY MCMAHAN
JUNIOR BIOLOGY AND NEUROSCIENCE STUDENT FROM BRYSON CITY
What tattoos do you have?
I have eight.
Do they have any specific mean
ing?
The butterfly and the rose was the
first one I got and it was a Christ
mas gift from one of my friends
from high school. When I was in
elementary school, this same per
son would say, “Whenever you
see a butterfly it means someone’s
thinking about you.” I got this to
help me remember everyone that
has passed.
The second one, which is a little
heart, was three days after my
first one. It’s actually a matching
tattoo with one of my best friends
from high school.
The honesty and love infinity tat
toos are matching
tattoos with another of my friends
from high school.
The one on my hip that’s the heart
made of the words, each one of
those words means something
special to me so they’re there to
help me get through everything.
I also have quotes on my ribs. I
fell in love with the quotes when
T was a freshman in high school. I
was just like, “I wanna get ‘em.”
So I finally ended up getting them.
I have a star and moon on the back
of my shoulder that was a stick
and poke. One of my best friend’s
was going through a rough time
SO I just let her give me a tattoo.
Wow. How did the stick and
poke differ from your experi
ence getting the others?
The stick and poke differed be
cause it didn’t feel like needles
constantly going in you. It was
just a little poke and a second lat
er another one. It was just more
spread out and took a longer time.
What would you say to some
one getting a tattoo for the first
time?
As long as it means something to
them. There are some people who
get tattoos and instantly regret it.
I feel like getting a tattoo means
every time you see that tattoo you
think about the experiences that
went with it and what that meant
to you.
If you would like your
tattoo featured,
email kmonk@unca.edu.
Professor
tunes into
music and the
environment
SARAH SHADBURNE
Arts & Features
sshadbur@unca.edu
In times divided by politics, the envi
ronment often gets caught in the cross
hairs then dropped off and forgotten,
but the world exists in sound: birds
chirping, leaves crunching, wind blow
ing and raindrops dripping.
Music plays an
incredible role in
our perceptions of
the world and for
UNC Asheville
Assistant Profes
sor of Music and
Jazz Scholar Bill
Bares, this role
B3fes motivates his ac
ademic and per
sonal trajectories.
“Being able to express yourself el
oquently and sensitively in the sur
roundings of other people doing the
same thing, is profoundly democratic
and political,” Bares said. “At its best,
jazz is an embodiment of the best kind
of democratic participation.’
A relatively new branch of music
studies called ecomusicology deals ex
plicitly with the intersections of music,
culture and nature with consideration
for musical and environmental issues,
according to The
Grove Dictionary
of American Mu
sic.
In a recent talk
given by Bares ti
tled Jazz and the
Sounds of Nature,
he emphasized
the connections
between jazz and the natural world
through music with ecological under
currents, framing jazz as a response to
lived environments.
“It’s a way to look at the world not lit
erally, but imaginatively,” Bares sqid.
“To jazz up a tune is to take something
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