Freestyle Academy proudly presents

Astrid: A Senior Profile Portrait by Elise Vanderlip (2011)

Astrid Stenstrom lives in a tiny apartment deep within the mission of San Francisco. She works at Yoshi's San Francisco and gets Sundays off. She usually spends her spare time painting, playing the dulcimer, or getting lost in Golden Gate park. She likes her coffee with half milk. Her front door is painted jungle red. She grew up in the heart of Stockholm. Her father was a train conductor, and her mother was beautiful. But she died when Astrid was seven. After that, Astrid left school and spent a lot time riding trains for her father's work. She read. She looked out the window. She made friends that lasted for train rides and train rides only. Astrid moved to San Francisco to study cooking. She loves the fog in the city and the way it can crawl under your skin. She loves the lights and the streetcars and the Monterrey pines. She loves the smell of ocean beach on a particularly damp day. She believes music is far superior when played on vinyl and any baguette better when ripped with your hands rather than sliced. She lives in the past. She listens to John Coltrane even though his music is sometimes angry, and she collects bottle caps for no reason. Her best friend is her cat. She's alone and she likes it that way. This image shows Astrid surrounded by her beloved books and records. In her hands she holds an old version of the Wizard of Oz to signify her admiration for books and her longing to live in the past. She is dressed in a somewhat vintage manner to signify this attachment to the way things used to be. The telephone on the ground is sitting slightly off to the side to represent Astrid's social disconnection from the world around her. The style of the image itself is slightly faded to show that she is fading from the world around her as she tries to submerge herself in the her past.
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