HomeCommunity NewsUsing Her Artwork to Break Down Barriers

Using Her Artwork to Break Down Barriers

ACCOMPLISHED ARTIST: San Marino High School senior Catherine Tang displays an example of “bullet journaling,” an artistic expression that led to her creation of an enamel pin, that touts her support of females in STEM education and workplaces. Tang has created a Kickstarter page to fund her project. Mitch Lehman Photos

Catherine Tang, a senior at San Marino High School, makes no apologies for her unique character. She has even taken that passion to the point of naming her fledgling business after that most undeniable personality trait.

“I created Nerd-Aesthetic because I want more girls to be confident in their abilities and to embrace their love for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics),” said Tang. “Women in STEM is something I am passionate about, and I want to empower females in the pursuit of STEM through my designs that integrate Fem, Stem, and Art.”

A noted doodler who can in an instant produce hundreds of sketches from her own hand, Tang has created a Kickstarter page for her own line of enamel pins in an effort to spread acceptance of the pursuit of educational fields that were once deemed undesirable by females.

Enamel pins are currently popular with young people, who can tout their interests on backpacks, jacket lapels and on corkboards, according to Tang.

She also participates in what is known in social media circles as “bullet journaling” and, again, instantly produced volumes of her work, which includes calendars filled with artistic reminders of assignments and appointments.

“It’s concise and it’s also journaling,” Tang said. “It actually became popular a couple years ago. There is a whole community of enthusiasts who share their work on social media, especially Instagram. It was while making a routine journal entry that Tang happened upon the enamel pin she has submitted for production. Donors to the Kickstarter page are eligible to receive one of the colorful pins that touts Fem STEM and includes the symbol for females next to a laboratory beaker.

Tang’s interests are much more widespread that she even might admit. She is a member of San Marino High School’s Math team and Dance Company, serves as president of the LEO Club, which stands for Leadership, Experience and Opportunity, and in September was named Homecoming Queen by her fellow students.

“That was a big surprise,” she says with the biggest of smiles. “I didn’t expect that.”

Catherine was escorted across the red carpet in Titan Stadium that night by her mother and father, Victoria Du and Michael Tang. She has a younger brother, Alexander Tang, who is a seventh grader at Huntington Middle School.

Though it’s a tough item for discussion this time of year, Catherine is looking at business schools on the East Coast and in the Ivy League as potential landing spots for college, where she hopes to study a combination of business, art, design and math.

Quite an eclectic combination.

In the meantime, Catherine’s Kickstarter page can be accessed through her website at catandcreate.com or on Instagram, where examples of her skills in the intricate specifics of bullet journaling are most fascinating.

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