Sometimes a little can say a lot. Junior art education major Meghan Freund doesn’t have the flashiest MySpace page but that doesn’t mean her creativity doesn’t shine through.

Freund is no stranger to the world of online networking. Before joining the ranks of MySpace she was an established member of friendster.com. Either way, Freund utilizes both sites the same way.

“I used to be a member of friendster.com so I could keep in touch with my friends, but then there were rumors they were going to start charging, so I switched to myspace.com,” Freund said. “I liked the idea of my friends from the past and present being able to contact me and also being able to meet new people from my area. I keep updating because I’ve met a lot of really cool people, including musicians and artists.”

One of the most fantastic finds Freund alludes to is that of musician Jeff London, whom Freund says she is trying to convince to play a show in DeKalb.

“He’s a solo musician actually,” Freund said. “I found him on the Hush Records Web site and randomly downloaded some of his music.”

When Freund isn’t trolling MySpace for snazzy musicians, she often finds herself commuting to and from Algonquin where she works as a Home Depot cashier. This makes her MySpace screen name, “catastrophe waitress,” somewhat misleading.

“‘[Dear] Catastrophe Waitress’ is the name of a Belle & Sebastian song,” she said. “I’ve never actually been a waitress, but I don’t think it would sound as cool if I put my name as ‘catastrophe cashier’.”

Cashiering is just what Freund does to pay the bills. Her real passion is art. It is a part of her personality which certainly comes across in her profile. According to the “About Me” section of her profile, art is just about the only thing she is good at.

“I’m not very good at anything else, academic-wise,” Freund said. “I’m a very audio visual person and creative things are my only hobbies I guess.”

Freund chose art education as her major after one of her teachers at Columbia College in Chicago convinced her that she would probably hate advertising design, which was her major at the time.

“Honestly, if I could just make a living being an artist, it would rock, but I chose art education as a back-up major,” she said. “That way I can do art and teach something I love at the same time.”

In her own practice, Freund finds that it is her own life’s experiences that inspire her most when it comes to creating something.

“I’m always searching for some new feeling to assess and make something out of it,” Freund said. “There are a few paintings this semester I’m really proud of mostly because I worked really hard, but also my nude drawings from last semester. At first my life drawing class was difficult, but then it got to be second nature.”

While Freund has been able to grab hold of many art techniques and skills, like drawing the human figure, some things never get easier. For Freund, creating something worth seeing is often the hardest part.

“The hardest thing about art is trying to come up with something that other people would actually want to look at,” she said. “The fact that creating art makes me feel good about myself, and it’s a release of tension and emotions keeps me motivated. Also the fact that nothing I create will ever be exactly the same.”