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[28 Oct 2009|08:33pm] |
Born in Illinois in 1989, Alexandra Valencia is the oldest daughter of a tattoo artist, Johnny Valencia, and his girlfriend, Missy Baylin. Alex has three younger siblings - John jr., Megan, and Catherine - whom she spent a lot of her teenage years bringing up. Her mom is a nurse, and both Missy and Alex’s dad’s professions meant that they were out of the house during the day and sometimes at night in her mom’s case. Alex was very much the ‘little mother’ of the family and by the age of thirteen, with her siblings then aged five, seven and eight, she was ‘allowed’ to be left in charge of getting them to school and back as well as making their lunches. It wasn’t exactly a privilege she had wanted, but she got on with it. Alex isn’t the most maternal soul alive and she didn’t take to it like a duck to water, often being stricter with her siblings than they might have needed, but they didn’t always pay much attention to her anyway so it didn’t do any lasting damage.
Alex went to high school in Springfield, at Springfield High. She wasn’t the most well-liked girl in school, either by students or staff, because she had a penchant for mouthing off - something she learned from her dad, who had taught her never to let herself be put in a corner. Unfortunately, at fourteen and already under the stress of having to care for her younger brother and sisters, Alex wasn’t always the best equipped to judge when she was being put in a corner or when she was being fairly disciplined and should keep her thoughts to herself. She couldn’t afford to be put in detention after school because of having to pick up her siblings from their own schools, and the teachers were, mercifully, aware of that situation and accommodating to it, but she spent more than what she considered a fair share of lunchtimes in a classroom serving out her punishment for backchat, tardiness, and breaking uniform regulations. In short, she was no model pupil.
Fortunately, Alex had a brain to back up her lack of good behavior. Academically, she was smart and tested well. She wasn’t particularly interested in the more book-focused subjects taught in school, though - she had a craving to be an artist, and a fascination with photography from a young age. Her parents didn’t want Alex to leave Springfield when it came to be time for her to go to college, but she put her foot down - she’d been looking after her siblings throughout her high school years, had sacrificed most of her social life to do so, and now wanted a chance to have some freedom. Johnny wasn’t persuaded by the argument, but Missy was, and luckily for Alex, her mom definitely ruled the roost.
Alex left Illinois behind in 2007 to attend college at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She’s two years into her degree and she’s a Photography major. She started working for Callum Kirkley, a semi-well-known photographer, on a casual assistant’s basis earlier this year, and when he told her he was going to work for Spent magazine, Alex decided she would try to get an internship there so they could continue to work together.
She currently lives in Brooklyn with three roommates and divides her time between classes and Spent. |
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