Jenny [on the] Lam

Remember the Scholastic Book Fair?? Yesterday was the first day of the Boozy Book Fair in Chicago! It’s like childhood in the 90s again, except with themed cocktails, and I’m not a cheap kid who rarely wanted to spend any $ anymore. 😂 So of course at the end of the night I bought a collection of OG Goosebumps books. 😁

(As many of you already know: I read every single book in the original series as a child, but in the library, so I didn’t actually own these (except for a nostalgic gift from friends in adulthood, and a signed copy which I’ll get into later). Every Saturday afternoon, starting when I was 6, my dad would bring me to our local library; there, he’d pick out 7 picture books, one for him to read to me each night, while I’d make a beeline to where the chapter books were and grab the latest 2 or so Goosebumps acquisitions (it was so satisfying when I’d open them up and see that no one else had checked them out before). I’d spend a couple hours there and read them on the spot; my favorite place to do so was on a rocking chair underneath a Mother Goose mobile in the middle of a sunny, seemingly private corner of the children’s section. When I was done I’d go find my dad in the history section (naturally). And almost two years ago I met R. L. Stine (hence the aforementioned signed book) and made sure to let him know he’s my hero, and he was so kind 🥹💚)

Meanwhile on Twitter, Jake Tapper is rewriting history.

I'm being 100% serious when I say that Millennials need to counteract these false narratives in published writing.

I made these! Just a few of my creations from the Spring session of my Wheelthrowing class. This was my second time taking the Advanced Beginning level after a year in Beginning. 😊 Pictured here are:

1 - My first time trying Tea Dust!

2 - Another glaze experiment :)

3 - First time trying sgraffito

4 - My second porcelain jar! (All of these are porcelain btw. ^^)

5 - My 2nd ever teapot! I wasn't too keen on how the glaze turned out so here it is as bisqueware, along with a bonus photo in its leather hard greenware stage

6 - My 1st successful plate (I say successful because the first time I made one during the Winter session I accidentally cut through it 😆)!

📍: Lillstreet Art Center <3

I've just been announced as a Semifinalist for the Urban Photo Awards 2026! And the competition received submissions by 5,000 photographers from around the world! My two photos that have been selected for the Semifinal stage:

- Scale[s], of the Xiqu Centre in Hong Kong, shot on my iPhone 12 Pro this past March: http://www.urbanphotoawards.com/en/photonew/?id=345579%2Fjenny-lam%2Fscales

- One Step at a Time, in the Art Institute of Chicago, shot on my iPhone 5s in 2015: http://www.urbanphotoawards.com/en/photonew/?id=345587%2Fjenny-lam%2Fone-step-at-a-time

Thank you to the Jury, and congratulations to all the other Semifinalists!

Scale[s]. Xiqu Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong, back in March. // I'm delighted to announce that I'm one of the Selected Photographers for the Urban Photo Awards 2026 in Trieste, Italy! And the competition received a staggering 20,000 submissions! Five of my works have been published in their gallery:

- Place in the Sun (2025) in Luohan Temple, Chongqing, China: http://www.urbanphotoawards.com/en/photonew/?id=314986%2Fjenny-lam%2Fplace-in-the-sun,

- Scale[s] (2026) (pictured here): http://www.urbanphotoawards.com/en/photonew/?id=345579%2Fjenny-lam%2Fscales,

- Big Baby (2025) at the No Kings Rally and March in Chicago: http://www.urbanphotoawards.com/en/photonew/?id=345583%2Fjenny-lam%2Fbig-baby,

- Mountain City (2025) at Xiahaoli / Longmenhao Old Street, Chongqing: http://www.urbanphotoawards.com/en/photonew/?id=345581%2Fjenny-lam%2Fmountain-city, and

- One Step at a Time (2015) in the Art Institute of Chicago: http://www.urbanphotoawards.com/en/photonew/?id=345587%2Fjenny-lam%2Fone-step-at-a-time.

The first four photos were shot on my iPhone 12 Pro, and the last one was shot on my iPhone 5s.

Thank you to all the jurors!

It was so foggy tonight, this is what my local fireworks looked like lmao. (I didn’t use night mode or edit this photo whatsoever; this is really what it looked like.) Well, it sounded like a good show?

Happy 4th of July / Happy 250th birthday, America ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Stay cool, Chicago! ☀️ Throwback to last week: Inside The Understudy Coffee and Books, a queer-owned theatre-themed hybrid bookstore and coffee shop in Andersonville. 📚☕ Stopped by before my ceramics class, and, like Lillstreet Art Center, they also have fresh pastries from Defloured gluten-free bakery. 🥐 Such a pretty café!

[Edit: Thank you Siren Betty Design and Defloured for accepting my invite to be collaborators on my Instagram post!]

Today was the Grand Opening Celebration of Hello Kitty Cafe Chicago, the world's largest Hello Kitty Cafe! And I was among the first to have Afternoon Tea in the Bow Room! 🫖

The tea room is in the basement of the café and it was like a speakeasy (very appropriate for Chicago); when the staff pressed the button to open the secret door we all gasped. 😄 Most of the staff were young and all were super nice, and you could feel their first day excitement! (I was excited too.) Shout-out to our server Mingma (her folks are from Nepal and her dad was a Sherpa!).

Love that we get this in Chicago 🩷