Thursday, October 17, 2013

Still in the throes...

...of some non-modeling-related nonsense [it's good nonsense, though]. Updates will be thin until I get back on the wagon. 8]

Here's some more of my modeling-related nonsense, in the meantime:

Bill Durgin, NY, 2013

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

At long last!

Harlemphoto, NY, 2013
Checking back to let you know I'm still alive--but in a remote area. Stay tuned.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Turns out, I've got a real knack for plumbing

Justin Lane, NY, 2013
Just one of the things I've been learning over this summer, while building Skyler's Escapade [i.e., a hugely ambitious five-man--or, well, four-man-one-woman--pyrotechnics project for Burning Man].

Monday, August 12, 2013

Flowing

Bob Freund, MA, 2013
I no longer have the bracelet in that photo, so I'm glad it's been well-documented. It was woven onto my wrist at last year's Burning Man [my first].

It's amazing how much that one unexpected event has rerouted my life. I never had any interest in going to Burning Man, and then, when offered the chance to go completely for free [and with all amenities and food provided], I told myself I wasn't going to become one of those who "go to Burning Man".

Granted, I think I've done a good job keeping the rest of the year full of aspiration and movement, rather than dwelling in nostalgia or anticipation. However, much of my adventures in the last year have been a direct result of my experience at Burning Man and the friends I made while there.

For example, guess where I am now?

In a part of Northern California I'd never before ventured to go.

Why?

Because I'm learning pyrotechnics and building huge fire effects that will sit sixty-five feet in the air and shoot flames an additional twenty feet higher. I've been reacquainting myself with old skills [some basic metalworking] and acquiring new ones [like plumbing], and keeping company with some hilarious characters. Plus some other side adventures: today, a precocious nine-year-old girl taught me all about the herbs in the community garden across the street, and we picked some and brewed a huge vat of tea for everyone.

I've been sleeping in the warehouse/studio [alternately on a mattress in a loft, and in a gorgeous handmade teardrop camper made by one of the guys here], waking late, then working late into the night. It's been six days, and eight days ago, I was helping to coordinate a beautiful desert event in Nevada and had no idea that I was going to be coming here.

Back to modeling, though:

In the last few days I've gotten some really encouraging correspondence and am realizing that I miss it. More than I expected to, I mean. Modeling's been the one constant element in my ever-changing adult life--my primary anchor since I first endeavored to leave the place I grew up calling home. While I'm fully committed to other projects this year...you bet your asses I'll be back.

Monday, August 5, 2013

And the living is easy...

LD Out of Focus, CA, 2013
It's a shame I can't discuss a lot of how I've been spending my summer on this blog, as I've been pretty excited about it.

A lot of it is very personal stuff. Of course, I've never been deterred from rambling about my personal life to an extent, but I've got to draw my own lines, too.

A relatively PC overview of a few ways I've been spending my time:
--Hanging out at an incredible artists' and builders' space out west [a huge warehouse-turned-psychedelic-industrial-arts-workshop...and a lot more] donated by a wealthy benefactor, so that people with ideas and drive can use the space and resources for free to make large-scale art projects, generally for Burning Man. Here, I've been learning/practicing a multitude of skills. For instance: forging metal, spinning fire staff, and laser-etching.
--Cooling off at the river--doing everything from jumping off 40-foot bridges to learning how to fish for the first time.
--Infusing my own herbal cordials and other witchy homebody-esque things.
--Working several festivals and immersing myself into that scene for the first time. It's been an interesting experiment.
--Seeing my sister off as she heads to study abroad for a year in Shanghai by going trapezing together.

Through it all, I've still managed to do a few photo shoots--there isn't much of a model/photographer scene in this part of the country, but I've stumbled into a few gigs here nonetheless, all positive experiences. 8]

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Reemerging

 
Andrew Kaiser, OR, 2013
Lately it's tough to write about anything pertinent to modeling, seeing as I'm mostly on hiatus. I've had a couple local shoots with photographers who've solicited me--but active self-promotion's pretty much on a standstill until my tour in the fall, which, I suppose, isn't so far away now...

Pretty soon I'm going to have to come out of the woodwork. Looking forward to it. Going to be hitting some never-before-visited cities. 8]

Monday, July 29, 2013

If you're going to try...

candid photo of me taken by an old [milestone]; running across the Utahn salt flats
...go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.

--Charles Bukowski, Factotum

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Number Fifteen...

Justin Lane, NY, 2013
...of the Principle Doctrines of Epicurus:

"The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure, but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity."

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Idiosyncracies

BAC Art, NY
I like photos like this--ones that have a hidden bit of backstory.

In the case of this one, take a look at my thumbnail: that jaggedy bit is a leftover from this one time I was riding a very fast little scooter and ripped part of my nail off during a very awesome day. 8]

Monday, July 8, 2013

You know what's nice?

Polaroid by James Jacob Desmet, NY, 2013
When a beautiful tattooed girl behind the bar surprises you with a hefty discount on your overpriced-but-delicious cocktail. 8]

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Pheasant Pelt

Gary Winter, NY, 2013
That's what's in my lap, for the record. And the corset I'm wearing is about 100 years old. 8]



Monday, July 1, 2013

Wanted:

Latex: Vital Vein Fashion // Hats: Boring Sidney Hats // Photo: David Miller // Hair: Andy Tseng // Models: Glass Olive & Sierra McKenzie // WA
More shoots with a full creative team! 8]

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Monday, June 24, 2013

Summer, summer, summer

Iggybug, CA, 2013
 And thus, my excursion Northwest draws to a close.

What now?

A return to home base: i.e., Reno, where I'll be involving myself heavily with some community art projects and the like.

Anyone coming to Reno [or the Bay, or anywhere in between--I'm frequently making the circuit] get in touch! I'll be remaining fairly local until the Fall. 8]

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Simple words...

MagiccImagery, MD, 2013
...I've kept in mind since reading Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray at age fourteen:

"To define is to limit."

Monday, June 17, 2013

Father's Day Blurb

Bob Freund, MA, 2013
While my dad's values and personality differ greatly from my own, he raised me to see myself as a "human" first and a "girl" second: to never feel either limited [growing up, I felt equally free to explore interests in figure skating, crafts, and stage makeup as in heavy machinery, extreme sports, and mathematics] or entitled [while I believe women have historically been restricted, and some still very much are, I also don't believe it's okay for the modern woman to get away with being manipulative, self-victimizing, or bitchy in cases where her privilege allows for her own emancipation] by virtue of being female.

I grew up understanding that there are societal factors that shape what opportunities are available to men or women, and that these opportunities are not equivalent [well, no shit--how many freelance male models do you see?], but that equivalency differs from equality, and in my pursuits I should never set my standard at being "pretty good...for a girl."

My dad raised me to feel empowered to take care of myself, rather than depending on any man to provide for--or validate--me.

Hooray. 8]

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Today

Amanda [ARP], NY, 2013
is my mom's birthday!

That's all. Not much to report today.

Dug myself an unexpected pocket of semi-free time.

Visiting good friends--some from within the model/photographer community, and some from other facets of my life. Still in California for the moment; but northward-bound. 8]

Monday, June 10, 2013

Summer plans!

But first...some candid-dressing-room-cell-phone shots from behind the scenes of some of my east coast shoots [I recently had a photographer joke that I seem to always be typecast as a feral-child-hippie-vagrant-in-the-woods...so here's some proof to the contrary]:


So here's how things are breaking down from now-onward:

June: Pacific Northwest road trip.
Full-time modeling all the while.
Bay ==> NorCal ==> Portland ==> Seattle ==> back down to Reno [home base]

July: Volunteering for the festival season.
Limited modeling availability along the Reno <==> Bay Area circuit.
Burning Girl ==> Lightning in a Bottle ==> [secret NV event] ==> prep for Burning Man [home]

August: Most likely disappearing for the month.

Fall: Planning an exhaustive cross-country road trip.
Modeling full-full-full time--making a big loop, details soon!
Reno ==> Midwest ==> East Coast ==> South ==> Reno

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Until next time, East Coasters! Portland-bound.

With Elena Siddal, who hosted my wandering carcass these last few weeks. Photo by Gary M
Flying out of NYC tomorrow, but I'm already excited for the next time I'll be back.

As usual, there wasn't enough time to do everything or see everyone--but what time there was was swell.

Next up?

From the Bay, headed NorCal-upwards on land [by car, if my poor car's still holding up okay]. Sadly won't be making it to Canada this time around because I'm still waiting on a replacement passport.

Portland and Seattle were acquired tastes for me--I disliked them at first, but kept finding myself mysteriously returning to the area...and then, suddenly, it hit me that I'd fallen in love with it behind my own back.

It's a pretty special part of the country to me; some of my best experiences [both as a model and otherwise] have come out of the Pacific Northwest, but moreover, it seems like I always come up on a LOT of personal growth whenever I take a trip there. It may just be coincidence, but the association exists for me nonetheless, rendering me a bit sentimental.

Monday, June 3, 2013

It is easy...

Bob Freund, CA
...to concoct stories explaining the past or to become confident about dubious scenarios for the future. That there are traps in such endeavors doesn't mean we should not undertake them. But we can work to immunize ourselves against our errors of intuition. We can learn to view both explanations and prophecies with skepticism. We can focus on the ability to react to events rather than relying on the ability to predict them, on qualities like flexibility, confidence, courage, and perseverance. And we can place more importance on our direct impressions of people than on their well-trumpeted past accomplishments. In these ways we can resist forming judgments in our automatic deterministic framework.

--Leonard Mlodinow, The Drunkard's Walk

Thursday, May 30, 2013

...

David Murcko, NY
"She got so she received all things with the stolidness of the earth which soaks up urine and perfume with the same indifference."

--Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes were Watching God

Monday, May 27, 2013

A road may lead to a single house...

[This photograph is full of secrets.]
...but it is not love's road.
Love is a river. Drink from it.

--Rumi

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Chutes and

Deep Exposure, with Anoush Anou and Meghan Claire, CA, 2013
This is from a last-minute shoot in CA I was able to squeeze in before flying back east. I hadn't known either Meghan or Anoush would be coming to the shoot, and it was an awesome surprise--generally I really enjoy working with other models [disclaimer: within certain bounds...ahem]. 8]

A couple days after this the three of us rambled around a couple parks and then got the best ice cream in the Universe.

It's funny how much of my friendships-via-modeling seem to be the result of arbitration...it generally feels like a coincidence when I encounter another model at a shoot, given how much we tend to move around. Connecting, as a nomad, often requires a specific sort of opportunism.

Oh, and a follow-up to two posts ago: contrarily to all the books I'd listed, the first book I finished here on the east coast was Shakespeare's Macbeth, of all things. Though that's since been followed up by The Drunkard's Walk, which is an absolutely fantastic book on the history of probability theory and statistics, and commonly-held misconceptions regarding both--it's more heavy on anecdotes [giving amusing historical context, and illustrating problems in a qualitative, logical way] than on mathematics, so it'd be a worthy read for the layman as well as for the bona fide nerd.

...Oh yeah. I'm a model, not a book critic. I tend to digress quite a bit with these blog posts.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Dusk

James Jacob Desmet, NY, 2013
Modeling challenges my self-perception quite a bit.

It's interesting trying to figure out one's identity when one is a professional muse, inspirer, and--in many cases--pretender. When one makes a living off baring oneself--and off disguising oneself.

It's been a week now, and this trip has been a good one so far:

--In my first four days of modeling in NYC, three photographers asked to book me for a second shoot to take place during this same trip. Lots of last-minute bookings to more than make up for the very few cancellations.
--Have been able to kick it with some good friendpeople--including fellow models Elena Siddal, Emilie Pontellier, Velocity and Sister Thyme, as well as a childhood friend I've known since age two.
--Have indulged in some of the perks of NYC in the form of Sleep No More [!!!], a play called Love Machine, rambling through parks, and some fantastic eateries. Always, always, there must be some time for play. 8]

Feeling appreciative, appreciated, and awash in abundance--headed to DC for a few days.

In addition to modeling [part of which will be for a workshop on Sunday, the 26th--scroll down to a few posts back for details] I'll be visiting with my childhood nanny, and spending some time on an organic farm with a friend I made while backpacking in Yosemite's high country.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Bookworming

Christopher Lee Donovan, NH
As a model I've experimented both with road trips and with flying to a city and relying on public transit while there.

For urban areas and shorter trips that are more than a day's drive away, public transit's generally the way to go. It tends to be cheaper [and in many cases, faster].

But my favorite part about it is that it gets me to read--I actually look forward to these trips for that very reason.
As a kid I was something of a bookworm, but in recent years I've had a rather sporadic and fast-paced lifestyle and usually can't convince myself to plop down and get lost with a book when there's so much LIFE to experience instead [or when I'm stuck behind a steering wheel or a set of handlebars--I'm somewhat finicky about audiobooks and don't often use them].

Last time I was in New York I spent my subway rides ploughing through Anna Karenina.

I just managed to finish Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston the other week. Beautiful.

When traveling light [i.e., out of a backpack instead of a car] my book selection tends to be based on compactness and density more than anything.

My reading list for this trip:

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives -- Leonard Mlodinow
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories -- Franz Kafka
One Two Three...Infinity -- George Gamow
The Stranger -- Albert Camus

...Oh, but I've just now found a copy of The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker on my host's bookshelf...may have to read that instead...

Monday, May 13, 2013

Start spreading the news...


Badass polaroid taken two days ago by Deep Exposure! Meghan Claire, myself, and Anoush Anou in CA.

I'm leaving today...for New York, New York!

It's been about two years since I've been to the east coast--I've always had an absolute blast there.

My last trip entailed the two most productive and rewarding weeks of my entire modeling career [sometimes three shoots a day, working with incredible people to create some really beautiful work]...

...and a few days off to play. I stayed in an ecovillage in Western Mass where I got to help build a cob bench, milk goats, and ride a really powerful scooter through the woods, I made a good number of new friends [both within and outside of the modeling industry], and had some other fantastic adventures.

And that's not to mention how much fun I had the last time I was hanging out in DC--spent an extremely full day running around the National Mall like any good tourist and stayed at my old nanny's house [I hadn't seen her since about age six].

I'll also be hitting up Pennsylvania for the very first time ever.

Anyway, I'll be back east until June 7th!

Pre-tour, it's been a good few days. Whenever possible, I like to visit my family before embarking on extended solo trips [taken for modeling, or otherwise]. Was planning to be a recluse at my old house and told no one--but somehow my closest still-local childhood friends seemed to just KNOW I'd been in the area, and all called me out of the blue upon my arrival. Caught up with old-old friends, explored a strange yuppie-dog-walking-park/reclaimed-hobo-village with my sister, indulged in some fantastic local food...

I've spent this night preceding my flight playing bridge with my family [yes, I play bridge--anyone, anyone?], drinking rose tea with raw honey, and taking a lavender chamomile bath [quite a luxury--not only do I generally not make time for such things, but my home base in Reno doesn't have a bathtub].

As much as I'd call myself something of an adrenaline junkie, I relish the less flashy pleasures. 8]

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Bam. Haiku-for-no-reason.

Bill M, MA
Glammiest of glam.
Some who love it; some will hate.
Yay, variety.

Monday, May 6, 2013

MARYLAND WORKSHOP IN MAY!

Yeah, capitals.

Who: Yours truly!
What: Fine art photography workshop--plus pool party and barbecue! Yes.
Where: MD [exact whereabouts released to participants after sign-up]
When: Sunday, May 26th, from 1-4pm

Here's the information:
http://simplyarlieevents.com/post/46504383824/body-and-soul-with-freya-gallows-may-26-2013

Interested? Contact Arlie directly: lightimagined@gmail.com

This is a great opportunity for those who want to shoot me over on the east coast but are lacking the budget for a private shoot, for those who are new to photography and would like to some guided practice, and for those who think a pool party and barbecue with myself and a few other photographers sounds pretty dandy. 8]

There are only two or three spots left, so time is of the essence! 8]

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Fifty feet of chain



"Like all cold men...


...he was easily driven to sentiment."


Quotation by Ian Fleming [re: James Bond].
Photos by Annie Montgomery. [She's amazing, no?]

Monday, April 29, 2013

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Because nostalgia, that's why!



Both of these are from my first glamour shoot with Rich Cirminello in CA--or the first shoot in which I ever stripped down to my bare nungas! Circa January 2010.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Exhaustive Ramble on New Model Sycophants [i.e., how to do it right]

Cheshire Scott, NH
Finally I've found some inspiration to write about something related to modeling. Prepare for a bit of a tirade.

So I've gotten to thinking, after getting riled up over a few recent emails.

One interesting and rather under-the-rug aspect to freelance modeling is the relationship dynamics between freelance models. 

I'll go ahead and mention that I'm a huge purporter of networking with other models: It keeps the profession safer and more pleasant, and can lead to some really phenomenal friendships [or, at least, puts you in touch with people who can relate to your rather unique vocation]. Other models were an invaluable resource to me when I first started.

So should models contact each other, trade references and share experiences, meet up, host each other, travel together, etc.? Absolutely.

But there's an interesting gray area that I haven't really heard people talk about openly. Specifically, interactions between experienced and new models.

Brand-new models, this is for you. Read this.

I've gotten these messages every now and again, and I'm willing to bet other models who are more well-established than myself have been utterly spammed with them.

This:

"Hi, 

Ohmygod you're so awesome and gorgeous and holy shit blah blah WOW you're amazing [basically: really vague, impersonal, and over-the-top ass-kissing like "you're so amazing" that goes on and on, sometimes for multiple paragraphs].

I want to be a model just like you--contacts would be GREAT.

Holyshityou'reamazing thank you in advance!

--Whoever"

Yeah, annoying. 

But honestly, this is a somewhat understandable letter for a person to send, if they're just zealously jumping in and are not sure what to do. In all honesty, I myself probably wrote letters that aren't too terribly different from the above when I first started out. It CAN be an intimidating prospect to contact someone more established who really has no "reason" to pay attention to you, and ass-kissing is one way people try to win favor when they're not sure what they themselves can offer [being new to modeling, and perhaps feeling like they lack the charisma or eloquence that would otherwise get people to listen to them]. What the hell do you say to someone who does not know you, who has absolutely nothing to gain by responding to you, and absolutely nothing to lose by ignoring you? 

Anyway, back to the point. There are a couple problems I--and many models I know--have with this sort of letter:

Firstly: The over-the-top flattery. It's insincere. It's annoying. The first piece of advice I give to models who write me a load of ass-kissery is, "Do not kiss ass in an attempt to give people a reason to answer you. If you genuinely love someone's work, it's nice to pay them a compliment. But kissing generic ass to excuse yourself for contacting someone is far too transparent to be flattering--and can even backfire so as to insult the recipient. It also makes you come across as being unsure of yourself, like you need to apologize for writing them--you're automatically making your recipient the alpha dog, whether they'd have it that way or not." I've gotten a few really nice compliments from new models--those tend to be specific and relevant, and they don't come from a place of desperation.

Antidote: Concision and gratitude. If nothing in your message is going to be of benefit to your recipient [i.e., you're asking them to take time out and do you a favor], and if you genuinely DON'T have all that much to talk to them about, then do them a favor in turn by keeping it on the shorter side [this is something I am personally really bad at, I'll admit]. Thank them sincerely--tons of little hearts and smiley faces and excessive punctuation and all that kitschy shit doesn't make a thank-you more sincere. Simplicity and earnestness in your word choice does--and saying things that are thoughtful and specific rather than generic ["Ohemgee ur so amaaaazing thank you in advaaaaaance i am eternally grateful teehee"]. If you DO have something to say--for instance, a mutual interest/background/experience/friend, or a question/compliment specific to them, that's another story--mention it all, why not? But don't insult the intelligence of your recipient with fluff.

Secondly: The expectation that a model's just going to fork over all her hard-earned contacts so you can spam all the photographers on it for the possibility of a quick buck. 

Here are the problems with that:
--Confidentiality. Some photographers really love getting constant referrals of all skill levels...but not all of them want their name to get spread around among girls who are just scrounging around to find out who'll pay them to take their clothes off. Photographers are my clients, and the reason I can keep doing this to support myself. A certain amount of respect on my part is due.
--Credibility. In my opinion, freelance modeling is entirely reputation-based. If people like you and think you're worth your price tag, you'll continue to find more work. Burn enough bridges or overcharge and underdeliver, and it won't stay a secret. If I think a model is rad, I'm going to tell other people she's rad so that they can also bask in her radness, and I've been thanked in turn by photographers for introducing them to really great models. On the other hand, if I don't know you and you give me the impression that you're naive/greedy/flaky/etc....I'm not going to feel comfortable with you contacting photographers saying, "Oh, hey, Freya recommended you to me," because in the event that they have a miserable time working with you, they'll likely be annoyed at me for leading you to them, especially if they've dropped some good money on you. Not to mention that they'll probably form an association between the two of us, especially if you've claimed that we're friends, and whatever negative qualities they found in you they might begin attributing to me [consciously or not]. If your email to me sounds manipulative, dubious, or even just ditzy, I'm not going to be eager to tell the world about you.
--Safety. Some girls are just not prepared and have delusions about what modeling's going to be like. They're young and pretty and possibly broke and they think that anyone given the opportunity is just going to want to lavish them with money simply because they're young and pretty and possibly broke. Unless these girls are down to shoot porn, they typically don't last long because they either find out that modeling DOES take work...or they go through a negative experience that teaches them their lesson in a much harder way. I don't feel comfortable dishing contacts out to random girls who are completely new before they've pulled their own weight because it cultivates in them a blind acceptance and doesn't teach them that they NEED to do their own homework--ESPECIALLY if they're new and lack the contacts to rely on references.

Here's what I WILL do:
--If a model's brand-new, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, that's fine: I'll give practical, logistical advice, as well as some cautionary advice [a lot of girls try to become models for what I think are the wrong reasons--"wrong" because they'll often lead to devastation if she's not smart about things], and perhaps refer her to models in her area whose portfolios she can scour or whose brains she can pick further, and let her go from there. I'll also give her references if she asks me about any particular photographers that she's been researching. 
--If a model's planning her first trip [or something similar that shows she's been doing it long enough that she DOES know what she's doing and HAS put in some work] I'll happily give her a few trusted contacts to help flesh out a trip.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

虎穴に入らずんば虎子を得ず。

Simply Arlie, MD
If you do not enter the tiger's cave, you will not catch its cub.

Monday, April 15, 2013

The only way to deal...

George Pitts, NY
...with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

--Albert Camus

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Balance

Rummy, SJ, CA
[After the last several posts, I figured I'd go with some juxtaposition to balance things out.]

Speaking of which, today is a nice fulcrum/bookmark/transitional sort of day.

I spent the last ten days in Mammoth.
--Worked a week straight of double shifts [ski instruction during the day; massage therapy during the evening].
--Then allowed myself three days of playtime [skiing, snowboarding, rock climbing, hot springs, happy hour, local friends].

I'll be spending the next ten days sneaking along the coast.
--Three days at Lucidity [a festival near Santa Barbara--I've never been but the impression I've gotten is that it will be a decidedly hippy-dippy sort of event] with a very good friend.
--Then taking a week to work my way up the coast from SoCal--through SB, SLO, the Bay, Napa-ish, Sac, Tahoe--all the way back to Reno [mostly shooting, but definitely not without some time to visit friends and microbreweries].

Monday, April 8, 2013

Seamless


Betcha can't guess how this photo was taken [nor what with].
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Answer: 

Taken with a cell phone by a dear friend [not a self-described photographer, but with gifted with an excellent eye nonetheless].
We were trudging through the neighborhood in which I grew up, and wandered into an underground irrigation tunnel with water up to the ankles [not the most hospitable place--it's pitch dark and in the past I'd found dead rats putrefying in the water].
This photo is of me standing underneath a manhole cover, which let in a small spotlight of sunlight that illuminated me from above, like an alien UFO beam [as portrayed in cartoons, anyway].

I realize I've been posting a lot of candid shots lately, rather than portfolio-overflow. I suppose I've been in a somewhat sentimental mood; bear with me.
Anyway, art and life can bleed together quite seamlessly, I've found.
At least when you're living well, and are maintaining a healthy perspective on art. 8]

Thursday, April 4, 2013

D'aw


So I wouldn't call this a modeling photo, per se [though how exactly does one define a "modeling photo" anyway? When does candid art cross over and become mere documentation...or does it, ever?]

However, it is one of my very favorites and it's not exactly Facebook-friendly, so I am posting it here. Close enough.

Film photo of myself, being deliriously happy, and Meghan [fellow art model and one of my closest friends] at Burning Man 2012. She's been hiding in Mexico for a good portion of the last couple years, and I miss her right now, which is so excellent--isn't it such a great thing to have people to miss?

We always talk about it like it is such a sad thing, but there's something so precious about having someone to miss, and to note that feeling of deprivation with relish rather than anxiety.

Much better than the alternative, no?

Monday, April 1, 2013

Life is Good


Photos are all by the lovely and talented Annie Montgomery, featuring her jewelry.


Recent reading:
The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston


Recent shenanigans:
Spinning poi
Raw food recipes
Sushi so delicious that it's ruined Bay Area sushi for me forever
Moonlit hikes to hot springs
Browsing auction previews
Smoking cigars in casinos while drinking White Russians and wearing fleece PJs
Writing