A Basic Timeline of Rika's Existence

The end of the eighties.. Rika’s memory starts here. She spent her childhood in the country in Effingham County Illinois- which is far far away from Chicago but only a couple hours from St. Louis. Rika has three sisters and one brother. Dad works on oil rigs, Mom stayed home for the first several years of Rika’s life. A good day for Rika during these years involves some of her cousins visiting. The TV only gets two channels, but Rika watches Ninja Turtles and Mario Brothers nearly religiously. She likes to play outside and frequently has boys’ haircuts.

Elementary school- Rika goes to Dieterich Elementary school. She is not very good at being a kid and never understands what the other kids are talking about because of her lack of watching TV and movies. She likes to read anything historical and is sort of a quiet dork.

Rika’s older sister has a 110 camera and she and Rika begin to take posed pictures of each other. Eventually they move on to 35 mm and eventually older sister emerges as the photographer and Rika becomes the model.

Rika's youngest sister participating in Oldest Sister's early photographic habit

Junior high- Still going to Dieterich, just a different hallway now. Rika does solos at chorus concerts and school variety shows. Starts to play bass guitar. Begins to discover the entertainment value of being odd. Older sister is the “hot girl” at school, Rika is generally well tolerated because of this. Rika starts dying her hair the night of 8^th grade graduation and keeps switching her hair color constantly until after college.

Rika (with wrench at left) with siblings. Photo by Carpe Diem Photography (Oldest Sister and her husband)

High school- Rika plays music with various buddies, eventually spend a significant amount of time playing heavy metal in Nine Circles with best friend/boyfriend Thom, her brother Levi, and neighbor Poe. Destroys a good percent of her voice this way.

Sews her own clothes because the nearest Hot Topic is almost an hour away in Terre Haute, Indiana. Works fast food and waitressing jobs. Gets good roles in school plays and does the announcements every morning on high school cable channel- allowing the whole school to quickly check out what she is wearing. Generally refuses to do homework and graduates 22 out of 42.

Y2K- The coming of the millennium is somewhat uneventful as Rika’s parents make her come home by midnight. Older sister salvages some of the night by insisting on bringing Rika home about a half hour late. J

Older sister becomes a serious photographer sometime during this era.

The graduation cap and the butch haircut caused by too much dying- photo by Christa Tibbs

Rika majors in Fashion Design in college. She works her ass off in school for the first time in her life and also works jobs like Denny’s and Casey’s gas station. Doesn’t have time to do much but school and work. Models occasionally for school fashion shows, ect., sometimes her own designs. Wins first place in eveningwear at Emerging Young Designer in St. Louis- gets a badass embroidery machine. Almost signs with a modeling agent in St. Louis, decides the guy is a creep. Graduates May 2008.

Models in Rika's creations for her senior thesis collection

June 2008- Moves somewhat inexplicably to Dallas TX, starts modeling seriously, and stops dying her hair.