Through the OTHER side of the Looking Glass..

Ive got something to say.
After all this time i thought of something.

I had an epiphany the other day, in Half Price Books.

When I first got seriously into modeling, and began to have some degree of success, I thought to myself "i cant believe I'm doing this/seeing this/cant believe I'm here." I thought that I was finally doing something interesting, finally had a world that someone would want to look into. And so I should move from obsessively documenting the things that pass me by in notebooks to obsessively displaying it in blogs. because its interesting. People want to read this. Live vicariously.

Well, the other day I went to the fashion section of Half Price Books, looking really for this Japanese street fashion book that I can't think of the name of, or at least something visually inspiring. But all they really had was a handful of books about models, certain models, or models in general. Things with titles like "Model: Life Behind the Lens".

And I involuntarily though something to the effect of, "How boring."

It caught me off guard, that thought. I remembered that I used to be one of them, I used to attempt to create exactly this kind of media. I used to think these things were interesting, right? It hit me.. I don't think I ever did think the soulless documentation of models because they are models was interesting, in and of itself. I thought it was interesting because I was trying to do it, and trying to find a way to sell it, so I looked for examples.

"Its only really interesting to the people who would rather be there instead of you."

Its funny how much I've changed, how much I don't even wish for the thing that not so long ago I hated giving up. I see girls I know who are still doing it, and I don't feel a wistfulness about it anymore, I think, if anything, I almost feel a relief when I see facebook posts - back and forth, telling industry people how great they are, using the vocabulary of friends just a little over-zealously to put in place a relationship that does not yet exist but is desired. I'm glad it isn't me, that I don't have to do that anymore.

A little caveat: I am not saying that I look down on modeling, or find everything about it boring. Only that at one time, I thought it was enough to make a story interesting and now I think it isn't enough. There are some people who can tell the story of their lives modeling with a vision that makes it interesting - there's at least one on my blog roll. This is more an arraignment of myself and the particular way I bought into it than anything else.

A Story About Modeling

A wordless account of what goes on before a fashion show, as told by me and the Droid.

Behind the scenes for a nerdy shoot..

So despite still hammering away at things the mainstream, agency approved way, I have also been recently interested in portraying my own essence in shoots and self promotion. And to that end, I've been doing some different shoots. In this video I'm setting up to shoot a camped out on the couch Nintendo marathon concept... basically what i did all the time when I lived by myself and playing games was a reclusive activity, as opposed to healing the hell out of Oldsalty in a team effort. :)

The point isn't to become a geisha- its to BE a geisha.

I fianally read Memoirs of a Geisha. I tend to have a knack for knowing what books to read at what time in order to read something that will speak to me right at that moment in time... I almost read this several years ago, but I'm glad I didn't. It has some interesting paralells to both my life modeling and my life working in bars that I wouldn't have appreciated before.

Both jobs are somewhat like Sayuri's experience in the book.. the always trying to look impeccable, the need to be a clever conversationalist at the bar- make everyone you talk to buy in to the romance of you, yet do it in a way that things never cross that line.. modelings need to know exactly how to present yourself and yet the imense dependancy on entities outside of yourself..
And my life is like the book in that you have to make intense sacrifices to get to point X, and you need to get to point X so that you can do thing B, but the whole point of doing thing B is to get to point A, which getting to point X takes you farther away from. And even then you want to get to point X, because you don't have any other choice that isnt a bit of a death.

I did feel bad for Nobu though.

The body for radio?

Today I modeled on the radio. Seriously I did.

We came into the radio station, and wore outfits from Oscar Fierro's new "To Go" line so that they could see us as they talked about us. Every piece in the line is under 29.99, so that is pretty cool. Oscar Fierro is one of the few designers I have met that actually makes well made clothes at prices that real people can afford. Not that everything he does is inexpensive, but at least some of it is!

These are the looks I wore...

What you missed while you were in the bathroom...

I don't even know where to start. I can't even wrap my head around all the stuff I've been up to.

Did a shoot for www.scandicouture.com.. a jewelry line.

I'm a "Godess of Gaming for Southwestern gaming Expo.. www.swge.com

I got a new day job, Marketing Manager for Vickery Park Plano.. a food n drinkin place. :) I was bored when I got it, and once I had it, everyone wanted me.

Did a couple of portfolio shoots here and there.

Modeled for Corey Lynn Calter at FIG in Dallas.. wish I had pictures!

I'm doing "The Best of One Day Only" with Roverdramawerks in Plano.. first weekend in April!

I've been pissed off, excited, exhausted, bored, frustrated, manic, sarchastic, and a few other things alternatingly, since I last wrote. I know its best when I isolate the small things and write about them, but sometimes I've just got to spit out basically the parts of the movie that you missed while you were taking a piss so you can get on with watching the rest of it, cause it won't stop for you.

I'm going home again the 24th, just for 2 days, to see my youngest sister's new baby, see how much my oldest sister's baby grew, and see my other sister while she's on leave from the army.

In my underwear.. or rather, Her Room's underwear.

Working on New Goals

It's been awhile since I have written. I have been trying to do more strictly fashion test shoots, and trying to get in ridiculous, Heidi Klum-esque shape. For the record, the agency never used the words "lose weight" with me, they told me my legs and belly needed some toning, and they were right. But, I know the score, and I know what I am competing with, and I am trying to lose a little. For better or worse, that is what I need to do to be marketed as a fashion model. But maybe I'll do a blog strictly on that later.

I did two shoots on Saturday. one I got pictures back from already. So here are a few. These were with Manuel Crespo, and the lovely makeup artist Michelle Rodgers.

More of Manuel"s stuff- http://www.modelmayhem.com/665902

More of Michelle's- http://www.modelmayhem.com/674102

Between Drain STH and Cherry Darling

Saturday night I was once again flying down 75 with the lights of Dallas snaking all around me, as I often find myself.. always with someplace to be, and usually right after I get done being somewhere else. I had Drain STH's version of Ace of Spades playing and as I sang with her "..you win some, lose some, its all the same to me- The pleasure is to play, it makes no difference what you say.." I thought about all the other times I'd sang along with that album and where I was driving all those times. I think about driving back home sometimes, and how if I drive from Allen downtown and get off at say exit 1A, that's as far as it is between Dieterich and Effingham, a drive I made so often down the lonely highway driving fast in the dark. Because I'd made the drive so many time it felt like an eternity to drive it one more time.
I do miss the feeling sometimes of being able to get out on a county highway and just drive, alone, with no cars. Drive down the center line if you want.
But back to Saturday. Where I was going was Carson's Live, a club in North Dallas. And once there I wound up dabbling in the traditional moonlighting gig of models, actresses, and ballet dancers everywhere... go-go dancing.
Don't worry Mom, I wasn't naked. As the night went on, I began to suspect that the bikini-sized costume was less for the purpose of being sexy, and more because you wouldn't survive the dancing if you were wearing much more clothes. Its about the best workout I've ever had. It's more or less like nights I spent with my sister at Upside Downtown, a gay bar back in glamorous Carbondale, IL, except for the most part no lesbians buy you drinks. And of course you can never slow down. And I get paid to do it. Go-go dancing isn't the only job available in club promotions, there are also shot girls and minglers and I hear next time we will have girls on swings. But personally my first pick would be go-go. I'd rather be on stage than in the crowd, as always.
I had glowing rings on my fingers, and a black fan in my hand and just danced as long and hard as I could.. And I didn't share Cherry Darling's sentiments at all. To me its almost like getting paid to go out. And I think, like going out to the club as a patron, it can be as skanky as you make it. Or you can not make it skanky.
By the end of the night, I had realized that probably the important thing about go-go dancers is not providing eye candy, but inciting the female club goers to get wild. Some girl in the back of the room was up on a table by the end of the night, I'd like to think I helped inspire that. I had also pulled every muscle between my abs and my knees, and I never wanted to look at my six inch heels again.
I drove home at 2:30, with the moon low and full and weird in my rear view, feeling like I was in a bubble because the outside sounds were having a hard time getting through the speaker ring in my ears. Pretty oddly similar to being back in IL, stumbling into the Steak n Shake after screaming my heart out with the band. And I don't know that anyone from back home would be proud of my most recent addition to the resume, but when you think about it its really not a bad fit for me.

Shooting with Tim Bennett and my obsession with the shadows on my nose

One of my designs shot by Tim


As I said in my last post, a couple of nights ago I shot with my friend Tim Bennett. We basically like to work on our own projects together most of the time, and that night the inspiration was Stacy Kiebler's Maxim shoot, and Gisele's Dolce and Gabbana The One ad. So basically we used that as a starting point, and then just let the shots go wherever they went from there. I think we were quite successful, but I don't have many of the pictures back yet to show you.
I have been shooting with Tim for awhile now, and it seems like we just go crazy when we shoot, we race from one idea to the next and sometimes do two wildly different shoots in the same day. The candy necklace picture is from our first shoot ever.
I really like the way Tim is able to control the light in his photos. He always uses magical combinations of light which make me look awesomely toned in the shots. Sometimes I get a picture back from a shoot and its overall a good shot, but the way the light hit on my stomach caused a shadow making it look way pudgier than it is or something like that and it's really disappointing. But that never happens with Tim, he pays close attention to all of that stuff. And interestingly enough, he's also a pilot. How crazy is that?
You can see his website at www.probodyshots.com or http://www.modelmayhem.com/610715.

Another of my favorite one of Tim's shots from a previous shoot.

During a shoot, as I see the pictures on the camera, (if I get the chance to) I am always critiquing myself and thinking about what I can do better. During this last shoot I was thinking about the angles of my face and how to hold my head for the most flattering results. I have kind of an odd nose. It looks pretty ordinary from certain angles, dramatically and attractively different in others, and just weird in a bad way in a few certain ones that I have trained myself to avoid. I think all models have certain things they are always concerned about in pictures, mine is my nose. I used to hate my nose, when I was in high school I secretly hated seeing pictures of myself in profile. Now I'm glad I have it, it gives me the ability to pull off a bit more of a fashion look. But the most dramatic features are the ones we have to be most careful of in how they are presented.

Working at Dallas Market Week

The glorious view from the atrium..

Actually written Oct 31 2008..

I worked Dallas market week last week, and it was a really good experience. I was originally hired to model in the showroom, but Steve, the showroom owner, found out that I have a degree in Fashion Design, and my job title quickly became more flexible. It was really quite interesting watching the buyers shop lines and listening to all the conversation around me- kind of like being the proverbial fly on the wall. I worked very long hours- not to mention the hour it takes to make my hair behave like it belongs to a model- and at the end of market I never wanted to work again. But now I’d be ready to do it again next week if I could.

Dallas Market Center may be the most wonderful place in the world. If there is a more wonderful place, I’m sure its in New York or Paris or Milan. Or maybe in London, but that’s really not fair- the English accent makes everything more appealing. There are 15 floors, with a huge gaping atrium in the center that cuts down through all of them so that when you ride the clear elevator up you can window shop every floor for just a moment. Just going up to the 14^th floor where I worked made me feel like I was getting ready to do something quite glamorous and exciting.

When the place fills up with buyers, it suddenly becomes very hard not to go around blatantly checking out everyone’s shoes. It may be a stereotype, but it is true- for the most part, buyers are very glamorous. I often wished that I could be the Sartorialist (http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/) and just go around taking pictures of them all. But instead I had to stand and look pretty and be the object of attention. While there are young, trendy buyers to be seen, a lot of them are nearer to my mother’s age, or even her mother’s age for that matter. These were the women I was most fascinated with- you see glamorous twenty-something women in every magazine, (although sometimes all a story contains is young women who are presented as glamorous, although the particular specimens may or may not be.) But at market I saw so many women in their forties and sixties with devastating style and confidence.

The modeling in a showroom can run the gamut between the easiest kind of modeling and the hardest. In and of itself, the job is easy. Just stand and display a garment, turn when told to, put on something else when told to. The hard part is this- Market Center was FREEZING the entire time, and many of the garments I had to display were rather tiny swimsuits from Cia Maritima. Putting on a swimsuit is easy enough, but at the end of a day spent concentrating on smiling and not letting myself shiver I find I’m much more tired than I otherwise would have been. That said, I absolutely loved the bikinis- even the Brazilian cut ones- and the thought of how good they looked on me went a long ways toward keeping me warm. Plus everyone I got to work with was really cool.

Steve also has the distinction of having played guitar with John Denver- and I’m quite fond of John Denver so it was cool to hear some stories about that- and we also got to hear Steve play at Market Center one night! His website is http://www.steveweisberg.net/, you can see info about both the showroom and his music there.

I also got to show a few lines from time to time. I have never really thought of myself as a “seller” personality type but I must admit I did find it quite enjoyable. It’s not about convincing someone that they should buy something. It’s just about connecting a person who already wants a product to the correct product. I will most likely continue doing some work in the showroom for Steve, which I am looking forward to. Although I am focused on and enjoying the heck out of my modeling, it is good to feel like my degree is getting a bit of use.

An outfit I put together with some of the showroom samples