Never Seek
Like many people in this acutely self aware society we live in my entire life I have struggled with self confidence. I remember when I was around 10 years old and pinning my brother to the ground forcing him to tell me if I was pretty, ugly or average (he finally admitted I was average, whatever that means). After modeling for 5 years I laugh at myself for caring about such superficial and shallow things as I now don't take anyone seriously that judges me off my appearances but I can't help but notice that I have not overcome this self-confidence issue. Instead I have transferred it into other areas of my life such as my art. I took school and my professors opinions so seriously and personally because I needed that reassurance that I was more than just a pretty model girl. I needed to know that other people knew I had more to offer the world.
I apologize now if this is coming off as a self-indulgent diatribe. My point in this rambling is how silly and foolish I have been seeking approval of myself through other people's approval of myself.
"The audience destroys the artist until the artist destroys the audience."
It is not the audience that matters but the artist and how they feel; it is simply the audiences reaction to the artist that will determine the artists relevance in our society but not in the artists own life. We can so easily get wrapped up in sensational reactions, allowing that to determine our own feelings towards our work. The true challenge lies in the ability to ignore that sensational instant gratification when we are living in such an inner-connected society.
All of this is leading to a point, I promise.
After many years of consideration and heavy thought I have finally gotten my first tattoo. 'Never Seek' reminds me to never seek for approval of myself in other people. For far too long that is exactly what I have been doing and it is mentally, emotionally and spiritually torturing and it's time I put an end to it. This is not something that will happen over night, I know, and this is not something I take lightly either. It will take years of reminding myself day in and day out and thus why I have gotten it in a location that I will see regularly.
So now you know, I have my first tattoo and I am not as confident as you may have thought. I am vulnerable and impressionable and thats ok. We are not weak creatures because we are affected by others. It can be such a beautiful thing to be affected by another human so powerfully but not when it is detrimental to your own well being. So I have chosen to never seek but I remain vulnerable, impressionable and open to the worlds influences, just with more conviction in how I will allow those things to affect me. May you never seek, constantly conquer and most importantly take no prisoners.
Chromotherapy
Working multiple jobs means that most of my weekends are very long weekends but none quite top last weekend. Not only because I shot a location based editorial with a team of 6 on the Upper West Side but also because when we were doing said shoot the authorities apparently felt that we should not be in that location due to the fact that it was on operating train tracks. Thus they proceeded to hand cuff us, go through our bags, write us up for a court date and make me delete half of the BEST photos from the shoot. "I can't help it if all the best locations are illegal!" so I told the {insert not nice words} police officer.
Film Still by Louie Wray
After suffering through several days of feeling like my babies had been murdered (as an artist having to delete photos that make your soul bleed is surely the equivalent to feelings riled up when babies are murdered) I managed to save the editorial by grabbing some beyond magical images from film stills taken by a dear old friend from my Miami days, Louie Wray, who was beyond gracious enough to tag along and catch some stunning behind the scenes footage that you can see above in the BEAUTIFUL video above edited by the very talented Logan Wolf.
Even though we didn't get to shoot everything that I had planned it was an out of this world experience to go on such a stealth (or lack there of) adventure to Freedom Tunnel and watch beautiful models throw beautiful colored pigments and glitter at each other as I got to document the whole thing. Yes it was risky, yes in a worst case scenario a crazy maniacal person high on drugs could have seriously injured all of us and yes we did end up getting arrested but in my opinion it was 1000% worth it if not for the images then at least for the experience. The rest of the team will have to speak for themselves as I'm not sure if they are as crazy as I am but I have a good feeling they must be since they stuck through the whole experience and never once complained. They are clearly great friends to have, I'm not sure if the same could be same for me.....
It feels so incredibly wonderful to have people in my life that are willing to do really stupid but really awesome things for the sake of art. I hope to only fill my life with more of you crazy weirdos and for those of you that are already here I am forever and eternally grateful for your insane amazing-ness and existing on this Earth, you have made me one very happy girl. This is definitely not the last colored powder/glitter/youth rebellion shoot you'll be seeing from me. Many more projects in the works so keep your eyes peeled and in the meantime bask in the glory that is Chromotherapy.
Film still by Louie Wray
Models: Maddie Hall & Colin Lewis
Videographer: Louie Wray
Director: Ashley Garner
Editor: Logan Wolf
Stylist: Taylor Zahn