As a child, I was very androgynous looking. Mainly, it was because my mother refused to let my hair grow long. "It's too hard to deal with," she would say. So, throughout elementary school, as I tumbled my way across both gymnasium floors and elementary school playgrounds, I was often mistaken for a boy by adults who didn't know me. This was a bit mortifying yet, I felt inept at verbally communicating my truth to these silly, grown folks. I always looked up to my big sister to be my voice. "She's a girl," she'd retort. Then, after a few years, the people started telling my mother, "You should put her in modeling school." I would just shrug my shoulders at this suggestion. "How strange!" I thought.
At twelve years old, I was being managed by a local modeling agency. I got a few gigs doing print media - my image decorated Halloween costume bags and a tie-dye making t-shirt kit. Eager to impress my peers after a natural fall off of a popular culture pedastool, I fairly widely distributed my headshot across my middle school campus. What can I say but, oh, to be human!? While strutting my stuff on a catwalk in Los Angeles, I knew my experience was simply about personal development. After all, my modeling classes taught me basic, important skills, such as: how to apply makeup for my face; how to dress; public speaking; acting; and relating to the camera as though it's a person. Ha! I also knew my destiny - I am 5'2," with a body type that comes from my paternal grandmother, a voluptuous and sturdy woman of German Jewish stock. Thus, I was fine when the ride came to an end and I moved on to the next adventure of high school and the performing arts.
So, for my #36, my dear brother KM, of Stone's Throw Photography once again brought out the model in me. K. and I worked together at REI years ago, where we first discussed his practicing his craft while I received documentation of my ephemeral and organic art philosophy, which I could then use as demonstration in my graduate school portfolio. This past October, Kevin and I completed our fourth photo shoot together. Kevin has photographed me at Calaveras, a preserve of land near my parent's home where I was bitten by a rattlesnake; on Swami's Beach in Encinitas, with one of my main dance partners, E.A.C.; at Torrey Pines State Beach; and then in downtown San Diego, both at Las Raices Collective and Balboa Park. (Yes, he also took the two photos of me above.)
So, here I am - pretending, perhaps, like I am still that girl of my past - and here we are, living in an era of celebrity culture and an over-the-top narcissism that fuels our social media. What can I type but that I am a product of my environment?
Last year, A.F. was in conversation with a local hip-hop dancer who had pitched a modeling reality series to one of TV's many networks. "The Street of Dreams" was to be filmed on a glitzy La Jolla street, as it luxuriously wound down from Mt. Soledad. On a summer afternoon, four of us discussed the possibility of all of our working together, while also shooting an episode in the Prosperity Hive.
That day, we spent the time together talking about this word, MODEL. We ruminated upon how it's been sadly taken out of context by today's standards and we agreed that we would all build toward a vision in which the MODELS we show off to the world were: people of diverse skin color, body shape and ideology; friendly neighbors who demonstrate loving care and civic participation; and adults of integrity who work towards more than just their own carnal desires and primal needs.
Here on this Blog, I've declared that I am holding myself up as a MODEL of Un~Sustainability.
And, perhaps, if you were to peel back my layers a little further, I just might share that I'd bee delighted to bee considered someone in that first category, as well. But, I'll just keep my head down and building forward, as I silently hope that you will see my truth, step up beside me, hold my hand and dig in.
