Non-sequitur, ex nihilo

I was born into a generation which suffered a great shift in the teaching of K-12 mathematics: since about 3rd grade, my math classes consisted of rounds of rote memorization (I'll spare you the anecdote of being the first 8-year old at Riverside to start timed multiplication tests, and the tears which followed). Rote memorization, as it turns out, yields not a robust faculty of numeric reasoning, but rather pretty good short-term memory. Unfortunately for my high school self, this meant that math got harder for me because I wasn't taught reasoning so much as I was taught to cram for tests - this has carried on into college - and while one could argue that it was primarily my own fault for not studying a certain way, it can also be argued that the teaching standards, in their pursuit of ever-increasing test averages, neglected the ever-important distinctions among "learning styles."*

Herein lies the Ästhetik-reader's interest in the matter: Brains wired more neatly on the left versus the right ("left-brained, right-brained"). I guess I would call myself right-brained. This colloquialism (importantly, a layman's term) indicates creativity, artistic impulse, affinity for literature and music, while making the tandem implication of a deficiency in math and reasoning, be it practical or abstract. This may or may not be supported by my college transcript. This left-right dichotomy is also often (mistakenly?) meshed with male-female comparisons as well. But my interests do not rest on that secondary prejudice. They rest on the way art (art, Art, "art") is filtered through my right-brainedness.

Yes, I have an affinity for music, but I don't find pleasure or utility in learning exactly how rhythms are structured in terms of fractions of an instantiated duration (4/4, 6/8, hemi-demi-semi-quavers) - my affinity is in how a beat makes me want to either pull a wallflower or wiggle my ass. Literature, similarly: I couldn't care less about the story an author wants to tell... but I am interested in the differences among (and effective use of) consonance, assonance, and alliteration, and how it makes the words sound and feel in a mouth when spoken. Example: Kafka versus Eminem.

Fortunately for my K-12 self, art class was fucking amazing: open-ended assignments, freedom to produce content under appropriate guidelines of material technique, calls home to my parents about how helpful I was to other students who didn't enjoy making their art. So my right-brainedness, my poor, poor unmathiness, might make it hard for me to calculate derivatives or whatever, but I'll be damned if I can't synthesize abstract concepts with the primal and insatiable instinct toward the sublime. I claim even that my own "creativity" (what does that even mean? Can I put that as a strength on my résumé?) is creativity unto no end whatsoever, i.e. it is without tangible or conceptual utility to anyone but myself, just a sublimation of sublimity, just practice, just expression for the sake of making expressed the things which, without expression, would render my between-ears grey matter totally paranoid à la Mr. Anderson in "The Matrix."

So if I'm not a genius because I got a D in pre-calc (further stipulation: at the University of Michigan), then I am a genius for being at peace with myself despite the antecedent to this conditional proposition. Thank you for reading. We will return you now to your regularly scheduled episode of Coloring Within the Lines.**

These are real, actual aesthetics.

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* I will also spare you the debate over the importance of learning styles, stipulating their existence for the purpose of argument.

** I did a lot of coloring within the lines as a kid. I was pressured to do so by those with whom I colored. I was praised when I did it, and my crayonstrokes were even and dense and vivid. This is significant only in that it has contributed to my habitual and ritual reference to Crayola color names and in that I prefer stark, clean, color-blocked garments over prints and textured fabrics. Precisely.

There are times when my desire to quit all modeling alternates between all-encompassing and altogether absent. This is an in-between time. With certain individuals, I feel an almost lovesick pang to cling to them and make art forever, but with very many individuals I'm utterly repulsed into a complacent hoodie and jeans. "How do you tell someone you don't want to work with them?" You don't talk to them at all.

I am a bartender now, as means of making money. Importantly, I am an apprentice bartender/junior bartender/barstaff bitch who takes all the crappy shifts and can't request time off. This is a crucial stage in employment-development, and I have been here a few times before; I value it, actually, but not without the completely understandable and totally rational allocation of complaint that I can't do shit on weekends anymore. I also have to wake up early every day of the week.

My heart aches for art; my brain aches for a solution. My body aches for Tanqueray but I can't have fun anymore.

That is all.

rapid decomposition // already brewing again

So, my geisha shoot fell through the floor. I don't want to talk about it. I have other stuff I want to do though, already.

When I get an idea for a shoot, the inspiration usually comes in the form of a simple phrase, around which I build an image. For example, Braid Cage was first the phrase "braid cage", and then immediately after came the actual woven-braid face mask as a concept. But rather than talk about my idea patterns themselves, I'm really just posting this so I can make a reference for myself of what I want to create. For you, it's cryptic.

- Mane Frame
- Incognito, ergo sum.
- Experiments in Silhouette

That is all.

14 July 2009:

"these are not my lips

this is a venus fly trap."

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I get friend requests, emails, and comments from all kinds of ...photographers... (GWCs) who want to shoot with me. I look at their ports, which are full of average-looking girls in overly-sexy outfits striking painfully strained poses.

I'm like...




Bitch, please.

coming soon:

New project in the works. Here are some keywords for you:

-Vintage kimono
-Michigan craft brews
-Speakeasy
-Japanese mafia

In the meantime, visit my co-stars:

PL & Pierre

new aesthetic

I want a new aesthetic. I want sparkly dark green and matte charcoal, sterling silver, black cardigans, and waist belts that are small enough for me. Finger armor meets school uniform and they get desaturated together. Apple blossom tattoos and nails filed to a soft point, dancing the hottest new dance moves that no one else can do. Lighter blonde! Granny boots, leg warmers, draping draping draping. High and wide on top, long and slender to the dirt. Paler than pale - I'm letting my eyebrows grow in a little. Did I mention lighter blonde? Perpetual manicure, matching pedicure.

dee-lays

It's been like four weeks, whatever. Yes, I am still scrubbing my face with aspirin.

In other news, my boyfriend filmed the StyleLine photoshoot a couple of weeks ago. Since photos/twitpics/cell phone snaps can't be distributed until the mag comes out in September, the video will be delayed until then, too. But it includes interviews with the photographer and stylist, as well as little Maeve doing her thang.

I've been spending too much money lately, so my next project is also going to be delayed. All I can tell you right now is this:

"Incognito, ergo sum."

Coming sune~