Hopeless

Harness: Hopeless Lingerie
Cage bralette: Hopeless Lingerie (similar)
Black stacking rings: Hunter Gatherer Jewelry
Silver branch ring: Hunter Gatherer Jewelry
Skirt: eBay
Velvet hooded cloak: Vintage

I can't write much today as I seem to be coming down with something, but I'll take the time to make this little public service announcement...
Buy independent!

The ladies who made the pieces in the photos above are artisans no manufacturer can replicate. Not only are they incredible for sacrificing so much time and energy to perfecting their craft, but they offer up such a quality and level of detail that can best be compared to that of a honeycomb; carefully constructed and articulated by a complex hive-mind in such elegance and strength. You won't get that special kind of feeling from lingerie or jewelry from Forever 21 - I'll tell you that. So treat yourself to pieces from independent artists every so often. It helps the economy and makes you feel like royalty. Really.

Also, this is the first shoot featuring my nearly completed living room. I'm slowly working on turning my house into a studio/Moulin Rouge/Munster Family home homage room by room. It has eventually come to be titled the SS Casstronaut. I thought the USS Enterprise would be fitting as well, but it seems to already be taken.

Signed prints from this set are available here.

Dark Matter

Dress: it's complicated (read below)

Boots: eBay (similar)

This is a dress that I sort of made for one of my bridesmaids. I stole it before my wedding for this shoot with my pal Christine to break in her new studio in Portland.

To make this dress took a pretty simple dress, cut it all up into lots of strips and panels, then added a ton of sheer fabric to the lining to make it longer and add more of liquid flowy kind of texture. Finally I attached this super silky, almost metallic, maxi skirt to the inside to make it a bit more full. Then end result was really cool. It looks pretty rough because I was just making things up as I went along, but I like that unfinished sort of look. It also has like three different kinds of sheer fabric strewn about it, the contrasting textures made it really interesting too. My girls looked like black ink drops in water when they walked down the aisle. 

Of The Earth

Jewelry and accessories: Hunter Gatherer

Model: Angela AT (also wearing her brand Morph Knitwear)

Dress: Sanctus Clothing

Makeup: Christine Shields

Styling, cinematography, edit, sound design, vocals: Casstronaut

Shot at the Hoyt Arboretum Portland, OR in May, 2013

Ok, so you guys must remember that film I made last year titled VALLE MORTIS, right? You have to because I didn't shut up about it for like 18 months. In reality the project was a huge challenge for me. I talked about it a bit here. But what I didn't mention was that making that film resulted in many nights crying myself to sleep. I'm a big baby, but it does tend to happen to most people to some degree when you're making something you really care about. You drive yourself completely nuts to put it simply.

OF THE EARTH was a result of that short stint of insanity. I felt that I wanted to break free from the VALLE MORTIS project for a moment and go completely crazy. If I didn't lack the can-act-while-filming-thyself super power you probably would have seen me up there on screen rolling around in the dirt. But I'm super happy with Angela's performance. She did such a great job of channeling how weird and wild I was feeling at the time. It's also very dark, which I suppose you could read into in a negative way, but it really wasn't a dark time for me. Just a weird combination of frustrating and exciting. Resulting in sort of an itch if you will.

I don't really like it when my work means nothing as I believe ambiguity can be kind of dangerous, but I will tell you that what it says to me doesn't have anything to do with witchcraft, alchemy, spells, environmentalism, etc etc or what have you. If anything I see this character as kind of a hybrid between a human and something earthly, perhaps a creature like El Fauno, who is a slave to something as decaying and limited by time and space like our planet. But whatever. It's just fun too. 

From Up High

Shirt: eBay

Blazer: Volcom (similar here)

I haven't been able to get enough of ladies in suits lately. Emma Watson and Cate Blanchett tend to know what they're doing. We don't even need to mention Tilda Swinton. Although it's been difficult for me to find a great one piece or two piece, so I've slowly been collecting several interchangeable pieces. It's much simpler and more fun that way anyway!

Photos by Christine Shields

Dreamscapes // Advent of Plentitude

I have had so much fun (and have gained so much muscle!) from participating in Kindra's ever expanding photography portfolio. Her new project, Dreamscapes, has been another adventure entirely. 

As per usual, the character and entire outfit was conceived of by Kindra, all of it handmade by her as well with the help of myself and Kindra's friend Matt who made the base of the skirt. Kindra and I are both huge fans of the 1927 film Metropolis. So you can definitely say this character is directly inspired by Metropolis. You know, that super long awkward garden scene?

I don't have a lot of time to write about this other than to say it was a lot of work for one day and I cannot believe we were able to pull it off. We found all of those flowers very early in the morning, sewed some fabric for a base onto the primary base of the skirt, glued three trash bags worth of flowers onto the skirt all the while burning each other with hot glue guns 'cause confined space, constructed that drapey top in a matter of moments, got me ready, and voila. To my surprise doing my makeup and hair took the least amount of time - usually, in fashion, that's the thing that takes up the most time of a shoot. 

Also, at the end of the video up there. I ended up on the ground due to collapsing under the weight of my body combined with the weight of the skirt. I was balancing on the ball of one foot while on an incline. See what I mean by gaining muscle? (Insert robust RAAAAAH!)

Model & MUA: Cassie Meder

Photography, concept, costume creation & design: Kindra Nikole Photography
Skirt base creation & design: Matt Castiglione
Assistant: Alli Chinn-Tupper

flickr view of the final photo

The Prestige

 

Harness: Hopeless Lingerie
Eyeliner: Lime Crime's Lunar Sea
Wig (modified): eBay (Dammit, wigs are hard.)
Top: eBay
Headpiece: Casstronaut
A few 8x12 prints from this set are available on my Etsy! Get 'em here.

I've been really attracted to white lately. If you couldn't tell from the photos above. But it's hard to pull off the sleeker more avant garde look that I like so much with white. It's difficult to find anything white with great lines that doesn't shoot ribbons and bows out of my butt. So I'll be on the hunt for non frilly white things for awhile and I'll let you know what I come up with. I have a great head start with an amazingly simple and elegant harness from Hopeless Lingerie. I wear it over/under anything. It adds an interesting touch to simple outfits!

Fun fact: these photos were shot in my master bathroom. In front of my shower curtain. On the floor. Glamorous, right?

I also want to take a moment to talk about The Prestige. If you've never seen the film, watch it. It's amazing.
I watched it last night and it was very reminiscent to the experiences I've had with fellow artists and things I've pulled off in my own career. I bring this up because I don't want people to get the impression from myself or from other artists that they can't accomplish what we as artists are doing because they don't have x or y. Because they don't have money or time or a studio. Those photos up there, they're an illusion. I created a scene, a performance, made you think it was something, and then put it up here on this blog. It's not easy to do, but you may be surprised. I basically did it with a bunch of crap.

Here's the reveal despite its anticlimactic nature:
I don't have a photo tripod anymore so I had to precariously prop my camera up on the shoe vertically on my horizontal only video tripod.
I was too lazy to set up my studio lights and they also don't fit in my narrow bathroom, so I opened the blinds in my bedroom to let the light in and then closed the bathroom door slightly to diffuse some of the light.
I didn't have anyone helping me, so I had to use an air freshener spray can to set my focus.
And because I don't have a remote control for my camera (I just keep forgetting to buy one and I guess I like making things too hard for myself) I had to get out of position to push the shutter to turn the ten second timer on. For all... 80 shots that I took for this set.
I used my thirty dollar shower curtain as a backdrop. My toilet is directly to the right of me. Ha.
Now, it was a tedious task, but all of this probably only took me an hour or so to do. After I was done I took off that silly wig and walked outside to check the mail.

George Méliès was a master at this. He made everything with paint, wood and cardboard, a camera that he built, and some willing actors. The illusion in this video is not only the changing size editing trick, but also the entire set it's filmed on. That's all painted, guys.

Now, I'm not saying artists are trying to lie to you like a magician would. I'm just saying things may not be what they appear to be. I realize this is pretty obvious information, but you never know who is out there with potential spilling over but stifles it due to doubts or trivial obstacles like equipment or time. You can make anything you want if you don't limit yourself. Don't wait until you have this or that. Art comes from your head and you already have one of those. Try now and if it doesn't work, then try getting what you need to make it work. Then do it again and make it better. Granted, the set up there could have been much better. But I'm not going to wait around for stuff to get better. I'm going to do stuff to try to make myself get better.

I was reading something from Guillermo Del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities recently that is somewhat related;

"Why enthrone the myth of the perfect, infallible superhuman if it's always more beautiful to know that the humanity that creates beauty is the same fallible species that can create horror or misery? Bach, when explaining his genius, used to modestly say that he just worked harder and that all you have to do is press the pedals on the keyboard and the notes play themselves. Here you have one of the greatest geniuses ever and yet this was a guy that had personal flaws of one kind or another and who created in the face of self-doubt and adversity. I always say it's more interesting to think that the pyramids were built not by aliens but by people. People go, 'Oh, they're extraordinary things. They were built by aliens.' No, the extraordinary thing is that they were built by people. Normal people."