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.