January 2012
1 post
5 tags
"Towards the door we never opened"
Looking at these photos keep making me think about Burnt-Norton: “footfalls echo[ing] in the memory…”
(photo by Veronika Von Volkova)
(photo by Veronika Von Volkova)
November 2011
2 posts
2 tags
Skin & Ink
Photos by Veronika von Volkova
2.4
(Photo by Veronika Von Volkova)
(Photo by Veronika Von Volkova)
October 2011
1 post
I Want to Tell You a Secret
I used to have a roommate with whom I would have conversations about fetishes. I told her I always loved the look and feel of writing on skin. She agreed, but while I thought of poetry, she thought of music—bar, staff, and all.
We wondered what it be like to date a mathematician.
September 2011
2 posts
5 tags
The Garden
Katelan and I are back at it…
(photo by Veronika von Volkova)
This time we shot in a garden in the East Village, early in July. Veronika came down from Montreal to do some work in the city, and as you’ll see, we were incredibly lucky to get a few hours with her that afternoon. The sun was perfect, the garden was in full summer bloom, and we were quietly alone together, the strange,...
7 tags
And So It Begins: Von Volkova
Photo by Veronika von Volkova
A few months back I emailed Mike telling him I wouldn’t be doing anymore fully nude modeling. That was a semi-lie as I have one more shoot coming up in October, but it was one that was promised many moons ago. I felt like that aspect of my life was over and it was time to start a new path.
“So what does that mean for Lie & Indite?” He asked...
June 2011
1 post
3 tags
VII.
This is going to be the last post for this round of Lie & Indite. Since GQ Italy picked up our big, final shot a few months back, it may not be as surprising, but I’ve been looking forward to posting it for months now. I’m happy it’s landing on my turn.
(photo by Balthazar)
I’ve received some amazing feedback on this project—from old friends, people I barely...
May 2011
1 post
4 tags
The String Wears Thin At The Ends
We are coming to the end of our first session with Balthazar. Balthazar is one of those people I had only met over the computer screen. A friend had done a drunken interview with me on Filthy Gorgeous Things and he was featured as well. Somehow we connected. And on one odd day he left a comment on a photograph which prompted me to ask him to be our photographer.
Balthazar and Sonia came to my...
April 2011
4 posts
7 tags
VI.
I took an impromptu trip to Paris for 5 nights last week, to see two old friends, one who was very glad I was coming (he’s from Detroit; we met there), and one who probably didn’t expect or explicitly want to see me, but nevertheless agreed to.
(Photo by Balthazar)
I grew up moving every few months or years, so it’s almost a necessity for me to get out of the country, and...
7 tags
Pixels on Screen
This week we become pixels.
Photos by Balthazar
Part of this experience is the New York experience. Going to sleazy motels, having limited time, the wrong markers, and making art.
We create the world we live in. We create ourselves.
4 tags
V.
It’s funny looking through these photos every week or two and putting together a post.
(Photo by Balthazar)
I know that, in the beginning, I wrote that I’m not crazy about blogs in general, and that I didn’t want our writing to get in the way of the images, but just seeing the photos for the 10th, 11th, 12th time makes me want to start writing.
(Photo by Balthazar)
And in...
Ink
Do you know how long it takes to wash marker from your body?
What if it’s permanent marker?
I can do better than tell you. I can show you.
I took these two after I got home from the shoot. The ink had been on me for less than two hours.
I liked the way the writing faded up my arm, like a ghost trail. I wanted to document the process afterward, how the ink is scrubbed off, how some...
March 2011
4 posts
IV.
This week,
I’ll talk about skin.
And poems, of course.
One thing that concerned me a lot at the beginning of this project (other than bug bites), was how I was going to format the poems on Katelan’s body. On the page, my poems move the way that I see them being spoken, or how I see them working spatially in my mind, adjusted for a two-dimensional medium. One of those things...
3 tags
Process
For a while I was a naked model. I haven’t done so much lately. The process of taking off my clothes and posing has become almost second nature. Nudity doesn’t phase me. The idea of someone creating art on my body or a photographer capturing a moment, even creating one, now that’s exciting. I’m a visual creature, I live for the image, the art. It’s why I allowed...
5 tags
III.
Part of what Lie & Indite is about, to me, is process:
(Photos by Balthazar)
If you think it’s about tits, or getting naked, then you’ve already swallowed something that will take significantly more effort (and time) to digest. This is doing work, and if successful, it will continue to do work within you. Balthazar’s photos are incredibly sensuous, and the idea of a...
7 tags
The Elk Hotel
I get mad at New York sometimes. Mostly because it’s not the same place I moved here for. That was 1997. In my mind I was getting The Warriors NYC, and not Giuliani’s Disney circus. Mike can tell you, I’m a jaded New Yorker—I’ve seen the Chelsea Hotel lose its soul, CBGB’s close down, and Coney Island become the land of Fischer Price toys. But I’ve...
February 2011
3 posts
6 tags
II.
When I first moved to New York I had no friends, no job, and very little money. I came here largely out of default—after spending my childhood moving every 1-3 years or so, sometimes every few months, I thought the most reasonable decision after school was to pick the biggest city in the country and figure out a way of getting there and setting up a new life. I was lucky in having been...
2 tags
Wherein Katelan Gets Mike Into Trouble
Before we had a photographer, Mike and I had some ideas of what we wanted this project to be. In order to introduce it to potential photographers, I had to come up with some images, so Mike came over to do a trial run. From those first quick snapshots, I photoshopped together some teasers. But the original teaser was this:
Apparently it caused a lot of trouble. He says I’m a...
5 tags
1.
As Katelan will attest, the thought of maintaining a blog on a regular basis has, until now, always intimidated me from a sense of commitment, and the sheer amount of terrible writing I’m bombarded with daily goes a long way in discouraging me from keeping a regularly written blog. By my thinking, blogging has always been the mundane territory of would-be critics and illegitimate cultural...
January 2011
1 post
3 tags
The Beginning
Photo by Balthazar
It was Spring when Mike and I met so I could give him my manuscript. He was the final editor on my memoir Blood and Pudding before it was sent off to the publishing house. Mike and I gathered for coffee and lazily made our way to the park. I don’t remember what was said or how it even began. All I know is at one point I asked him to join me in a project I had...