I often find myself on the dividing lines between worlds. When I was in Jr high I came to California from Arizona, and the fashion demands on teens in my new home were like entering into a new culture. I had lived on Cottonwood Arizona with my Mom, and every kid in my class dressed in clothes from Wal-Mart down the street. It was a new Walmart, by far the biggest store in town, very exciting stuff in Cottonwood circa 1992. I don’t even think there were any other children’s clothing stores, and it was pre internet. There was one kid who’s parents ordered her clothes from the Guess catalog. She was pretty fancy, and we all knew it, but she rubbed elbows with all the regular Wal-Mart kids, lest she be completely alone in her Guess jeans. It just wasn’t much of an issue.
One quick airplane ride to southern California, and a brand new junior high and I was thrust into 6th grade hell. I was frequently harassed because my clothing had the wrong label on it: Lee instead of Levis. I had no idea I had done anything wrong, but the ‘pack of she wolves’ let me know. It tanked my self-esteem, and I found myself friendless at times.
So there I was, in my new home in California where I had moved in with my Dad, who I sort of met at age ten. I mean, I can’t remember the before age 5 years and he was in Liberia West Africa after that. He had spent the last decade or so trying to mine diamonds and in the process witnessing, and at times trying to ameliorate immeasurable amounts of human suffering. Children without food who wore the same Mickey Mouse shirt everyday (proudly) were a routine vision, and here I was asking him to care about Levis instead of Lee. My Dad chided me at my demands for $100 Levis (which in the 90s was ostentatious) he scolded me loudly insisting there were children in Liberia who got Polio because their parents couldn’t afford a $.25 vaccine, he told me how many families that would feed for a month there. Even as a selfish tween I couldn’t deny his words were correct. I have always at my core been a bleeding heart, and compassionate about people suffering. He was right, this branding seemed kind of stupid. I mean both were good durable pants. Did I really want to be friends with people who would judge me based on wealth? At age 12 you do. Thank God you outgrow that shit.
When I went to college I definitely felt I was straddling 2 worlds. I was a first generation college student, and had no idea what I was in for when I showed up at the dorms. My Mom was homeless, and my dorm room was my ‘home’ and I had all my things with me. There was no bedroom back somewhere for me to go chill and escape the drama of dorm life. Still I hit up my sister’s couch quite often. She was a single mom of 2 kids, living with Crohn’s disease (I hadn’t been diagnosed yet) and I was her person for a long time. I tended to her during hospital stays while I stayed at her place and cared for the kids through her surgeries, spent holidays there, then when she was better went back to college studying for midterms and keg parties. When I was at my sister’s apartment complex I was the stuck up college girl. When I was in college I was the poor kid from a broken home. In the 2 hours it takes to drive to my hometown from college, I became a whole other person, and vice versa. Each time.
Fast forward to 2019, I’m in the beauty industry as a pinup and glamour and wedding photographer. I suppose it was nearly dying a year and a half ago that got me thinking about what I really want my life’s legacy to be about. ART came to mind. Of course art. I have so many stories to tell both in writing and visually, these things are bursting out of me and I crave release. I think art, specifically photography, will always be part of my life. And that brings me to my love of pinup. I mean, the eye candy right?! The coifed hair, the makeup, the tattoos, the classic styling, I adore that look I truly do! I feel like a lucky photographer to be in pinup, I mean these girls spend all this time and money to get so damn gorgeous and then I get to photograph them? Someone pinch me please, this must be a dream! I have so many ideas for photo stories I want to tell, ways to take this thing to the next level, and always with people so why not go pinup for styling! Va va voom, right!? RIGHT!
Then I got what I will call a right hook to the face from the universe and it made me stop and think. I had to sit across the table from someone and listen to them tell me I’m not worth it, bash me to other clients, and go so far as to forbid ‘her pageant girls’ from booking with me. Her final email line was ‘good luck in your photography career’ and I watched opportunities dry up, whispers abound. People sent me screen caps and told me things. Whisk me right back to junior high why don’t you.
I did a little digging and found this behavior is RAMPANT in the pinup world, and there is a very well known beef between two of the biggest clothing designers in pinup, each who accuse the other of bullying. I think we are going to have a real life rockabilly rumble y’all! For those who read this who are not involved in the pinup world, here’s your cue to laugh. Anyone who is in the world knows exactly who I am talking about and will speak to the topic. HA!
Now this particular person who incited mobbing to the detriment of my business has WON the mother of all pinup popularity contests. She certainly wasn’t nice to me, but hey unlike high school, I can leave this microcosm in a heartbeat. I’ve made some amazing and genuine friends in that realm, and I will always style women in this beautiful way. And you can’t keep me from my rockabilly music and car shows. But the idea of a pinup girl beauty pageant, when you look at the big picture, has just really got me scratching me head right now….
So I get off Facebook groups arguing about which pinup designer bullied the other, then I check my email and get a message from Mr. Harmon, the pastor of my step Mother’s Church in Liberia. He is letting me know they have had to discontinue feeding the children weekly, and can only afford to do so once a month now. I know he is asking for money, without asking, like I have sent before. He just got back from the interior of Liberia, the place he goes to convince the tribes to accept Jesus and to end the practice of murdering young men to eat their hearts. Heart men they call them. They will find bodies with their organs harvested on a semi regular basis and they say ‘heart man come-o!’ I become sick, deny that its true, and shut my email.
I snap back to reality and have to decide whether to get my roots done, or send some money to Liberia so the kids can eat and the cannibals can learn about fellowship and how to not eat your fellow man. Straddling 2 worlds is an understatement. The fact that there is more pain and suffering in this world than I can heal with my personal resources is frustrating. So it’s easy to just turn the page, and go do some retail therapy, maybe grab that new eye shadow palate from Sephora.
I watched my step Mother walk this line for many years. She did like to spend money on herself, but she gave more away. For every nice purse she owned, I knew she’d donated as much to her church. She found a way to split it so she could have nice things and give lots too and I admire her for finding her balance in that way. She married the white man (my Dad) and got all the relative wealth (rich white man can’t afford Levis?), but its hard to enjoy that fortune while everyone around you is starving. Well, its hard if you’re Martha and from a communal culture like Liberia anyway. I don’t think its hard for the average American. I can turn it off if I choose to, go back to laundry and dishes and forget about the heart man. I have that luxury and that hot running water. The incongruity and cognitive dissonance is impossible, but we can try. Like my Liberian Ma Martha I strive to find my balance living in this first world with all its microcosms of excess, peering into other worlds where people are just trying to survive. For me that balance is opening a charitable corporation: Hearts of a Feather! Hearts of a Feather Help Together! We can’t solve the worlds problems, but together we can help!’
My concept is simple: Take excess wealth and distribute it to the poor! Like Robin Hood, only legal and fair. My goal is to open a thrift store and accept donations of things people no longer want, and turn them into resources for those in need. This concept is not new, there are several corporations operating under this MO in town, and I believe there is enough excess that we have room for another! In addition to selling the goods locally, we will ship things to our friends in Liberia. Again, sending container loads of clothing and goods to a 3rd world country and paying for the freight with capital generated from sales of other goods is absolutely not a new model , but its sexy and I want to start there. I have huge dreams for this corporation, but that is the starting point.
I think that is a good way for me to straddle 2 worlds. I see the consumption and excess in so many worlds, not just pinup. Whether its ‘fast fashion’, Cosplay, fancy food sculptures, a handbag that costs a week’s wages, or what not, the ways the first world uses its resources while our planet is dying and people are starving kinda sucks. I want to keep my creature comforts running water, eating out, electric toothbrush luxurious life, but I also want to do something to help. When I do make it back to deaths’ door, I want to know my life meant something. Somehow just consuming things and making pretty art doesn’t seem like enough anymore. I know that it will be hard, but that’s no excuse for not trying. My advice to anyone feeling conflicted about wanting to consume stuff but not impact the planet is two fold: buy used, and buy half! Instead of buying 2 lipsticks buy 1 and donate $20 to the charity you like best, or go buy someone who is hungry a meal. I promise you can get by on one new toy, and the joy you get from helping others will be greater than you having those shoes in every color!
Wish me luck y’all! And from now on a portion of every pinup photoshoot will be donated for meals for the children of Liberia West Africa! So hey, book me and I’ll get to art and to give, my 2 current fav things, straddling all my worlds.