and underneath her wimple / she has curlers in her hair

 

So ever since Kristina completed her transformation into a fairy princess, I’ve been craving curls of my own. To be more precise, I’ve been craving them for a long time. ’50s girls need curls; it’s just a fact. But my hair is pin-straight and I am incredibly lazy, so I’d long since resigned myself to simpler hairdos. It was Kristina’s revelation that turned ringlets from pipe dream to God help me, I must have this. 

So I bought some foam curlers from Drugstore.com. I was seriously doubting they would work: previous experience had shown me that my hair doesn’t hold a curl, period. But there’s something about foam that does it! That, and using dry hair – that made a big difference. I won’t pretend sleeping on the rollers was comfortable, but I was also completely inexperienced at putting them in. Next time I’ll clip the curls higher on my head, so they aren’t smack in the middle of my temple and the pillow.

And lo – I actually think curls suit my face shape better than straight hair does. I haven’t been wearing my glasses lately, but something about the cat-eye looks amazing with chunky curls. I felt rockabilly to a fault. My dad even said I looked “very nice”, and he’s one of those people who wouldn’t notice if I grew an extra arm.

Dress: Tatted Tina’s Designs

Hat & gloves: vintage, thrifted

Everything else: thrifted

preview

On Monday I spirited away to Montpelier for a totally impromptu shoot with Brent. He messaged me on Facebook, and forty minutes later I was on the bus, because why the hell not? Brent and I have worked together on and off for three and a half years now, almost as long as I’ve been modeling, but it had been a while since the last one. I’d forgotten just how in sync our creative impulses are.

He’s still editing most of the photos (we took several hundred), but I’m happy to present the first few. Both the collages are edited by me.

cherry bomb: nymphcore edition

So, um, as you might have noticed, all three of my cameras are currently out of commission. I swear I haven’t lost interest in this blog. Quite the opposite, in fact – I’m slavering to take pictures again. I really miss capturing myself. Every time this happens, I realize how much of my life really is conducted through snapshots. I sort of forget what I look like without outfit pictures. I forget how to live in my body. (And I got a couple of really really awesome new[old] vintage dresses that are crying out for the camera’s eye. That too.)

Luckily, I’m taking the whole lot of them into the shop today, so I should be back up and running within a week. In the meantime, have these shots that Holly took of me back in May, down by the river in the fledgling summer.

margarita plz

I don’t actually like margaritas, but I feel like that’s what you’re supposed to drink when you’re lazing poolside in cat-eye sunglasses.

I spent most of the past week in Maine, battling the ocean and soaking in the unabashed kitsch. I love tacky tourist-trap bullshit, especially the maritime version: I am the kind of person who is easily charmed by, like, dancing lobsters.

Major picdump incoming: these shots were taken by my mom, who was into photography before I was but a twinkle in her eye.

 

cherry bomb

You ever feel like certain outfits are just straight-up cursed? They look bangin’ in person, but EVERY. TIME. you try to photograph them, something goes horribly wrong?

Yeah, that would be this dress.

Fed up with how so much of my vintage seems to be simply disintegrating, I’ve invested in a few high-quality reproduction dresses. This one’s from Maggie Tang, and the construction is excellent for its price – excellent period, even. Though several reviews said “perfect for a bridesmaid”, and I had to laugh – you know I’m wearing this sucker out day-to-day, because “absurdly, inappropriately formal” is the name of my game.

The dress arrived a week and a half ago, and I’ve worn it at least five times since then, but I could not for the life of me get a good photo of it. The je ne sais quoi just wasn’t there.

So on Sunday I put my hair in pin curls, I did a full face of makeup, and I zipped myself into the dress. Yeah, bitch, today’s the day.

And then the following happened within 20 minutes:

• I took out my pin curls to find they had not set even a little
• the soles of my shoes came unglued, forcing me to perform a Ministry of Silly Walks goose-step all the way outside
• my camera fell off its *%*(&*($&^* tripod and its metal shell split almost in half
• I got so nervous and frustrated that I started sweating through my makeup

So I grabbed the shots I could and went inside to sulk in front of Netflix like the good Lord intended.

Cursed, I tell you. That’s what I get for buying non-vintage.

pie & propaganda

Another summer, another weekend at my godparents’ cabin. (And holy HELL are this year’s photos better than last year’s or the year before’s. It’s fun to measure my improvement.) I always love playing characters here. This year’s housewife one of my favorites.

But I’m not quite as toothless as I look. Today I’m releasing a project I’ve been sitting on for some time, and I’m pretty excited about it.

It’s sort of an open secret that I have a writing blog, Beginning Our Dissent. Starting today, though, I’d like to introduce it officially, to see the merging of (two of) my online communities. More than just a side hobby, it will now function as a portfolio of sorts, and I’ll be repping its Facebook page on My Kingdom for a Hat.

I write mostly about politics, activist praxis, religion, and mental illness. From the Facebook description:

I’m Skye. I’m a writer and blogger interested in fairy tales, uncomfortable truths, and the intersection of magic and mundane. I think we should all take greater care to see our ideological opponents as human beings first, and that theme underlies almost all my work.

I write a monthly column for an international writing collective called the Prague Revue, and I blog original photography at My Kingdom for a Hat. My work has appeared sporadically in Elephant Journal, Cowbird, Vogoff, & more. As of 2015, I am working on two short-story collections and an epic poem, which I hope to self-publish as soon as finances allow.

Won’t you join me?

polka dots & fireworks

Like any counterculture darling, I’ve always been a little jaded about the Fourth of July. As recently as last year, I was all “okay, but do we really need to celebrate ‘Murica?” I would enjoy the barbecue and fireworks, but only couched in a sufficient layer of irony.

Sometime in the past few months, I’ve turned a corner. And I’m liking it. Yes, America is flawed, deeply so. Yes, some of us are much more free than others. But I’m no longer feeling cognitive dissonance between acknowledging these things and shamelessly adoring good-ol’-fashioned kitsch. I still keep my distance from nationalism, but I don’t think engaging with cheesy cultural symbols is a bad thing.

Everything is problematic. Love the things you love, even (especially) if they’re imperfect. Life is too short for ironic joys.

the witch & the sprite: madonna edition

I really love Madonna themes. The iconography is so lush, so blatantly defiant of the Second Commandment, that it’s easy to see the pagan roots of Abrahamic traditions. The Blessed Virgin is just another permutation of female divinity. She’s Baubo and Oshun and Persephone and the Morrigan alike.

This, right here, is why I’m a religious studies major. We all need to be part of something. Why not hitch yourself to such auspicious debauchery?

 

ash & me, part ii

My favorite sort of work: bright and lilting but also a little bit upsetting, in a way you can’t quite understand.

ash & me, part i

Last month I spent a few hours shooting film with Ash LaRose, which was one of the most rewarding modeling experiences I’ve ever had. Ash is the kind of photographer who jumps up and down and tears her metaphorical hair out when she gets a good shot. I am the kind of model who does this as well, but I had never before worked with a photographer who shared my childish passion. Most of them like to maintain a veneer of professionalism, but I don’t think you can really make good art if you’re caught up in what’s “professional”. Ash and I ended up, like, talking about periods. Which made me a lot more comfortable with her than I have been with most others I’ve shot with.

Here’s my first batch. More to come.