Memoirs Part 1

I apologize for the lack of updates or photos or anything. I have been sick as I mentioned and kinda just carrying on as much as I can with focusing my energy on work and trying to learn why I might be sick. New theory is that my anxiety is manifesting into a physical form in my body. It could make sense. I started having issues after a burn out episode a few years back. I've always had a few weird things here and there, but things really turned around that time period.
So I've been dying to shoot self portraits again, and get that started up, but my motivation is really low these days. I just feel so tired. Also I am so focused on trying to transition to living in a new area, that it is eating a lot of my energy and resources.
From brainstorming though, I've been wanting to write a memoir like blog for a while. I've just always felt a certain levels of unease with writing something that might embarrass someone or portray modeling in the wrong light. I've hated the amount of blog or posts out there that make it seem like modeling is all fighting off creepy perverts and living off money from one shoot to the next. I suppose that could very well be a few models stories, but it doesn't reflect mine at all. I've had some funny or crazy experiences that will make a good story, but I wouldn't say that most stories would end up being a common reflection of my life as a model.
I talked it over with my therapist, my boyfriend and ChatGPT and they helped me come up with a way to present some of the stories to distort the facts enough to protect people, without changing the reality of the story. I'm hoping that by exploring this I can ruminate on some of my traumas while also re-kindling my creativity in the safety of not having to move at all. I use to be a creative writer and I like the challenge of trying to tell these stories in a way that is actually entertaining and sympathetic.
So without further ado....

A model recently returned to the art scene in Georgia. Except not to model. I got started modeling in Georgia, and that’s where I’ve gotten to know some of the worst people I’ve met in the art community. I don’t think it is necessarily Georgia, though can you think of many photographers or models in Georgia you want to work with? I started off as a trade and hobby model with absolutely no idea that this could be a profession or larger community. I heard a bit about the traveling art model world in passing, and “thought, huh, interested. Wonder how they became a model like that”, but it never occurred to me that I was in a sphere lightly overlapping it. Nor did I ever consider that I had any direction going towards it. 

The first “model” I ever met was Bellatrix (name changed for posting) and Kasey (also changed for posting). Kasey made up her own concepts for fun and dabbled in some photography, while Bellatrix mostly did amateur porn but called it “erotic/fetish art” which confused me a long time. In my head erotic art was old French movies where “lovers” had beautiful sex scenes for both the vibe and story telling, but over time I did realize that “erotic art” was a polite way of saying amateur porn, and sometimes less amateur porn. It was always about spank bank material and very very very rarely about capturing romantic moments. Kasey on the other hand did not model nude, but therefore never got paid. Unfortunately, she also got posted on a site called yourenotaphotographer.com, and that probably describes many of my first shoots as well. A bit blurry, bad lighting, too much posing, old cliches, colors and props that don’t work together, etc. I didn’t mind. I enjoyed it, and liked getting to meet people. I didn’t have ambitions to become a good model or be in good photos. I liked working with a lot of people and learning new forms of art, sometimes the photos were awesome, and that was exciting, but it was less something I expected to be honest. I steered clear of modeling for money because it often seemed to mean “modeling” pornography, and while I dabbled in some light versions, I continued to find that I didn’t like it. So I didn’t look for work, but I did take jobs if they were handed to me and didn’t seem well beyond my limits. 

Enter my first tour, where Bellatrix convinced me to travel the country with her as a model, and I actually learned and experienced this world. That is a whole long story in itself, but I just wanted to give some backstory, before I dive into Liv (who’s name I haven’t changed because she has made it pretty publicly known that she is mentally unwell and possibly dangerous). As I planned my first tour and then when I returned home, I found a new birth in my modeling. After years of stumbling, I had started a name for myself in art modeling, and the passion I had for it made me suddenly interesting to better and hiring photographers.  A photographer I had worked with regularly introduced me to Liv, and suggested I help her. I could quickly remember my bewilderment at this world and how many mistakes I had made (and will continue to make forever). I was happy to help someone else navigate. She was only 18 or 19 at the time, but confessed that she preferred hardcore fetish modeling work. She only found herself in art modeling because that fetish world had “unfairly” kicked her out.  I could imagine after glimpsing at the amount of drama and cliques in that world, that this was true. Being maybe 22 myself, it wasn’t a large leap for me to think of her as an adult that did find an interest in that work too. I had already met quit e a few models that had tried to pull me into that world convinced I would love it (especially the money). 

I let her know I would be happy to let her know who is safe and who to stay away from. I had noticed she worked with a photographer in Atlanta that had tied up a few models and fingered them against their will. She admitted that this had happened to her too, but that she thought it was just his language barrier. I pointed out that the photographer had been in America over 20 years, and her eyes went big. I thought maybe she had been deceived and naive, but she wasn’t. She continued to work with the photographer, and had even brought in other models to work with him too. I let her know about a photographer that had forced a model into a sexual exchange, and a few weeks later I got a text message saying that she had brought it up to the photographer and it sounded like a “misunderstanding”. I was already furious that she was potentially putting these models in harm by breaking the privacy we had with each other, and then it got more strange. 

A photographer that I had worked with a long time had been looking for models to pair me with for his series. As an underwater photographer, it wasn’t easy to find someone that was comfortable in the water, and responsible or reliable to work with. He also had specific look requirements that narrowed down the prospects considerably. I had worked with him for about 2 years at that point. I enjoyed working with him, and found the peacefulness of working together so tranquil. Then enter Liv. Liv seemed like a great model. She was a head shorter than me, but underwater it wasn’t so noticeable.  She didn’t have a ton of tattoos, body modifications, etc. After our first shoot with the photographer, we’re drying off and she confesses that the photographer had asked to massage her and then kissed her at the last shoot. I was surprised, and told her he had never done anything similar to me after she had asked. It could have happened. Photographers can treat various models so differently. I mentioned that I was confused because he always seemed so respectful and loving to his wife whom I had met various times. Her eyes grew wide again. “He has a wife?” I think back on that moment, and wonder if every time her eyes expanded like that, if really she was worried she was about to be caught in a lie. For all I know, he did have an affair with Liv. I think it is very doubtful as the coming months progressed. 

At first I considered confronting the photographer about the rumor she not only told me, but was now spreading around to other models. It started with the massage, and then other things. It wasn’t just one photographer, but eventually became various photographers in Georgia that had touched her. Sometimes she would write a post on social media about being picked on by a photographer or harassed sexually, and sometimes she would brag to another model or me that she gets hired all the time because she flirts with the photographers. A friend of mine worked with her, and admitted they were uncomfortable photographing with her again. She would flirt and touch them in ways they hadn’t encouraged. I started to get suspicious of photographers that photographed her often. Was she flirting with them, and they enjoyed it? Is that what they want or expect from a model? Would she sleep with them or not?

I could go deeper into the way she terrorized the founder of the women’s safety group for photography until she quit or the other crazy rumors and stories I would hear, but to keep it as honest as possible, I’ll continue with just my experience. Liv would message time to time to ask me advice still, and eventually I told her I didn’t think I was helping her, and I didn’t like how she was treating people. I asked the underwater photographer to not have me model with her again. I thought about how touring with Bellatrix had pushed away a few photographers that worried I might be as crazy as she would act on social media. I didn’t want people to think I would also be as sexual with photographers as Liv or that maybe I would in some way have a sexual relationship with her. By that time modeling had become my passion and maybe my obsession. I ate clean, worked out, changed some of the branding, and had decided I wanted to be taken seriously. I had a spark of a belief in myself that I could be a great model because of my small taste of modeling for beautiful art. I was not compromising on letting my new hope get besmirched by a model burning bridges state to state. She represented all these parts of the industry that had kept me from wanting to join it, and I believed it didn’t have to be that way. I was relieved to see her drop out of modeling, either by her choice or scaring most everyone off of photographing her. Over the years, I would receive a phone call or message about how much she misses me and doesn’t remember why we aren’t friends, then I would received the opposite message about how I am ugly and should k I l l myself.  I didn’t think about it much. Too much drama, and I was so focused on my new life and career. She couldn’t threaten me, but that’s it. Eventually she would find someone else to distract her I thought. 

She didn’t though. Almost ten years later, and it’s like her vendetta was cooking and waiting to boil over. Liv started posting threatening messages to another model originally from Atlanta, who started a group chat with me and a few other people Liv had harassed over the years. While I had just blocked and deleted, everyone else took snapshots and collected evidence to one day take to the police. I really have no faith the police will or could do anything. I had seen this with previous experience. Liv had a battery assault arrest, but she had never come to find me in person. She was just an internet bully. An aggressive one, except that her claims and threats were so absurd, I found them hard to take seriously. At this point I was on tour and moving to Seattle. I had so much else on my mind, that Liv has been more a mosquito that pops up than a fear. Like ten years ago, I decided that anyone crazy enough to believe her rants, probably wasn’t someone I wanted to associate with. I do feel bad that she has tried to go after photographers and other models I know, because I won’t talk to her. I also feel bad for her. There isn’t really anything I can do though. And while there is this wild person making outrageous claims on the internet about me or to me, that I have “r a p e d her “and that she thinks I should get “r a p e d and k I l l e d”, she is this tiny problem in my life I can’t do anything about and barely affects me except when other people want to send me screenshots of her online threats and ask me who she is. She is one of the few problems in my life that I feel I can easily let go and not over worry about while I try chipping away at the larger issues I do have some control of or need to find control of.