Model’s meditation:

This shoot will always have a special place in my heart. These photos were shot in what I’d consider, still early in my modeling career. It had been a while since I’d been in front of the camera and I hadn’t shot with Omega ‘one on one’ before. The only backdrop that he had at the time was a tan/ beige color he’d said, so I started with that as the foundation to my styling. 

I’ve always said that Brown is an underrated color! I find so much beauty and variety in the hue of Brown. The color immediately connects me to the earth. I think of soil: soft and malleable, ready to  be moved and shaped by the various systems supported by it, all without thanks for its incumbent nutrients and vital protective properties. I think of my ancestors who worked the earth of this country and that. I think of their skin, and mine, browned by the sun and by God. I think of how the sun feels on my cheek…my shoulder… my legs. Warm in a pleasant way that has a bite behind it. Making it clear that there’s more strength behind it than you’d like to intimately experience.

 I think of those before me, who, at some point, must’ve thought the same thing. I think of their tenacity and enduring nature. How nature has cradled all of us through our lives. My ancestry is intertwined with the earth. Buried in it. Completing one cycle after another.  Pushing, crawling, clawing through the earth. Sprouting and growing under pressure. Absorbing and transforming by any means necessary. Converting whatever it can, in an effort to take root and bloom again. 

The fur featured in these photos belonged to my grandmother and her sister, my great aunt. They would eventually end up in New York, where my mother was born, but like me, are true southern girls. I felt so connected to them wearing these beautiful things. I imagined them in their youths, like me. Beautiful and ambitious. Moving through the world with a ferocity that comes from knowing that you’ll have to make your own way. Moving through a world that didn't plan on you being the resilient type.

I am so grateful to my ancestors for the person they’ve created space for me to become. With these photos I wanted to embody them, as well as the girl I knew myself to be, and the woman I knew I could become. I wanted to be able to look into this girl’s eyes and see all of us. All of the cycles, the births, the deaths, the pains, and the triumphs. Stylistically I represented these different feelings by blending hard and soft elements. Parts of my identity that were decided on before I could have any real recognition of what they would mean for my place in the world. Other parts, still forming or not yet completely set, but clearly a preamble to what  would come. My accessories are silver metals in varying widths and textures that stand out against soft skin, hair, and fur. The depth of the Blacks and Browns accentuated by the glints of Silver throughout this series reminds me of the moon and the stars defiantly shining through the night. They, like my ancestors buried in the dirt of this earth, have endured night after night. They inspire hope; impart wisdom on those who stand beneath their light; and guide us to who we are meant to be.

We find peace in the light of the moon.  Here is where we can remember who we are. It connects our past with our future in a delicate string of destiny.