In this lifetime I’ve had some experiences that have made me question reality. Synchronistic, serendipitous, jaw dropping, eye rubbing, #WHATISMYLIFE experiences. In high school, the person whose music I listened to most, and who was the main feature in most of the mixtapes I made, was @myaplanet9 . A year after escaping the abuse, Mya’s management got a hold of my first calendar—the same one I was working on when LO spat in my face and slapped me—and I received a call telling me that I was booked to photograph her (thanks @spazoutent✨). I told myself this might be too good to be true and to not get excited until I actually got on set and took the first picture. 12 years and many, many, many pictures later, this goddess has become a dear friend of mine, and a cherished mentor. Thank you Mya for all the beauty, healing and magic you add to the world. It has been an honour to watch you grow and continue to shine. Thank you for the guidance you have so often and so selflessly blessed me with over the years, and for trusting me to photograph you. Some of the best memories I’ve had in this lifetime were with you and I’m so grateful! Forever in awe of you, you are #UNBREAKABLE I LOVE YOU MYALANSKY!!HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Pictures of Women created by Female Artists using a variety of mostly found, all natural materials. Many of theses are collaborative creations by a duo of artists known as Sister Golden, while others seem to be from different artists. Vicki Rawlins, part of Sister Golden explains some of their creative technique
Nothing taped, nothing glued, just Mother Nature balancing delicately on itself. The actual act of creating each piece, for me, is therapeutic, spending lots of time outside walking and foraging, truly in the moment … There’s a freedom in knowing everything I’m doing is temporary … After I finish the piece, I document it with a photograph … The last step is to recycle it all back into the earth or into my next piece.
Excerpt from Morbid Anatomys blogspot (link below) on The Fontanelle, The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead.
“In this vast underground ossuary you will find, among the usual piles of bones, tiny stuctures–some with text engraved, others draped in rosaries and embellished with prayer cards–enshrining chosen skeletal bits. To the uninitiated, their meanings are unclear.One invaluable source in trying to decipher the meaning here was the work of author/scholar/photographer Paul Koudounaris of Empire of Death fame; he explains the cult thusly in his Fortean Times article “Sisterhood of the Skulls” (excerpted below; click here to read article in its entirety):
“…One of [Naples’] greatest enigmas was a strange cult, composed almost exclusively of elderly women who communed with the dead, lavishing their attention on, and even making offerings to, human skulls.
The cult was centred on a cemetery known as the Fontanelle… A curious cult dedicated to the remains began to evolve around the site, especially after 1872. In that year, Father Gaetano Barbati had large deposits of bones exhumed, and the skulls were cleaned and placed on racks or in troughs, where they took on the role of devotional items for this death-obsessed group. There was no formal organisation to this cult, but it rapidly grew popular with older women, especially widows or those with little or no family. They claimed to receive messages from the deceased in their dreams, and would then “adopt” whichever skull they believed had belonged to the spirit that had contacted them, becoming in effect a kind of caretaker of not just the remains but also the soul of the dead person. They would clean and care for their skulls, even constructing engraved marble shrines for them. These boxes might enclose a single skull, or multiples if the same person adopted more than one. “ ”
fontanelle007.jpgvon Morbid Anatomy Über Flickr: Cimitero delle Fontanelle and “The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead” or “The Neapolitan Skull Cult” of Naples, Italy;
I’m sooooo excited for what’s to come for my Image Consulting business, The Savvy Wearapist in 2016!! I have so much passion about the fashion and beauty industry and supporting businesswomen - the next step I’m taking is one of the best investments I may have made thus far! Stay tuned! #Sisterhood #Empowerment #Workspace #UpliftingOneAnother (at Oakland, California)
