Can I just take a moment to say how much JOY I am getting from building sets and creating images using my hands? I am having such a good time physically building and creating and taking my time doing so. I’ve shifted how I work slightly – not in everything I create, but in this new series that I’m working on that I’ll debut in early 2017. It has been a labor of love, and when I say labor, I mean it. First I played with yarn, and after 100 hours of “yarning”, and another huge chunk of time dedicated to building the walls for the set (and 4 hours sewing into my sister-in-law’s hand) I was ready to shoot.

For the next shoot we carried 800 lbs of sand into the studio, assembled a bed, and I even found a model in my local grocery store! But more on that shoot later. For this one, I got a very, very heavy bathtub into the studio (re: “I” as “I hired two people to do it, because I was vastly unqualified to be lifting anything that heavy.”). I ordered 100 lbs of wax, though we only ended up needing about 25 lbs worth! And then I got to melting, and covering my friend who was laid in the bathtub naked. All in a day’s work, right?

Assistant: Kelly McGrady
Model: KD Stapleton
Music: “Moonlight” by Message to Bears

After the photo shoot ended, despite having brought about 25 trash bags, we had no real way of cleaning my dear friend who I had just spent hours covering in thick wax. It took about four hours at home – scraping, pealing, heating, bathing – and any other “ing” you can think of, to get the wax off. I think it might have broken my record for messiest photo shoot yet! And that is really saying something.

What is the messiest thing you’ve done for art?!

Please note that we looked into safety precautions before doing this photo shoot and I recommend you do the same if working with materials on skin.