Behind the Scenes- Label Yourself

So, this is the top secret hair piece in the works that I was busy creating last weekend for Crys Darling's clothing line, Label Yourself. We had spent months designing wigs and hair pieces for her Sweets collection, and it's finally all come together! Crys gathered an amazing team of individuals to capture her sweet treat fantasy, and these are some of the behind the scenes images from that shoot! I was so excited to see everything come into place, and to see Trulie finally try on her hair piece. It. Was. Magical. 

(Pictured from left to right: Quiana Tenise, Crys Darling, and Trulie Scrumptious) 

We are thrilled to put together the other 4 pieces for her collection, which will be debuted to the public on April 19th at Drauma Columbus! I will have the distinct honor of designing her pieces (with the incredible help of Kaylen!) AND wearing one of the pieces down the runway. I'm thrilled! Let me know what you think of Trulie's cupcake hairpiece! 

You can see all of the images from behind the scenes that day here. All images courtesy of Art Cat. 

Synthetic Rebellion 2014

(Image by Laura Dark)

Okay, okay. So I've been pretty silent these days here on the blog. I've been so ungodly busy for the last few months trying to get what feels like a billion projects up and running at once, and I've put the blog on the back burner. Again. But NO MORE! Seriously. 

Instead of trying to recap everything that's been going on, I figured that I'd just jump into talking about a major project that I'm working on right this very second: Synthetic Rebellion's next venture into this years Alternative Fashion Week as designers AND hair stylists. That's right! We're submitting our own collection of costume wear in addition to elaborate and extreme hair art structures. It's like we've absolutely gone insane or something.... Which I often argue that we have.

Regardless! It's official and we're excited about it. If you're interested in what we did last year, just click on the links above. They have all of the awesome work that we put into the finale runway show as hair artists, and now we're contributing even more. It's honestly a complete dream come true to be able to tackle such a large goal in such a short amount of time. Alternative Fashion Week is coming up in just a few short months (April 19th-26th to be exact) here in Columbus, and we've got TWO collections that we're debuting. That's a HUGE leap from our First Runway Show Ever last April. It's amazing what a year can bring.

Speaking of, that beautiful girl on the right in the picture above? That's my hair partner in crime, Kaylen. Without her I would never have had the confidence to do anything beyond studio work. She is an amazing addition to Synthetic Rebellion and I'm very lucky to have her by my side in all of this. 

Anyway, to give you some confidence that I am in fact going to be writing more often, check out the Alternative Fashion Blog that I am a contributing writer for (lead in fact!), which will have a TON of updates on AFW 2014, the designers, fashions, and events that surround it. You won't be disappointed! 

Oh! And check out some of our recent work on our Facebook Page and tell us what you think! 

Amy Koller Anderson

The coolest part about doing photoshoots and being a part of the industry is when things like this happen. This is a painting by Amy Kollar Anderson that was inspired by an image I had shot a few years ago with Photographer James Hayden. 

It was amazing to watch the transformation from inspiration to a solid piece of art, and after months and months of waiting, she put out a time lapse lapse video. I can't count how many times I've sat and watched this, each time being more impressed with her skill and imagination. It was an unbelievable honor to be part of her collection!

Now she has limited edition prints and jewelry with my face on them! You can check out her etsy store for those and for dozens of other pieces of exceptional art!

Picking Up Your Feet.

 

I'd like to apologize for the exceptionally grainy images for this post. I had decided to bring my new camera to the farm to document May and I, and the settings were never adjusted to the arena's light, or to May's movement. I'm working on getting a photographer to come out and take images specifically for the blog, but these will have to work for now. 

 

 

Anyway, onto the training session! Mandy was kind enough to pull May from the pasture and place her in a stall until I could get out of work. Once I was there, I guided May around the arena for a few minutes, walking a relaxed path and exercising some basic commands until we came to a complete stop. I was touching her all over, running my hands over her feet and lifting them a little (which I've done every time I'm around her) when she decided to bite the top of my head. Mandy took that as a good indicator that we should start working on getting May comfortable with letting someone lift up her feet.

 

Now, it is incredibly important that horses learn not only this but to also learn to be comfortable standing on 3 legs at a time. Farriers need to tend to horses hooves, vets need to be able to work on an injury, and an owner needs to be able to pick up the foot of a calm horse to see if there's a need for a vet or farrier in the first place. May hasn't had much success with the farrier in the past, so it was time to finally nip this uneasiness in the bud.

 

 

We chose to use a lead rope to pick up her feet so that it was less dangerous to us, and began just by gently rubbing the rope against her legs. Once she was relaxed and accepting of the rope, Mandy then put it around the back of each leg, one at a time, until she was comfortable with that, too. She was less than happy to comply with this, and she paced in circles while we made ourselves pivots and slowed her down with "woah" commands.



It's at this point that I feel like it should be said that I am still terrified of May. My trust in her has grown exponentially, but I still question everything that I do and everything that she could do, and that uneasiness spurs a lot of hiccups in her attitude to happen. Every time I'm with her, I see how much improvement she's made with being handled, and being well mannered, and it makes me feel instantly better. Still, I dwell on previous experiences and I put expectations out there when we're together that something bad is going to happen. Those things make her great improvements seem like tiny little spurts of luck to me, instead of the moved mountains and huge victories that they actually are.

This fear is really prohibiting me from becoming a strong leader and companion to May, and I realize that every time that we're together. Since Mandy and I have talked at length about this (and she knows the signs of me panicking), she will often switch from teaching May something, to teaching me instead.

Now, I have a fear of standing in front of May to get her to stop when she won't stop otherwise. It's not that she's ever hurt me when we've worked together, or that she's temperamental when I'm standing there, but I still get excessively nervous. Often when I throw my hands out and shout a booming 'WOAH', I'm shaking. Being that this is something that I need to work through, Mandy makes it a point to consistently teach me how to confidently stop any horse that might be moving towards me. It always takes a few dozen tries to get over my nerves, but I eventually get there. By mid-session I was throwing my hands out to stop her, and my hands were as still as ever.

The other form of stopping May is using the 'traffic sign'. This makes me equally as nervous, but again, by the time we had reached mid-session I was doing it and May was listening.

Now, I'm going to make another post about this that goes more into detail, but I have learned to back May up with just my finger. Mandy reminded me to use this in addition to the other methods if May is trying to walk into me. Every time she listens to this command and backs up, I nearly fall over in pride and excitement. I cannot believe, even for a second, that we mastered this trick.

Anyway, after about 30 minutes of getting May used to the lead rope on her legs, Mandy and I were finally able to lift up each of her legs, one by one. She fought it a little, as any horse would at first, and then she slowly started to get used to one of her legs being off of the ground. She did so well that we didn't push her to do anything else, and just enjoyed the moment of victory.

After our training session, we walked May into an open stall and Dan and I spent a chunk of time grooming her. I was so grateful to have him at the farm to witness a training session in person, and to allow him some time to get to know May a bit more. He hadn't been to the farm since I first adopted her, and seeing them together made me extremely happy.

 



Cue awkward half-family photo!







My Birthday!

Holy Hannah, have I been a terrible blogger lately! It's been two whole months since my last update, and I feel like such a slacker. So much has happened since September, and it's crazy that I've neglected giving any updates! So first let me say that I'm sorry, and THEN let me say that I already have a ton of updates written to publish over the next week... So you'll be all caught up! More or less.

At any rate, let's start with my birthday! This past Monday I celebrated turning 26, and I had an amazing day. Actually if you want to get technical, we celebrated my birthday the whole week beforehand, too. One night Dan made me a gigantic meal and cleaned the entire apartment (top to bottom!), and the next day he took me to a concert (or two), then the next he had beautiful flowers delivered, and nearly every night we'd go out for fanciful dinners with friends... I was exceptionally spoiled. For the actual night of my birthday we got a group of friends together and went to Level Dining Lounge to eat like kings and party the night away. It was amazing.

Two very sweet friends (Heather and Colleen) handmade my birthday cake, which was this awesome steampunk floral delight that made everyone super excited. It tasted fantastic, and the pictures just really fail to do it any justice. 

I was really touched by everyone's gifts, and kind words during the party. I had honestly felt like everyone's presence was a huge gift to me, because every single person that sat at that table was just as busy as I usually am, and have just as much going on as I do, and they all made the effort. Plus, they are all so freaking talented! I spent about an hour talking about each person's abilities, whether it be with singing, or dancing, or sculpting, or styling, or acting... I mean, it went on, and on, and on. My friends are all incredible, and I'm super lucky to get to spend big moments of my life with them. 

This birthday might have been the best one yet. I was so thankful for not only my party, but to those that wrote huge posts about our friendships, and sent cards, and letters, made videos, and wrote songs, and sent me a bazillion messages online. My phone exploded all day, and I loved it!  

It was so effortless for those around me to stop for a second and celebrate with me, and I think that that was just the coolest thing ever. You know? 

Happy 26th!  

Manitoulin Island

I was able to visit Dan's family cabin on Manitoulin Island in Canada for the summer, and I brought Tuesday along for the ride. The island is located in Lake Huron, and is the largest lake island in the world. It also has the largest lake on an island in a lake, Lake Manitou, which has two islands itself. Therefore, "each is thus an island in a lake on an island in a lake." Anyway, the family cabin was built by Dan's great grandfather, and was just incredible. It sits on a peninsula where one side is home to an unceded indian reserve, and the other has similar cabin properties like this one. Here are some snapshots of our great Canadian adventure.

Summertime Happiness.

I'm having a really hard time adjusting to the fact that summer is almost over. It feels like January was just a few weeks ago, and Christmas seems like it should still be eons away. And no matter how many hot, sweaty days go by where I get sunburned, I just don't feel like I'm ready to say goodbye yet. With that said, we've been spending a lot of time on summer activities as of late, and it has been amazing. 

We've gone on summer vacation (update on that soon), we've gone camping, swimming, we've laid out on beaches, grilled a billion things on the new grill, lounged around pools, ate enough ice cream to fill a whale, and utilized splash pads whenever available. Our dinner parties, and patio dining in the Short North has absolutely spoiled me rotten, and I've eaten better than I ever remember eating before. Miraculously, I haven't gained any weight from all of the food and the cider (and the Wakefruit drinks!). Yet. 

 And I may love the fall, and the spring for that matter, but this summer was special. I fell in love every day, I had a wealth of opportunity find me, and I evolved into someone I'm proud of. Things might not be perfect, and things might fall apart sometimes, but I'm still grateful for the few months that granted me this amount of happiness. I can only hope that the rest of year continues on this merry little path, and we can be ushered into a new year that is better than this one. For now, I'm just going to focus on the remaining days in August, and embrace them as much as I can. Even if it means that I'll be overheating, and forced to wear my hair in a bun for the foreseeable future.

xoxo.