we had a wedding in our backyard two days after christmas. meaning that my mom was doing things non-stop for like 2 weeks. on top of that, we had cousins come to visit in the middle of the wedding, which she had to clean for. she is crazy.
Read Morewe had the most fun new years eve with explosions and silly string. it was the best way to ring in the new year! i dug up our goals that we made last year, and of course we fell short on a few that will likely end up on the list this year. but we also hit a few, which felt really good! i can't wait to sit down today and think about what we want to accomplish in the next year, it'll be a nice refresh and a good chance to see how far we've come.
this shoot was so much fun. since we didn't have any other projects while my aunt was in town, we had her help us with it. sydney is wearing a sparkly sweater that we found at the rack (for $13), a teal and purple sequins anthro skirt from a couple of years ago, and some hot pink steve madden heels. her jewelry is vintage. she is wearing bobbi brown plum lipstick, my new fave. it was so hard to narrow down pictures, i seriously want to share all of them because they are so cute! here's to a very sparkly new year!
styling by bobette carpenter, hair and make up by angela pedersen, photography by brittany carpenter
i feel like it has been forever since we have been back from the east coast, but really it hasn't even been two weeks. for our last week we went on a road trip through the east coast, we hit 9 states! on friday we left dc and headed up to new york for the evening. we only had time to get rice to riches and grimaldi's (our two favorites), and snap a few pictures of the city.
that night we finished the drive up to connecticut. we stayed with our friend brad in storrs, mansfield (where uconn is). it snowed all the next day, so we visited the school and had a cozy day inside. for some reason the snow didn't bother me quite as much as it did when i lived in it. we felt like we were having a white christmas in a homey cabin in connecticut.
the next two days we visited new haven, mystic and providence. we loved walking around snowy yale, it was such a beautiful place- i will do a whole post devoted to pics of yale. the pictures below are of a little place we ate lobster at in mystic. we showed up on a monday, which was apparently the worst day to go because all of the activities (the seaport and the aquarium) were closed! but, we did a quick yelp and found ford's lobster. oh my gosh it made the whole trip to mystic worth it, we were so happy! i got a lobster roll and jarm got fish and chips. we went to providence after, walked around brown and a local coffee shop and found an adorable antique store. but it was so freezing we left right after that. somehow i didn't get a single picture in providence. that night we made a really classy cheese plate and watched a christmas story. it was perfection.
the next day we went to boston, which we were soooo excited for! somehow we arrived just in time for the biggest snow storm ever. we went to the museum of fine arts where turner's slave ship is (causing total elation). the drive from the museum to our apartment should have been 15 minutes, but took three hours because of the snowstorm combined with rush hour traffic. we about died. we decided to treat ourselves to an extravagant dinner (that we walked in the snow to) that night to make up for the rough day. the next day we had some down time before our flight so we got cheesecake factory. the parking for an hour and a half was 25 dollars. what?? our first impression of boston was not a good one. we visited fenway park, froze our butts off and headed to the airport. we definitely need another trip to love boston like we should.
i have thought about doing outfits inspired by artworks for a long time, i just never found the right inspiration/concept. then, one day as i was walking around the national museum of women in the arts (for my internship), i saw it. i had seen lots of mickalene thomas works, but this one was perfect. it had recently been hung and i was so happy to see it in person.
mickalene thomas (b.1971) is an african-american female artist who reembodies her own stereotypes. she takes inspiration from andy warhol's repetitive prints: originally this work was one in a series of forty, a-e-i-o-u and sometimes y (2009), that was displayed on a single wall. rather than silkscreen or paint, thomas uses rhinestones as her medium, and somehow creates so much depth and variation even when using just black. many of her works are multicolored and patterned, but i love the simple two-tone coloration of this work.
for this new year's eve outfit, i tried to use a simple palette of hot pink and black rhinestones (sequins are close enough right?). i got that velvet brand dress at the rack at the beginning of the year for no reason other than it was the best thing i have ever seen. we paired it with some pink leggings (that weren't quite the right color, but we were working with what we had). the shoes were old bcbg ones with the best wooden heel and patent leather. we had to add even more sparkle with the rhinestone bracelet. we used my favorite nars lipstick in 'schiap' with liquid eyeliner and all the other normal make-up.
ps. i'm so happy to have my model back! i love being able to style and photograph and not worry about modeling!
i saw this video awhile ago and haven't been able to get it off my mind. marina abramovic was a popular performance artist in the 70's an 80's. In 2010 there was a retrospective of her works at the museum of modern art. during the show, abramovic performed a piece wherein she sat in a chair for over 7 hours a day 5 days a week and looked into her viewers eyes. audience members were able to interact with the artist on a very personal level through intense eye contact. during the show, a man that she used to know/love/work with visited her after not seeing her for many years. her reaction is marvelous.
read more about her here.
