The advertising art model and the internet police.

EMAIL #1:

Aubrey:

Personally I don't care whether I look at bare-breated photos online or not. Yours are pretty tasteful and attractive.

However. Are you aware that there are lots of kids who visit Craigslist and could easily run across your photos? I'm just old fashioned enough to feel they shouldn't be exposed.

So, I've flagged your posting and will again whenever I run across it

Email #2:
And also, Craigslist has a prohibition against posting more than one item featuring the same thing.

Flagged again.


My Reply:
Hello Tony,

Thank you for getting in touch with me. I am sorry that you were upset by my posts. I have been posting in the artist's community for about 4 years now and it is generally acceptable to post nude images there. I've not run into many problems with it since getting a verified craigslist account and you are the first to actually contact me about it.

I can completely understand your concerns about children being exposed to images way beyond their maturity level. However, being my images are tasteful nudes without explicit or sexually graphic material on par as what one would see in an art gallery, I don't feel it is an issue. That being said, every person has their own feelings about what crosses the line and I respect your right to have an opinion. Given the nature of craigslist, ie: communicating with strangers over the internet via email, children shouldn't actually be using it on their own without their parent's permission. It is basically the classified section of the internet. I believe you must be 18 to even sign up for a craigslist account or else craigslist would be liable for children being exposed to predators and inappropriate content. There isn't much a child could do on craigslist that wouldn't require a parent's permission, anyway. This includes buying, selling, getting a job and going to public events. A child definitely shouldn't be browsing the personals, probably won't be getting an apartment and there is often quite a bit of inappropriate talk in the discussion forums which include the posting of raunchy pictures and improper language. Craigslist is not a site for children.

I know things are different now, but rather than child-proofing the internet and restricting the use of adults on a site geared towards adults, parents should monitor what their children see and where their children go on the internet. I am almost 30. When the internet was new I was about 14 or 15. My parents used to sit next to me and monitor what I did while I was using it.

Given that the artist base for whom corsets and art nudes are different, I was attempting to target both groups with two posts. As odd as it may seem to some one who may not be involved with the internet modeling community, genres can be rather specialized. Some one looking for an art model to pose for their college class may not look twice at a post where a model is in a corset and would rather see the model doing standard "art" poses. On the other hand, some one who is looking to photograph vintage clothing would like to see images of the model int he corset. So this trip I experimented with two posts instead of trying to use one post to incorporate multiple themes. I was also concerned about whether this could be considered "multiple posting" also. Usually, if you do what craigslist considers to be multiple posts, it will physically stop you from posting. It give me the message that my posts were similar, so I considered it to comply with their terms. I considered this to be similar to a construction company who offered two services, such as roofing and plastering. This company would post one post to target the people who would like a new roof with picture examples and another to target people who were interested in plaster work with examples of their plastering skills. Then again, this might just be something I do this month depending on the response rate of diversifying the posts.

Thank you again for getting in touch with me about your concerns. Again, I respect your opinion and your right to flag me. I realize my reply will not change your opinion but I felt I should acknowledge your concerns and explain my side.

Sincerely,
Aubrey

Snowed in NYC

It looks like I am snowed in NYC. I booked my train tickets to return to Buffalo a week ago, however they shut down the trains todaydue to weather conditions. Now with 8 inches in the forcast to fall tomorrow, it doesn't seem that I will be going home as planned. Tomorrow I wake early and decide if I go to the train station or if I should call and reschedule all my appointments.

But there is always hope I can get out of here. And I really need to get some sleep.



Thom Ogee shot this of me during a terrible snow storm in Buffalo a few years ago. It seemed appropriate. My face is really in a snowbank. Sometimes I think I must be crazy to agree to do the things I do for art.

I am walking in Tragedy on the Catwalk . . .

. . .and I am probably the only person who has to solder their outfit for round 3. Which leads me to a somewhat funny story.

It occurred to me that maybe I could make my shirt out of a large circuit board from salvaged an old CD player. My first idea was to boil the board in order to soften the board to bend it into a concave shape. After about 10 minutes and inadvertently inhaling some fun cancer-causing agents, it dawned on me that most circuit boards were built to withstand extensive heat. Since the board was pretty much soaked and shot at this point, I just chucked it. Although I have once again brought myself closer to unexplainable dark patches on my lungs of whose likeness is often seen in those who work in 3rd world factories; I consider it a valuable learning experience all the same.

Which brings me to innovation 2: multiple circuit boards which I need to solder together. The funniest thing about it all is that I am kind of disappointed that I am wasting perfectly good circuit boards.

Besides this, I am working on some circuit bent toys I can actually affix to me. (The main concern though is how to affix the mini mixing board, effects pedals and possibly a practice amp to my back.) I am also making my own “walk song.” Too bad my good music rig is still down for the count and I will be faking it with this computer and it's not-so-musically inclined sound card.

Basically, I am showcasing all of my nerdy talents. Since the event is being filmed as a television pilot/series I thought that maybe I might be lucky and someone who needs sound effect work might see what I do and take an interest. I've never been one to seek fame or fortune, I am just looking to eventually be the guy (gal, actually) who makes the strange sounds for a living.

Picture Taken by Tammy Scott-Garner:

I should probably post this also:

Back to NYC.

Tuesday I leave for NYC. This trip shaped up better than the last and I was booked fairly solid early on. I think part of the problem with my October/November trip was that the holidays were coming up and (understandably) people were preoccupied with doing holiday related tasks. Hopefully, there will be no cancellations (which was also a problem last time) and I won't have to “art whore” myself out on craigslist. I really prefer to do my bookings on model networking sites, although the people on craigslist are pretty forthcoming about their intentions. You don't have to beat around the bush only to find out the photographer is casting for something against the networking website's policies. Despite the inappropriate responses; there is a whole demographic of art students who need to hire models for class projects that read and reply to postings on craigslist. So I guess it is a trade off.

Generally, when I go on tours it is almost always to NYC and I have steady clients who book me consistently. This trip I will be going to DC as well. Initially, I was kind of nervous about it because I am not as familiar with the area. Which pretty much sums up my feelings on travel.

Whenever I go someplace new I have two big concerns: where I am going to stay and how I am going to get around. Generally, I nail down the former first. In NYC I have friends with whom I stay. Luckily, I also have a model friend whom I met during her Buffalo tour that lives in DC along with her significant others (whom I know casually via Model Mayhem) that were are gracious enough to allow me to stay with them. The latter I can figure out through hopstop and the wmata website.

But I am always afraid of getting lost or arriving late. When I have to go to a place outside the Burroughs (ie: Jersey, Staten Island, way, way out on Long Island, etc.) The first time I do it, I am always afraid I may be late. So I factor in “getting lost” time and usually arrive ridiculously early and have to wait at the station until I feel it is okay to call the photographer and tell him I am there. But at least I am there on time.

Lately I have been contemplating going out to California in the summer. I've actually never been out to the West Coast. I have a few problems with it though, the main one being bookings. In NYC with my regulars alone, I know I will make enough to cover all my living expenses in Buffalo. Going out west is a much greater cost. Even if I budget a monthly amount to put away for my trip so it isn't a huge expenditure, I still have to worry about if I can book comparable work as to what I book regularly in NYC. New places have no guarantees.

Picture copyright Tam Nguyen

There are no words.

And although
The connotation is always
Communicated in Jest,
You and your
Historic methods of preservation;
You may be
My best story.
The one I always
Retell
Over and over
And over again--
Written on the spools
Of an archaic format,
There are no words
Just pictures,
Like an incandescent flip-book
decaying within
The crystallized barriers of cryogenics:
We cannot waste
An inch of 120mm
To document
The reality
As it is now.
It is just
An invention,
The fabrication
Of your dreams.


I wrote this today.

great, big 'naked model' party

We've been joking that we are throwing a "great, big 'naked model' party" (yes, those exact words) but in truth it was just a strange occurrence. How'd it happen? There is a bit of back story, but I will attempt to condense it down to palatable ounces.

The person who house-sat for me while I was in NYC on a modeling tour is a photographer. On my last tour he was told by the people from whom he rented his studio/apartment that he they were rehabbing the building and raising the rent. So he moved into a friend's house that was empty while going through the closing process. It closed early and he was all set to move into an apartment-- but the old tenant does not want to leave. Currently he is living on my couch (and when he isn't working, cleaning my disastrous home.) Previous to this, when he was still living in his friend's house, he scheduled with a few out-of-town models for this weekend. Well, luckily I have spacious accommodations because everyone is staying here.

Here's the breakdown (please excuse the misuse of [brackets] through out this list, but I felt the need to distinguish the difference between the (parentheses) for clarity's sake)-- One model comes in tomorrow [gets the guest room], another model and her husband come in Saturday [they are bringing an inflatable mattress and get the floor, probably in the living room] another model (friend of the model who arrives on Friday) is also coming in on Friday [shares the guest room with Friday model], Photographer on the couch in the back den and me in my room. Full house. It gets more complicated with individual model's schedules, ie: who shoots with which Buffalo photographer when, but those are details on which neither I or the photographer are quite clear.

Picture Copyright Johnny Sandaire

Always something when I come home

When I returned from NYC, I had the pleasant surprise of finding myself without internet and heat (the latter being the most critical.) It seems that over the summer something happened to my furnace. My house-sitter and I have yet to determine what. Hopefully I will hear back from a friend of the family who knows a guy who fixes furnaces. Until then, I have a fireplace (one so-called "luxury" in the minds of the modern world I refuse to live without due to experiences living in Buffalo. This marks my second time in three years where it was my only source of heat.)

As for the internet, it seems that my bank has been sending my payments to Time Warner's old address, regardless of the fact that I updated my account. Talking with a representative, it seems that I am not the only person who has experienced this unpleasant HSBC/Time Warner miscommunication phenomenon.

Picture copyright Eric Hanson