turnt out

tomorrow morning, my pal dana scruggs is moving to new york. we haven't gotten to hang out enough since we re-met each other this summer, and i'm sad she's leaving, because i always need more cool, smart girlfriends. it's a good thing chicago has so much free entertainment during the summer, because that gave us ample opportunity to listen to music at the gehry bandshell or look at lichtenstein in the art institute. last week we went to oak street beach and she shot me with her fancy new camera.

i know you can't tell, but it's an ice cream cone

her other work is even better, i think, because her models are actual models, and you can tell how talented they are. getting a great picture is a collaboration between a strong director and an intuitive subject. dana's models use their faces, their hands, their bodies to express something ineffable. i don't know what to call that emotion that shows up on all of their faces; it's not the consternation, morose mood, girlesque dreaminess, or smizing that runs rampant through fashion photography. the undercurrent you feel in dana's images is mutual respect.

i hope dana eventually sends over the pictures of me that actually had the sand and lake, etc. but these incorporating the murals are funnier and less expected. i do feel kind of vulgar because here i am, i mean, here's my tongue. definitely more familiar with it than ever before, and it lives in my mouth.

danascruggsphoto.tumblr

mica

SHUA the ILLUSTRATOR

heiser top, dkny pure l/s, american apparel denim pencil, jeffrey campbell "climber" boots

rio

this has to be one of my favorite illustrations Shua has ever done. she doesn't look like me, which makes it even better. fashion illustration shouldn't really be about an individual, but about a glamorous feeling. you get a whole story from the drawing -- there's so much movement and excitement, even though she is just sprawled out. there's a party girl attitude that comes across in the bareness of cut, the akimbo knees, the shine and slinkiness of fabric, the arms under her head. the facial expression is blissful. you don't get the feeling that she's crashing out at 5am, but just disco-napping and ready to spring to her toes for the next run-around. the high-contrast and unfinished lines contribute to the louche, young style. this is a look i'd want to buy.

daslu dress, gucci heels

by contrast, this drawing is more technically faithful to my body proportion. there is something athletic in the limbs, and something businesslike in the posture. perhaps implying impatience or restlessness. the difference between the first drawing and the second is the depiction "average" female body and the "model" body, which is at least a head higher, with exaggerated length. it's an adorable drawing and i'm really happy to look like i do, but it isn't quite the look that moves merch.

JOSH's TUMBLR

p4k famous?

yeah, i can't say it with a straight face. it's hard enough to say "pitchfork" with a straight face, unless it's in the context of bailing hay. oh, arbiter of slightly alternative taste in music, let me genuflect at your tattered plaid altar.

anyway, i went. another year of not having to pay for it. it's where most of my [privileged/white] friends were going to be, and i was familiar with more of the bands. i suppose i could have gone to bitchpork, but that's just a different set of [even more privileged/white] friends. furthermore, i dressed appropriately -- PRAXIS!

tee by Motel Rocks, skirt by f21, boots by Jeffrey Campbell, shades by Walter van Bierendock

this first shot is by Amy Creyer, who has her own fashion blog Chicago Street Style, but was shooting me for W Magazine. or their website, in any case. Amy is real awesome and smart and funny and had a great outfit going on, which you can sort of see in this next [Inception!] pic:

Kevin Kloecker was covering p4k with a Fuji Instamax, for his tumblr, westegg. he says he plans to take it in a street style direction. i respect anyone quixotic enough to be documenting with polaroids.

Lauren Baker caught me next for fashionmagazine.com

staying hydrated with Molly Soda

Isa Giallorenzo of Chicago Looks intercepted me en route to Beach House. she was working for chicagoreader.com and she was excited to get an excellent twofer out of it, because i grabbed Miss Soda, and she always looks stunning. 

******************************

those previous shots are from day 3. on friday and saturday, i had dressed a little more like myself and less like a harlequin. after having my picture taken a few times by roaming shutterbugs, i was like, alright, let's play the game. oddly, the t-shirt and mini skirt combo was the most seasonally practical... as opposed to the white blouse, embroidered vest, beater boots, and leather shorts i wore on Friday. however, sentimental/exotic/tough is just more me.

grandma lois got this for me when i was 3, visiting her in La Penita, Mexico

as seen on urban outfitters instagram

the other thing that is more "me" is wearing high-end designer under completely unnecessary circumstances. it's storming, muddy, hot, drunk idiots and sloshing beer around and that dress cost several thousand dollars? PERFECT.

strange thing is, no photogs cared. which is fine. glitterguts did the honors.

dress by Proenza Schouler with Sarah, who said her outfit was me-inspired

with ultrademon (seapunk) zombelle (seapunk) and miles raymer (not a seapunk)

should i say something about the music? no?

i'm not a music critic and it's been a long time since i wrote at length about a song. i suppose i could just link to what someone else said about the fest, but .... here are a few musings.

two of the acts i enjoyed most, Clams Casino and Flying Lotus, had very little going on visually. no instruments, really. dj sets on laptops. what's the point of going to a music festival to watch nothing happen onstage? no virtuosity, no display of prowess. i'm sad i snoozed on tickets for the Flying Lotus afterparty, because that's the scenario that makes more sense.

watching Godspeed You Black Emperor was a treat. even though it can't possibly be true, (or is it?) i felt it was the only time over the weekend when i heard real musical instruments.

most of the rap acts that billed at p4k kinda sucked. (Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, Big K.R.I.T.) i suppose you could always say i don't know what i'm talking about. schoolboy q gets points for being extra-charismatic.

Grimes; i don't get the hype. style yeah, substance lacking.

Beach House sounded wonderful and have come a long way, in terms of confidence and stage presence. this was my third time seeing them since their first single started making the mixtape rounds.

Hot Chip were crowd pleasers but there were no surprises.

Sleigh Bells had a dozen stacked Marshall amps and Alexis Krauss is worth a stadium of pyrotechnics, plus she comes off as real sweet...which pointendly isn't saying anything about the music.

Purity Ring spent too much time on artsy glowing cocoons.

Japandroids meh and Cults meh and Chromatics meh.

Lower Dens is a young group making really pretty music with a wide emotional range. the singer is a girl (i guess?) but maybe we are entering an era where that isn't something that has to matter. I extra-appreciate that gender isn't an exploited angle in that band. beautiful music over glamour marketing!

my most valued discovery of the weekend was Liturgy. who knew i'd be down for metal? everyone else who knew better got to bitch about how Liturgy was something better before drummer Greg Fox quit, but without any preconceived notions, their grinding sounded ferocious and exciting. i got to see them play twice, and the sets were markedly different.

i really wish Frank Ocean and The Weeknd had been part of pitchfork this year, because those are two projects that have recently put out work that is extremely relevant to me. it would have been very nice to have Diplo on hand. i also wish that the Ice Cream Man had parked his truck back in VIP like he usually does, because it's hard to feel like a badass without free ice cream.

blue roses

this is a majestic, handmade, mint-conditon New Orleans find. Shua's illustrations focus on:

construction (origami pleats)

silhouette

and fabric

shoes are snake and suede peep-toes from marc by marc jacobs. jewelry is also vintage.

new crew

these are some of the people i've made friends with since i last did a slew of watercolor portraits. (i was living in the smoky mountains of tennessee at that point. that gang forms the first post on this blog.) about half of these people i met in new orleans. two of them i met in chicago, but are on the cusp of relocating to nyc. one lives in texas but is moving to china. i feel very lucky to have friends scattered around the country, but i spend a lot of time missing them.

dana

davitt

claire

sam

william

rebecca

bowen

rita

i plan to do a bunch more quick portraits. 

american picnic

crowthepainter.tumblr.com

floral oxfords by Forever 21, shorts by Joe’s, gingham shirt by 3.1 Phillip Lim

i'm not including these pictures because i think they're flattering. it's because i had some serious difficulty settling on a comfortable pose and awkwardly had to cycle through twenty ways to situate my legs. that's sort of funny, right? no? sorry, it's been 100 degrees for a week now and my apartment doesn't have a/c and i can no longer compute.