Figure Work with Rod Brayman

To balance out my last posting with the silly photos of me rolling around with stinky crawfish, I wanted to prove that I am a serious art model. Well, I'm not completely serious all the time as you may know by now, but when it comes to figure work, I'm serious about creating the highest quality work. I'm excited by the shapes humans can make with their bodies; the way limbs can extend and bend to create images that we don't see every day.

These photos are from a recent collaboration with Rod Brayman. I had seen some of his awesome work with fellow art models Liv and Vex Voir and knew I had to contact him about working together. He likes to work with dancers and my form may fool you into thinking I have dance background, but the closest I got to dance was having a high school roommate at an art's boarding school who was a dance major. 

We spent the day together with a team to assist with lighting, a MUA (Don Rokicki did a great job even if most of these photos don't showcase how he subtly enhanced my face) and one of his artist friends watching to learn about professional shoots. My body was officially exhausted after the end of the shoot but seeing these results, I know the sore muscles were well worthwhile.

All photos by Rod Brayman

Crawfish!!!!!

Crawfish!!!

I was introduced to crawfish in Louisiana on one of my first modeling trips in 2009, and not quite sure what I thought of being served a bucket full of bright red, dead lobsteresque “mud bugs” with a few boiled potatoes and corn, all to be eating by tearing into with your hands, red pepper and salt to seep into your fingers, beer to wash this all down with. I thought a side salad would have been appropriate, but that just isn’t part of the meal.

Self-portrait with lobster

Last year was my first home-cooking adventure. I, of course, wanted to play with the live critters, and carefully sought to do portraits with them. I didn’t know how quick they’d be to pinch me. This year, I wanted crawfish again. Yes, to eat, but mostly to shoot with. One grocery store only sold 35 pound bags, and that was waaay too many to shuck to eat now or later, but another place sold exactly the amount we wanted and I came home with 9 pound of these little pinching guys.

What do you do with your live food? Throw it on the floor, set up a tripod and take photos, right? Then recruit help to dump more on you while you are laying there.

I was distracted by the awesomeness of my live “props” and have to admit none of these photos turned out to be winning “art” but if you ever wanted to know what I look like laying on the floor with 9 pounds of stinky crawfish (I learned I should have washed them beforehand because yuck, the smell was horrendous), with the biggest laugh of childish joy on my face, then this is the set for you.

After shooting on the floor, played with them in a more civilized manner, one at a time, with iphone photos on a table. Then came for the cooking of them, and I still wanted a couple to walk around on the ground while cooking up the first batch, and demonstrated one awesome feature of living in Houston to my California sister and my nephew and niece via facetime.

-->

No crawfish should be eaten without a swig of beer, or a couple of bottles, so there was crawfish playtime, crawfish eat time, recuperate on couch time, coffee time, mop the kitchen floor time, then I was finally ready for the gym.

If you've missed reading about my antics, I'm back in full swing but taking my stories over to another site. 

Come join in my adventure at: The Artful Nomad's Self-Portraiture Project

I have dived into self-portraiture and would thank you for your support with copious photos, stories and a personal look into art created by me, with me. (I will also be sharing my photographs of my fellow nude model friends).

    

self-shot

Things to-do, so I'll write and post photos instead

This morning I bounced out of bed, anxious about the start of tomorrow’s trip. My to-do list was half written and my remaining tasks chattered in my brain, now everything is written and waiting for me to jump on them. But first, breakfast of “fancy eggs” with leeks, turkey, parmesan and dill,  and a cup of coffee. And some emails, and photo editing, and writing on my blog, because when it becomes almost crunch time, I am an expert at embracing the “almost.”

My camera often sits on my desk, ready to be picked up and connected to my tripod at a moment’s notice. I’ve embraced “the best camera is the one you use” philosophy, and know I will continue to do spontaneous self-portraiture if my camera is in my line of vision when at my desk. The other day I was waiting to go to the gym, and seized a few moments with the evening sun which striped through my window. I find the way my body conversely mimics the pattern of the patchwork quilt to be interesting.

Self-portrait

There had been tall boxes with unknown contents in my garage for quite some time, then one day the guessing game began. Not being mine, I started a guessing game. Once I pushed aside the fanciful notions of there being skeletons inside (hey, the sizing was about right) the beautiful carved wood columns were shown to me.  When the storms and floods came, bringing creek water up to the first step of my house and filling my garage, these beautiful columns were relocated to inside our home. Yesterday I utilized them as a photographic component for the first time and I have plans to continue when I return from North Carolina in about a week and a half. I consider this first photo the most obvious use of the columns, which means further exploration is necessary.

Self-portrait

With that, I must head out with my tasks for the day. Car inspection, conditioner purchasing, library book returning and potentially checking out new books and a few other tour knick knacks to pick up. And thank you card writing, because my birthday came and went and if my relatives are going to send cards to this grown up woman, I'm going to continue to hold onto my childhood manners of returning thanks.

Ya'll have a great day!

Sleek wood and smooth skin. Natural light self-portraiture

Models are light moths, they are drawn to the light.

As an artist, I am also attracted to that which I see. When I watched the morning light stream through my front door creating patterns on the wall, I immediately felt compelled to bring my tripod to the scene and compose these two photos. Black and white tends to be my standard, but on occasion a muted color seems fitting. Because life has colors, too, as much as we like to talk about black and white and shades of grey.

****

 In my dining room sits a table too large for practical use, and of beautiful wood, begging to be laid upon for photos, but cracked as it is, even my small weight would not bode well for the table, so it sits in the room, taunting me with its enormous beauty. I have been watching the morning light patterns glide through the shutters and land on the floor, and have wanted to be photographed under this table for months. This is the perspective that immediately came to mind, but one from lower also must be done once I find a shorter tripod or a photographer who also has visions of sleek wood and smooth skin. 

 

Self-portraits in my home

June 2016

Back to Bed

Self-portrait

Keira Grant

This is my bed. This is where I sleep. In the summer heat, I retire to here at night, the only cloth on my body, the cotton sheets strewn about.

Self-portrait

Keira Grant

And this? Here I roll around nude, often photographed. Come over with your camera, and give me reason to crawl back into this luxurious bed.

Photographed by Gary Schottle

Quiet. Self-portraiture

Writers' block; a unsettling ailment for a living, thinking artist.

Self-portraits

Subdued in suburbia, no longer tackling obstacles to find a roof for every night, having to go no further than my kitchen to cook up an appealing meal, I am faced with a new condition: quiet.

I used to live in a sort of survivalist mode, continually moving forward with no time to look backwards or sideways. I had places to get to, art to create, and changing details to relentlessly arrange.

Now my travels have been cut in half. I spend a glorious half of the year at home being a homebody and a fabulous other half of the year being my artful nomad self. Time at home is beautiful, but the flip flop of emotions and experiences that go with home and travel are a whole new sensation to accustom myself to. Me, nervous about details before embarking on a two week trip? Before there never were these feelings - there were no start or finish to trips, only life.

I am still building my notion of home; little by little the roof that houses me feels more like mine. I watch the light dance on walls, and push myself to embrace a more solitary art experience. The collaborative nature of how I model has always been a high, energy and ideas bounce between the two of us model and photographer, as we move forward, creating images. I tire of spending efforts online seeking out models to share their time and self with me, encouraging a model to embrace the idea of working with a newer, female photographer, which leaves me with one model to call on time and again, myself.

So in the quiet, I stand face to face with myself, she who never leaves me and is my one-and-only internal muse.

Spring 2016 Travel

TRAVEL PLANS! EAST Coast and beyond!

SF/Oakland availability: March 29 - 30 (ask about studio day on the 30th!)

Houston: April 11 - 13

San Antonio/Austin: May 14 - 15

Washington DC, Baltimore, MD,VA (and around): May 19 - 25

NYC: May 26 - 30

Boston/MA: June 9 - 12 (tentative)

North Carolina: July 9 - 17 (possible Richmond, VA)

Contact me at keiragrant@gmail.com to reserve a date/time.