I’m Amanda … I started modeling when I was 18 years old … I’ve always had an interest in working with costumes and I guess you can say out of the ordinary clothing and hair pieces … Actually when I was much younger I started my own business … My own … selling wigs and hair pieces … I still do this today … So I’m doing the same thing that I was literally doing in high school … So that’s pretty much my background … I started modeling as a form … it was just a creative outlet for me … I have a lot of clothes … I have a lot of things … ideas from locations from around my house which was here on the north side (Chicago) One of the first places I shot at was Rosehill cemetery … There’s just so much fun architecture and interesting places that Chicago has to offer … I think it was just having fun being in the city … exploring it more … wanting to just have fun … Yeah … I feel like I mostly consider myself to be a professional photographer at this point … but … it’s weird… I have an equal amount of work in both … but I definitely … I haven’t added it up but I … If I added it up I’ve probably done more photography work at this point then I’ve done modeling work … Nowadays I would consider myself a professional photographer … Years ago I would have considered myself to be a professional model … an alternative model … I get a professional gig every now and then … put it that way … Well … things have changed I feel in the sense that I’m not as focused on art as I was four years ago in the sense that I don’t just go … “Oh … I really … really want to work with this model or shoot this at this location” … I really put the focus on my business which is Penny Dreads and Wigs … So … I do  a lot of photography for that … but … it’s fun because it gives me a motive  to do things … to work differently then I did before … so … it is sort of focused around a product but I get a chance to play with different ideas … to show off the product in a unique way … So that’s how I’d say I’ve progressed … Obviously I’ve moved … I moved to Wisconsin … So I’m not around as many people to collaborate with as I was before … but … I still have fun traveling … in that sense I do travel a lot more now to different states and work with people … So that’s interesting … It’s because I live in a place where maybe I’m not around as many people it get’s me out a little more to travel to different parts of the country … Um … yeah sure… I think a lot of things that I take interest in comes out in my modeling … especially liking Victorian era clothing … I started collecting that … fairly young … and I always enjoyed the focus around that era and any movie that’s a period piece that focuses on that era … I’m usually fascinated with it … 1800’s … 1920’s … 1930’s … So I just have always liked something about … you know… the historical and the evolution of clothing … With me … collecting vintage pieces … I feel that kind of comes through because obviously … If I’m wearing a (certain outfit) people ask… “Where did you get that?” It shows my personality of liking that and collecting the sort of thing … I’ve always liked interesting clothing … I feel it’s a way of expressing ourselves … I think it’s really great when I see people really going out there … making there own statement with it … even doing cosplaying costumes … I may not be into that myself but I really admire people that do it … Cosplaying is when you take a character that you really like … let’s say Misty Pokemon … maybe that’s a bad example … or maybe it’s just BatGirl … and you dress up like that character … You’re own rendition of that character … I feel there’s a lot of people that are doing it … Yaya Han is one of the most famous people that comes to mind immediately just because I saw her on Deviant Art for many years … She was obviously making her own costumes from scratch … All these people are … I was always so amazed at … how do they have the time to make all these costumes from scratch and do every thing on their own and then set up a photo shoot in like the perfect back drop … But … Yeah … Yaya Han has done a ton of cosplays over the years even on TV shows and she actually does patterning for McCalls … So I just know when I think of cosplaying models that came out in the early stages … that’s what I think of … Yeah … I would say … probably the most fashion choice I got a reaction out of was Japanese Lolita which is something I did for a long time … Probably from when I was nineteen till twenty-five or so … I would say like I don’t do it as often just because … yeah … It may sound like I’m pussy-ing it out or whatever … but yeah I don’t dress that way much anymore because of the backlash I got from it … just the bad attention … and people just getting the wrong idea that I must be into DDLG and some sort of fetish  … Which … Like… No offense… There are people who participate with that fashion who are into that fetish … but I’m not … I just really like pretty cute things and I like frilly things and I like patterns … I do like things that kind of remind me a little bit of a different time period … and … I don’t know … it has a lot of different influences in it but of course people focus on it being called “Lolita” for that reason … So … It’s just something I feel … I gave away most of my pieces or sold most of my pieces that were like super … You know … too frilly … too pink … had too many cartoon characters on it … Which once again I know again is a cop-out … Now I just have more stuff that I consider to be more classic Lolita … it’s because I feel like I can still wear it and … people still see me as mature … It’s also just like my own kind of insecurity that I’ve dealt with over the years … It’s just like … looking way younger then I am …  which I know most people would say is a blessing … “Oh … You don’t look like you’re twenty-nine” … (laughter) … I actually want people to see me being the age I am … just because I’ve experienced things … and I’ve lived … So  I just want to get away from that … I guess … and part of me getting away from that was giving up a lot of my clothing that looked really frilly and girly like … DDlG stands for … Daddy Dom Little Girl … Just like any sort of little girl role playing scenario that goes on … and once again … there are people that do this and it’s becoming very big right now in our culture … it’s very popular right now in our culture … I mean… come on … look at the president of the United States for instance … His wife is a lot younger then him … I know it doesn’t seem that way because they’re both on the spectrum of being mature … but she’s thirty years younger then him … if that relationship took place where he was like forty and she was like eighteen … people would see it differently … In our culture it’s really being normalized for fifty year old guys to date eighteen year old girls … people push those boundaries … It’s not just dating someone that’s ten or fifteen years younger … It’s just … like … just over the limit to what’s being legal … I’m going to date a seventeen year old girl cause it’s legal … That’s really poplar in our culture … but other then that … there are people that just like to role-play … which I get … I understand that whatever you want to do in you’re own bedroom that’s like … you … but… I’m just saying I’m not one of those people … Yeah … I like throwing in a little bit of a kinky element into my clothing … just a tad bit … so I like wearing the collars … I feel I like to mix classy with … I like to throw in the some latex … I don’t know … classy with a little bit of fetish … It’s kind of a look I’m experimenting with now … I’m still really into vintage clothing … Instead of doing stuff that’s eighteen hundreds era or 1950’s era … I’m kind of been trying to do other things like the 1960’s … I even like 1970’s … 80’s … That’s kinda been my thing lately … 60’s 70’s 80’s instead of the 30’s and 20’s … It’s just a phase I’m going through lately … I guess I’m just moving through the times … (laughter) … I started out in the 1800’s and now I’m in the 1970’s … I wouldn’t say that I’ve gotten so much … you know … people have approached me about my modeling and cultural appropriation … but with my business I’ve definitely gotten that … People e-mailing me and harassing me about what I sell … which is actually synthetic dread locks … Synthetic hair pieces are colorful and they’re fun but is somehow insulting to certain groups of people … But I … I mean … my whole preach about it is that dread locks have been worn by lot’s of people and many different cultures over many years … Mongolian had dreads … Vikings had dreads… it just so happens that because Jamaicans … in the past … in our culture … have been wearing dreads within the past 100 … 200 years … That’s just what people associate it with … because they see a lot of something and they make it seem like that culture made it up … I mean … I feel that there’s a time and a place to … I mean … yes cultural appropriation does exist … I’m not saying it doesn’t exist … But … I do feel it does get a little out of hand … Where we’re just pointing fingers at everybody … nitpicking over things … It shouldn’t be that way … I feel that our world should be about a melting pot and exchanging information with each other… exchanging ideas … exchanging fashion … exchanging hairstyles … I  mean …Yeah … I can understand why somethings are offensive to people … but … I think sometimes we just have to speak our piece but don’t make people feel too uncomfortable  because I think it’s good if we look at someone else and say … “That’s pretty … That inspires me to do that”… I think that’s a great thing … but … unfortunately things have gotten a little out of hand … it’s very sensitive… everyone is very sensitive about things … I feel that since the #MeToo has come about I really haven’t been that involved in modeling or photography … because as I said … I live in Wisconsin and everything has been about me focussing on my business … But where I do feel I see it is on instagram … I see a lot of people focusing on it… photographers kind of feeling like … “Oh gosh … like this has come out about this person” … It was like almost every week that something was coming out about a well known photographer I knew of harassing someone … I don’t know … I just was like I don’t know what to believe … I mean … it could be true … but it could be someone not liking this person over this or that … but everyone is going to assume it’s true… but yeah … what I would say … where I’m most effected is just the people and the artists that I follow … and the models that I follow … just them coming out about their stories … It’s no secret that Immy told a long story about something that happened to her recently on her facebook page … where she came out about some stuff … and that’s really sad and she hadn’t really said anything until then … and felt like she can come out about it at that point … I’ve definitely had things happen to me everything … I’m not going to say I had things that happened to me when I was eighteen years old … like … yeah … I was meeting people on weird sites … Craigs list … Model Mayhem … going to their houses … going to their studios … There were things that would happen … nothing like rape … or nothing like that would actually happen to me … but definitely some inappropriate things happened to me too … So … I get it … My mom actually started coming with me to a lot of my photo shoots when I was really young because she just wanted to make sure I was safe … I’m sure if it wasn’t for her being there and driving me to my gigs and stuff like that and letting the photographer know … “ Hey … I’m watching you … I’m leaving you with my daughter” …  But I feel the majority of the people I’ve worked with were really safe … but … you just never know … even someone you’ve worked with a couple of times … you’ve had a good working relationship with them but then you find out that something else happened … I mean … it would just be shocking … but yeah… I see it … It’s mostly effected me because what I’ve seen online and my friends posting … Five years ago I was mainly using Model Mayhem … I think … and Deviant Art … those were my ways of meeting people … And I miss those days … those were good days … Now it’s Instagram … all about the Gram … Facebook … gosh I don’t know … Tinder … (laughter) …Tinders actually pretty crazy for social networking … It’s … you could put all your little information on there and people find ways to contact you … I’ll have … Just the fact that I have a profile on Tinder … people find me… It’s like … “Oh … I saw you on Tinder” … and they find my other things … It’s interesting … Yeah … it’s like Instagram … I’m on it every day … and the Snapchats … I’m trying to think what else there is … Twitter … but yeah … Five years ago I wasn’t using Instagram …. Instagram was so new to me compared to… yeah… Five years ago it was all about Model Mayhem for me … Facebook was obviously big  five years ago … It’s definitely changed a lot and I don’t know … like there’s new apps coming out every day … It might change … I feel like people are going to get bored and they’re going to move on to something else … Tumbler was actually pretty popular for me five years ago … I just put my work up on there but people would re-blog it or re-post it somewhere … And I can tell that it’s already not as popular of a thing … I’m curious of what the future holds for social media … I do feel that things can get crazy and overwhelming … There’s too many sites… I hate that there’s so many sites … like you have to be on Pinterest … you got to be in Instagram … you got to be on twitter … you’ve got to be on this … Can’t we just have one … (sigh/laughter) … You have to be on Reddit now too … It’s like you’re not cool if you’re not on Reddit … I hope that things can be a little bit more simple but probably not … I feel like I’m in a very transitional period in my life … the past three years I’ve had to go through a lot of changes … I just feel like I’ve had to do a lot of adult-ing … A lot of growing up … It’s kind of come later for me in my life … I was always just kind of like a homebody … didn’t really go out very much … and now I’m like… “Ok … there’s more to the world … there’s more to do … more to see”… So I’m trying to get out there and network and meet people … I always think it’s best to meet people face to face … I’ve realized … Yes … with all the social media that we’ve got going on … nothing works better then mouth to mouth … (laughter) … Er … I’m sorry … not mouth to mouth … what’s that called when you meet people … Uh … Word of mouth … (laughter) … Word of mouth is still as powerful of a thing as it was before … word of mouth is very important … meeting people in person is very important … I think that that’s kind of my goal … I’m happy that I have a roof over my head … I’m happy that I have space to work on my art … So … it is transitional … I’m kind of just curious … I might move again soon … I don’t know … but … I look forward to it … I look forward to what life has to offer …And after this … I’m going to go back to my home in Wisconsin … Watch a little Hulu … and go to sleep … (laughter) … I do not have a performance tonight where I’m sticking swords down my throat … ( laughter) …