So … My name is Amanda Timm … but my stage name is Cecelia Shaw … That’s the name I do my nude modeling under … I’m originally from Minneapolis … I grew up in Lakeville … which is a suburb of Minneapolis … and then I moved back to Minneapolis as a teenager … and then I went to college in Wisconsin for two years … and then I came here to Chicago … What was it like growing up near Minneapolis? … Lakeville is an affluent suburb of Minneapolis … and … I don’t know … I never fit in there really … I wasn’t you know … a nerd or whatever (laughter) … but I just felt different then everybody else … different from my family … different then the kids I went to school with … It took a while for me to find … what I was into … But then my senior year I went to an art school for dance … and then I moved back in with my dad in Minneapolis … I had a boyfriend in Lakeville at the time … so I wasn’t actually spending that much time in Minneapolis … which I kind of regret … Then I went to Wisconsin to go to school … I didn’t think I wanted to be a dancer … I went there for two years … and didn’t have a major … and then I was … Screw it … I want to go to Chicago … And go to dance school … Actually … I was dating a guy at college … and we got into a fight … He was … “You don’t even like it here” … and I was “Fine … your right” … so that night I applied to dance school and I got in … and then I left (laughter) … Back when I was at my art high school … half the day was dance … the other half was academics … I had pretty much done all my academics at that point … so I just took fun academic classes … They had more artsy academic classes … So I took a Shakespeare class … and art history … and Chinese literature … and just stuff I was interested in … The dance classes were ballet … and modern … and choreography … And then … I figured I didn’t want to go to school for dance … because I didn’t want to be a poor artist (laughter) … But then after being in Wisconsin … there wasn’t anything else I wanted to do … I had a friend going to school here for dance … So I just did it … Back in Wisconsin during those two years … I did most of my academics … and then I came here and did all of my dance classes … which was good … because the academics at Columbia weren’t good … The dance program at Columbia was great … I mean … I’m lucky I went there … It’s expensive … the school itself is kind of ridiculous … but the program … and my teachers … and everyone I met there … and the arts community that I was a part of … when I graduated … was so rich … I haven’t made a living … doing this … until now … Now … I’m changing what dance is in my life …  So … I was bartending when I graduated … and I bartender all over the city … And then I was dancing in dance companies … and I had my own dance company … I was working a lot with this group called The Inconvenience … which is a theater … and dance … and music … production company here … They produced a lot of my stuff … and became this huge group of artists … I’m really thankful for that … Modeling?… So I started doing … nude … modeling … for artists … And that was just something I heard people did … It sounded fun … and I’m a hustler … I’m always doing tons of side jobs … so I was doing that … And then … I had this friend Matthew … who I worked with at a restaurant … and we became really good friends … and I started posing for him … He was the first person I posed for … nude … for photography … and then I was doing art modeling at studios … and I had a friend who was actually going down the path of commercial modeling … she told me about Model Mayhem … I went on that … and saw all the girls traveling … I always wanted to travel … It was something I always wanted to do … but I couldn’t get it off the ground until I moved to Australia … So I started that in 2008 … I didn’t start modeling for a job until … 2017 … So … nine years later … But it was so cool … because it had always been a fantasy of mine … to do it … I would never have thought that at thirty three … I would start doing it (laughter) … Cause usually I feel that’s something you start in your mid twenties or something … Yeah … It just … fell in my lap … So when I was in Australia … I was doing … so … I started traveling … I left Chicago in 2015 and I’ve been traveling ever since … I sold everything … I quit my job … I traveled all over the U.S. … I ended up in Hawaii … and the I came back to Chicago … and decided to go to Australia and New Zealand … and then I backpacked around New Zealand for two months … and then got to Australia … The whole time I was traveling I was always doing side gigs on Craigslist … and stuff like that … I was also bartending anywhere I could … I was also doing nude modeling for artists again … pretty much anywhere I could … Every now and then I would look on Model Mayhem and see if I could find a photography modeling gig … But I just couldn’t  … I didn’t know how to do it … When I went to Australia … I was modeling at an art class … and one of the guys there was … “I’m actually a photographer … but I just come here to feel like I’m a real artist” … (laughter) … He was … “If you want to pose for me … I’ll pay you to pose for me” … I was like … Sure? … Why? … I was really nervous … about it … I didn’t sleep that night … I told my friends where I was going … I thought he was going to kill me or something (laughter) … It ended up being such a good time … And I felt so good about finally being paid … for doing something with my body … and like being paid well … That wasn’t sex work (laughter) … It just felt great … And he said that his assistant could get me more gigs … So he set me up with his assistant … He’s actually American … he lives in Australia … He’s the CEO of this big software company … His assistant is a nude model … and she was doing this thing … where she was like doing a little agency on the side … and helping other models get work … So … I just became really good friends with her … and then she started booking me tours all over Australia … And before I left Australia … to go to Asia … I did a big three month tour all over Australia … And then went to Asia and India for a year … and then came back to Australia and did another six week tour … where I did forty shoots … then I was … Ok … I think I can come back to America and do this … and try to do it full time … because I don’t want to go back to bartending … As far as my experiences … They’ve been positive … I haven’t had anything bad happen … When I went to Australia … one thing just led to another … and now … my dreams have come through … like all of my dreams have come through pretty much (laughter) … It’s been a pretty cool experience … Because … pretty much everything I’ve said … and put out into the universe … has happened … So … I’m going back to school in Seattle … I’m going to get my Masters in clinical mental health counseling … with a concentration in dance therapy … I’ll be using dance to work with … I want to work with specific populations … Mostly I want to work with women … and abused women … That’s what I was doing in India … And I want to work in prisons … and I want to work with war veterans also … people with PTSD … or anyone that’s gone through trauma … When did I go to India? … I traveled around the States first … I did the south west coast … and I lived in Hawaii … Then I came back to Chicago … I went on a Phish tour (laughter) … Then I lived in California for a little bit … I was actually working on a marijuana farm there … right when Trump got elected … that was a crazy experience … I went to the Women’s March in Washington DC … and the I left the country … I went to New Zealand for two months … Drove around the north and south island … Then I lived in Melbourne Australia for one year … Then I bought a car and drove around Australia for three months … Sold my car … and flew to Bali … From Bali … I went to a bunch of Islands in Indonesia … I was in Malaysia for two months … Thailand … Cambodia … Vietnam … and then India … and I lived in India for five months … As far as counseling work I did in India … So before I left Chicago … I did this big show … I did a project … It was a confession project …  I had a traveling confession booth … that I would set up … and I would set it up at events … dance shows … I have a ton of performing friends … so any event that I could set my booth up … I would set it up … I also had a hotline that people could call … and so they would call and confess … or they would do their confession in this booth … and we would make dances based on peoples confessions … right on the spot … and it was kind of this process like telephone … that the confessions would go through … so it was kind of manipulated into movement … It was really … cathartic for me … because I was going through a really hard time … Before I left Chicago … like shit just hit the fan … It was really bad … and I felt really bad about myself … and I just wasn’t where I wanted to be in my life … My boyfriend broke up with me … I got a DUI … I lost my job … It was really awful … So it was just like therapy to me … plus it was therapy for everyone who did it … because they would do their confession … and they would see the dance we would make at the end … and we would only make one dance … and we’d only pick one confession out of the whole night … People would come up to me and be … “That was my confession” … Even though it was so abstracted … they could still tell that it was their confession … I never even heard the confession as the choreographer … It would just go through this process of morphing … It was just amazing to me that we were able … to pull that off … What I was always interested in … was involving the audience … somehow … in my dances … and it was always interactive … I would always trick the audience into participating … Because I know people go to shows and they don’t want to participate … but I felt that I could do it in a way that people would have fun and kind of be tricked into it … That was always my goal … for the company … So that just got me interested in dance therapy … So that was on my brain when I left … I went on this huge … epic journey … finding myself … whatever … I knew I didn’t want to dance anymore … because … I just was never good enough … to dance in companies … or in the company I wanted to dance in … So I felt bad … and I wasn’t super confident in my choreography skills … and I didn’t want to bartend anymore … So I just felt that I needed something else … and … my mom’s an addict … and I found out before I left that she had been abused her entire life … growing up … She was just telling us about it now … and it made everything in my entire life make sense … And also … I became a hardcore feminist … when I left … because of Trump and how my mom was treated … she was in a really crappy marriage … also … The whole MeToo movement … I just really embraced my feminism … I got my heart broken … and I was kind of just over men … These last four years … especially the last two years I’ve been cultivating more these female relationships in my life … So basically I found this just by following my nose … just diving into all these things I’m interested in … And … along the way … things just kept popping up on my radar … and when I was in Chicago … I saw this woman who had this show … she was a dance therapist … and she had been working with war veterans … and it was really taking a toll on her … and she was talking in her sleep … her husband would record her talking in her sleep … and she made a dance show about this whole thing … I looked her bio up … and she had lived all over the world … and she had done all these humanitarian projects all over the world … So I wanted her life … I emailed her … took her out for coffee and asked her to tell me her enter story … She told me she had been in this place in India … working with trafficked woman … doing dance therapy … and that’s when she realized she needed to get her Masters in Dance Therapy … So … yeah … that was there … and when I went to Australia … I really wanted to work in some humanitarian project … of some sort … So I was doing a ton of research about that … and this place in India came up again … when I was doing my research … So I messaged them … and I was … “Can I come and work for you” … And they said yes … when do you want to come? … and I was like … “Well … Whenever I leave Australia and I want to go to Asia … So I’ll let you know” … I basically just showed up when I was done backpacking … and started working with them … I was there for three months … and then I traveled around India for another two months … Then I went up to Rishikesh and got my yoga certification … also while I was there … Now I’m back … and going back to school … My tattoos … I got a lot of them when I was here in Chicago … but I did get some after I traveled … and then came back to Chicago … the one on my left arm is The Fool from the Tarot … I love symbolism … I love religion … I love religious stories … I mean … I don’t love religion … I’m not religious … But I love learning about religion and mythology and stuff like that … So a lot of my stuff comes from that … Yeah … The Fool … I just felt … feels like my life (laughter) … Because I’m kind of a risk taker and I do things without looking … I just jump … and that’s kind of what the fool is … The fools all about beginnings and endings … and journeys … and stuff like that … I got one of my tattoos done in Hawaii … by a shaman … That was more of an experience then anything else … I got the Tattoo on my back in Malaysia … it’s hand-tapped … I found the person on Anthony Bourdain … I love Anthony Bourdain … a lot … It was so sad when he died … I was really upset about it … When I was traveling … I’d always watch his shows before I’d go somewhere … I’ll watch every single episode he’s ever done on a place before I go there (laughter) … I love food also … I’ve always worked in the food and restaurant industry … So … I love food … And he went to Borneo … and he partied with this tribe in Borneo … They’re a headhunting tribe … They’re called the Dayak tribe … They used to be a traveling sea tribe … to get territory … they would kill other tribes by chopping off their heads … And … the tattoos they get … are for protection … So they get a lot of tattoos on the back of their necks … to prevent them from getting their heads chopped off … and they get them on their throats too … In Borneo you can go to their long houses … and they still have all of the skulls of the heads of people that had their heads chopped off … Anthony Bourdain went there … and partied with them … They drink a lot … of rice whiskey … He partied with them all night … and got tattooed by them … So … just like … “I want to do that” … I looked them up … I ended up finding them … going to the studio in Kuching … in Borneo … and became friends with them … and ended up living with them for a couple of weeks … It was really nice … As far as traveling now … Ideally I’d like to work six months out of the year … and travel six months out of the year … I would always love to have a vehicle that I could sleep in … Because I did a lot of that when I was traveling … I really love that lifestyle … As far as social media … Facebook has been integral in my traveling … Nothing I’ve done would have happened without it … I find people on Facebook to travel with … The entire time I was traveling I did that … Facebook marketplace saved my life while I was traveling … buying and selling a car … buying and selling things … cheaply … Buy it and live there for a while … and sell it … Craigslist … I sold everything I owned before I left on Craigslist … that funded the first leg of my travels … Everywhere I’ve lived … I’ve found on Facebook or Craigslist … Staying in contact with everyone I’ve met along the way … documenting my travels … while I was in Asia … I did a lot of photography … Mostly just landscapes … At that point … I was just using Instagram … and not Facebook … I was posting on Facebook through Instagram … Now … with the modeling … I’m on Instagram …  I feel like I’m on Instagram eight hours a day … messaging people … finding people to work with … connecting … Yeah … it’s been my scrapbook … And … watching America from afar … and everything that’s been going down … and feeling like I’m participating … I think it would have been harder … if I didn’t have Facebook … to come back … And it was hard to come back … But I think if I hadn’t been … present … via Facebook … it would have been even more mind-blowing and uncomfortable to come back … Where do I see things going? … I feel like I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing … Saying crazy ideas … and making them magically happen (laughter)… Yeah … Go to school … Do this therapist thing … I’d still like to make art … Do the modeling thing … Meet  cool people … Hopefully keep traveling … And yeah … live till I’m 150 years old (laughter) …