Ashley Lebedev | Bottle Bell: Faerieland Resumes.

Friends.

In the midst of so much traveling (nearly solid since April) and struggling to find an internet connection nearly every day ... I assembled a team yesterday (in the middle of nowhere, as usual) and (drum roll please) "Faerieland" resumed.

Tonight, I find myself in Air Conditioning and PJs and eating a sumptuous orange, glazed with lemon juice and honey (I know, right?!) And, I thought a quick blog post was in order.

Anyway, It was a solid 11 hours of prep. to execution and I'm exhausted. But, I'm smiling in this night like the billion stars above me. I love what I do and I cannot wait to share these next characters. My imagination has been allowed to run wild. It continues to run ahead of me so often that I only ever hope I can keep up and jot the impossible idea down, before it disappears from my sight and goes back to the world from which it came.

Of course this is just a tiny teaser BTS with a realllly tiny cropped cell phone screen shot at the very end, of one of the final images from this sequence of the fairytale.

[***side note & inside joke: tons of flowers were involved in this shoot, and flowers reminded us of hippie's, so the running joke on set was that we should have this character do a hippie peace sign and some protesters picketing in the background (while I shot) to really shake up faerieland.]

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I have asked myself (and am very often asked) what I want (exactly) to do when I finish this collection. People ask if I want to exhibit the entire story, or? Honestly, I really feel that this particular series (not over by any means) will eventually be a very dark fine art tome for both children and adults, accompanied by music to accompany the visuals. Will the book be a limited edition? Likely, though I don't know for sure.

That said, I have at least 11 more characters in drawn out storyboards, and so many unseen landscapes yet to come. So, hold tight. x

Sneak Peek from a super cropped cell phone screen shot of one of the final images from this particular sequence, just after I nabbed it from OOC:

And that's a wrap.

A SPECIAL THANKS to:

MUA: Lacey O'Sullivan. I adore you.

MODEL: Olga Ivanova (what a wonderful model ;)
DESIGNER/SUEDE BONNETS: Joy Patterson (fantastic artist, to say the least!)

ps. As long as I have you here, just wanted to offer a huge THANK YOU (underline it. bold it. italicize it.) to those of you that sent some of the most astonishingly beautiful messages I've ever read/received regarding my new endeavor, "dustbowl". I had the idea after years of being transfixed by that era of history and in reading books like 'the grapes of wrath' and even just traveling this country (so many times over), immersing myself in its rich history, with every failed boomtown and lost highway. There are so many. (Route 66, anyone? how about Appalachia?) | It just seemed like an idea that I had to take on. The next shoot for that collection is this Saturday, and it's quite the contrast to "faerieland". These two series' are a nice balance and keep me on my feet. ;)

Living out of a suitcase,

Ashes x