Ladies and lady boys, I present to you, an ADVENTURE!!!

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Slowly being reclaimed back into the sea, the Mona Lisa Motel has been casually eroding since it’s founding some 50 years ago atop the infertile and unforgiving lands of the Ensenada sand dunes.

Growing up from farmer stock, proprietress Elisa Farrell was not enthused when her new Mexican-American husband became attached to the plot of land, seeing in it infinite possibilities.  In it, she only saw sand she could grow nothing in and complained.  Ted, the visionary dreamer promised to build her a well with clean water and make a plot for her to grow whatever her young heart desired and bought the land.  Three children, 21 grandchildren and approximately 55 years later The Mona Lisa Motel stands, defiant as ever on the sandy unyielding shores of the Pacific to spite any that might have doubted it.

While her husband died in 2007, Elisa seems as committed to him as the day she married him and gleefully tells of their 51 years together and her first pregnancy to daughter Mona Lisa, the Motel’s namesake and goodluck charm.  She will tell you of being in a radio station listening to music and hearing Nat King Cole’s rendition of Mona Lisa and vowing to name her growing baby as such, as we travelers huddle in the night around the glow of halogen lights listening to her stories and the song that inspired it, undeserving drifting out of the speakers of an iPad becoming lost in the early chill of the night as her little dogs scurry underfoot.  Though tragedy and downfall has certainly hit the Mona Lisa as tends to happen over time, she will gloss over the rough parts, the unfinished houses built by the son she outlived and his father whose memory surrounds the property protectively, the salt that has seeped into the well and the lack of tourists due to the ill repute of the area, skipping quickly back to her five decades of romance, her constant love affair, to tequila and babies and old songs and the things built that never were expected to be.

In the Mona Lisa Motel, I found solace by the ocean, warm unspoiled water, warmth, family, intrigue and a sense of timelessness so quiet and pristine, I will surely return to it every time I close my eyes- hoping if I lay still enough, I will still be able to hear the waves crashing.

With love as always,

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It is probably not surprising at this point that I like trying new things.  It is also probably not surprising that I like trying them with pretty girls, shiny things and blood.  For this shoot, the goal was to attempt an incredibly rare and possibly new horizontal side suspension.

Suspension is the act of suspending a human body from hooks that have been put through strategic weight bearing piercings in the flesh.  While originally associated with various tribal rituals it was introduced to the body modification community as a form of advanced, heightened meditation by pioneering piercer/artist Fakir Musafar, the father of the “Modern Primitive” movement and has grown from there to include a broader performance aspect which sees performers, artists, and piercers pushing the boundaries of physical possibility more and more each day.

Our goal for this project was to suspend Snow Spirit, a beautiful suspension enthusiast from 10 piercings from her shoulders to her legs in a silver mermaid Zentai “encasement” suit.

After months of planning, safety logistics and lots of texts reading “I’m excited” we set out to put our long awaited  shoot into action on a beautiful sunny Los Angeles afternoon.  With the sage-like help of C.O.R.E. LA suspension master Matt Brawley,  Snow was stuffed into her mermaid suit with her pretty feet bound together with tape and zipped up before being poked and squished to secure proper placement of her hooks.

When Matt and his team were happy with the locations for the hooks, the suit was sniped, the entrance and exit holes were marked and  everything that could possibly be sterilized and swabbed down was…twice.

With gloves and masks on they pierced her in teams, three hooks at a time until all 10 hooks (which had been hand filed by Snow) were neatly in place.  The boys secured the initial rigging to lift her off the gurney which she had been pierced on and pulled her up off  into the air about 3 feet.  After a quick break to compose herself, Snow was laced into the impeccably woven red rigging Matt had designed for the shoot and she was ready for her close up!

While we had initially safely betted on an approximate suspension time of 4 minutes, Snow stayed happily suspended for about 15 minutes give or take, even after we had finished with the photography.  After she was ready to come down, Matt employed the helpful hands he had enlisted to hold her up as he cut the cords of the rigging.  Back on the gurney the hooks came out and she was fitted with half a box of brightly colored band aids,  and while the mermaid suit came off, her smile stayed all afternoon.

Final photos to come shortly, but in the meantime here is a cheesy video of the proccess for those who may never have experienced a suspension first hand.

Thanks to everyone who helped out, for making it an incredible shoot and a beautiful afternoon!

xoxo,

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Ladys and lady boys,

April has been another whirlwind month filled with more photos, art projects and the bits and pieces that make up every day.  This month I dyed my hair green, then back to not green again, returned a library book  on RUSSIA on time, hung out with my favorite baby girl and her more than ok parents, took in the lovely Herb Ritts exhibit of untamed extravaganza at the Getty, made it to the gym at least a handful of times, caught some shows (and Martinis) at the always posh Magic Castle with my partner in crime Anastacia Goodin (aka All American Annie G), and got a brand new tattoo!  Ah-maze-ing!  And that doesn’t even include art, wow!

This month in the world of drawing I challenged myself to a week long illustration project.  It is a little known fact that my ability to draw/paint men is on the really terrible side.  For many years I have hid this by hating men and never drawing them.  Sorry Jesus.  Well no longer!  I took it upon myself during a week of light work to assign myself more work and draw “TEN MEN I LIKE IN TEN DAYS” !!! I am sort of lying about this because I got excited and it in fact actually only took 8 days because some days I did two men (I know what is sounds like, eye roll).  Sorry again Jesus.  The tricky part of this project was narrowing all the men I like in the ENTIRE WORLD (mwahahahaha) into ten.  As it turns out I do like more than 10 men, and sorry to the boys who didn’t make the cut (Agent Dale Cooper, David Duchovney, Peter Dinklage, The Rock..) but there will always be next time and you will always have a special place in my heart.

The ones I DID draw are (in order on the site):

Danny Trejo

Eugene Hutz

Henry Rollins

Hunter S

Iggy Pop

Jack Nicholson

Mickey Rourke

A really bad version of Noel Fielding (dont hate me?)

Slash

and best teeth ever Mr. Stevie B (Buscemi)

So that happened.

I also shot a lovely set of stylist turned sexy chain mail model NV (who is gracing the home page right now) and will be photographing the enigmatic Ivi Taro tomorrow afternoon.  The fun…well it just never stops.  I hope it never does.

Here is another Annie G clown edit (So sad.  So sad.) and a picture of WORLD FAMOUS  Elli Yang Schroeder and me very happy to be in her company!

The end.

xoxo

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B &G & Etc::::

As this year draws to a close I am tying up the loose ends to an overwhelming amount of projects and obligations and preparing to move into a new workspace which will no doubt lend tons of new energy to RebeccaPeloquin.com, re-pel.tumblr and all the other venues where you can find things I make and love, so please as always stay excited for updates and new work!  Also starting at the beginning of January you will be able to find all sorts of new prints, originals, odd things and artsy alike in my brand new re-designed ETSY.

Until then happy holidays, and stay classy my friends!

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Yesterday was a fine quiet night filled with gypsy music and strong coffee. I saw this as I drove home and drew this when I got there.

Xoxo
RP

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