The Adventure of Nicky Watts: 2009

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

New Direction for The Adventures of Nicky Watts!

I'm very excited. There will be a change in this blog. It will still revolve around my art experiences and business experiences, but Wear Recycle has been taken out of it so that it can focus more on the ways that the business works and what not.

I might critique some stuff, teach some stuff, describe situations, and document my non Wear Recycle shoots. Possibilities are endless!

My mission right now is to learn how to cold call. Well obviously not right now, but tomorrow.

Good night.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Wear Recycle Final Description, update

OK. I had allowed myself to get distracted the last couple months, but in the last two weeks I have regained momentum.

I have refocused and cut out all the distractions that were getting in my way! Last week I started asking for money for Wear Recycle. My mission: $70,000 in three months. Then another $80,000 three months after that. Exhausting yes, but I know what the mission of Wear Recycle is now. Here's the description, it will explain a lot.

Description

Wear Recycle is a series of international art exhibits that utilize recycled paper as a medium to explore the interconnectedness of relationships. Through constructing sculptures with recycled paper that are photographed in a style that mirrors fashion photography, Wear Recycle brings celebrity, art and everyday people together to encourage responsible reuse of wasteful material.

Each sculpture begins with a cast of a participant’s body part and is later adjoined with a sculpture built of recycled paper. The process of casting crosses intimate physical boundaries and thus allows for organic communication to exist between Watts and her selected participants.

Watts independently builds each sculpture and connects sculpture with participant for the purpose of a photo shoot. In each country a local make up artist and hair stylist is hired in order to create a secondary opportunity to observe the development of human communication through extended work relationships.

Wear Recycle consists of six exhibits. Five of the exhibits will be in five different countries and include approximately twenty photographs printed on recycled paper and the associated sculpted work encased in custom plexi-glass cases. The final exhibition will showcase work from each of the previous shows and will coincide with the publication of a multi-lingual book showcasing the art and describing Watts’ experiences with her participants, teams, and the art itself.

The countries and the dates of their exhibitions are:
• United States: January 2010
• Brazil: November 2010
• Philippines: Aug 2011
• India: May 2012
• Italy: February 2013
• Closing Exhibition and book publication: February 2014

Watts is currently seeking sponsorship. Attached is a breakdown of how you can benefit from your sponsorship, as well as what finances are needed to successfully complete Wear Recycle. Contact Watts at 702-416-6558 for more information.

This and the whole sponsorship letter took me a very long time to create, but it just went in for its second print phase today. I'm really excited!

I have received the first sponsor of $2000 from Kristina Arias. Once her logo is in hand I will make a post about her, but I have to reconnect with her. She is amazing, let me just tell you! Well, I don't want to spoil it all before her post, but she really is a warm spirit. Her website is www.AriasAdvantage.com.

More happy news, Nicky Watts Studios' new website is very close to completion and the first page will go right to Wear Recycle! Exciting I know.

OK. Its 1:54 in the morning and I'm exhausted, I promise to update more often. Thanks for reading.

Nicky

PS here are some photos I took yesterday:

They came out awesome!

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Pharoah Najm: Wear Recycle Pirate

Val, Sam and I were trying to come up with new ways to work together because we felt that we were working in a disconnected fashion and it was obvious with the outcome of the shoots. The best way for each of us to be able to push our creativity but to still flow together was to start building themes for the shoots.

We decided to re-shoot Pharoah because the disconnect really affected the shoot we did we him prior. His sculpture seemed to have developed a pirate theme on its own, but when Pharoah wore it the stereo-type look of a pirate just seemed to fuse together. When Pharoah told me that he had dreaded his hair, I knew it was meant to be.

So here are the photos from Pharoah's shoot: our first of many themed shoots.

I think this one should be a Captain Morgans advertisement

Photographer: Nicky Watts
Sculptor: Nicky Watts
Model: Pharoah Kajm
Hair: Valarie Zwahlen
Make Up: Samantha Henrikson
Location: The Village Pub, Las Vegas
Sunset and Eastern Location
Stylist: Nicky Watts
Leather Jacket: Juicy Couture $850.00
Striped Dress Shirt: Louis Vuitton $450.00
Knickers: Elie Tahari $248.00
Leather Bracelet: Juicy Couture $55.00
Silver Band Bracelet: Elie Tahari $298.00
Man Bag: Cultural Design made in
Ixtahuacan, Guatemala

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Brittani Rael: Rain

This shoot was a last minute shoot. I don't mean it was exactly last minute, it was suppose to be a re-shoot for Wear Recycle, but due to some difficulties Sam and I decided to shoot it as a themed editorial series we are working on based off weather.

It was last minute to make these changes. Sam and I literally had a day and a half to figure out how to make it look like it was raining in Nevada, and to style it and everything. The photos came out great! Everyone did an awesome job and Brittani was a trooper even though it was really early in the morning and she was getting wet outside. Brittani provided the dress which helped to make the over feel of the photos seem like they are in either Spain or something similar.

Here are three of the photos. I'm not actually going to upload the photo that is going to be in the series so that it is not published before submission. You'll have to come back to see the series as a whole once it is approved for W25 magazine.

Photographer: Nicky Watts
Model: Brittani Rael
Make Up Artist: Samantha Henrickson

The Water Color Society

Here is Henderson there are a few different organizations for artists. The Water Color Society is one of them. They have a number of really talented artists within the organization and they are active members with the communities surrounding Las Vegas.

I was lucky enough to be invited to do some portraits of them. It was similar to the Mary Kay event I did a few months back, accept with all artists. Karen Bindner from Mary Kay was there doing her make overs, Samantha Henrickson (the Make Up artist for Wear Recycle) was helping with the paper work, directing everyone, and taking the money at the end, and Rich Castro did a wonderful job assisting the young ladies in choosing which photos they wanted.

Everyone did a fantastic job. I was more then prepared! There were station labels and a print out directing people which station to go to at what time. There were folders for each person, and name tags ready. It really went well. The only thing that could be changed in the future were the contracts. They really need to be simplified and one page instead of a separate page for each topic. Poor Sam had some crunchy reaction from them, but she handled it very well.

Here are most of the photos. A few were left out by request, but they were just as good I assure you.

Well there they are. Aren't they beautiful? Artists always are.

There website is: www.watercolorsociety.com

Many of them are also in the Henderson Art Association which is found at: hendersonartassociation.blogspot.com

Thanks fr a great time everyone.

Kristen Satterwhite and Shea

Last week I was very busy shooting and am now getting ahead of myself in editing.

On Tuesday the 7th I photographed Kristen Hertzenberg Satterwhite with her daughter Shea. I'll be honest with you, I could have done a lot better job.

My photo forte is very controlled settings and not only did we shoot outside, I forgot my soft boxes and had to make due with what I could manage when we shot inside. I was extremely disappointing with myself because I have been really good about being over pre-pared with my shoots for the last year, but I wasn't this day.

There is a positive that cam out of this lack of preparation; I came up with an idea to have about 10 different equipment/job lists that are laminated so I can mark what I will need with each job, mark that it has been packed, mark that it has been repacked after the shoot, and mark when it has been replaced in its correct position in the studio. This is going to be very helpful, especially when I have 5 shoots in one week like last week.

Either way, here are the picks from that shoot. One of them will be in a magazine for Kristen and I'll upload that when it comes out.

See what I mean? They're not bad, they're just not the quality I like to expect from myself. I asked Dana (Kristen's husband) if they minded if I re-shot sometime in the future, just for us, no rush with the mag. I'm excited about fixing what went wrong.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Easter Bonnet 2009

I shot the Second Annual Easter Bonnet event last Sunday. Fantastic is an understatement. The yearly event is to raise money for St. Therese Center for AIDS.

Thanks to Kristen Hertzenberg Satterwhite, who invited me to photograph for her extremely informative blog called Broadway Vegas, I was able to shoot the behind the scenes as well as the show. Two wonderful men who's names have unfortunately passed me, helped me to get settled when I first arrived during the rehearsal. Thanks to them I was granted my very own platform where I was able to set up my tripod and shoot the entire event in the middle and back of the room, but above the audience. I felt like a queen with a third eye.

When I first began shooting all the performers getting ready I must admit that it made me miss Chicago and Mass a lot. The energy and vitality of everyone reminded me of all the people I have been fortunate enough to meet along my path. The behind the scenes has always been, but since I moved here to Henderson I have experienced minimal amounts of active, vibrant, and youthful artists and performers. It was a wonderful feeling to know it exists here and I hope to surround myself with people who are active in making beautiful art and performance happen.

I especially enjoy as much flamboyance and weirdness as possible so I love love loved the Cirque team. There was a very familiar energy within that room that I fed off of. It reminded me of the Jimmy Johns Boys in Chicago: Lance, Mo, John, Chuckles, Russ, Darcy (we were the boys too so it still counts as boys), Izzy, Transmission Gallery and all the rest of the adventure. It made me want to be a part of what they were doing. Not to mention they were entertaining my camera so vividly; I had to hold in my laughter in order to get the shots. For those of you who know that I want the Cirque shows to get involved in my Recycle Paper Sculpture Project know I was going crazy with visual plans of how I will cast everyone together. It will be so much fun! My mind was going wild! Experiencing these specific performer's energy made me think its a little more possible then I thought before.

The Sopranos were there as well. They always crack me up because of my own ghetto mouthed upbringing from Massachusetts. Of course the accent and mannerisms they're replicating is different then Mass, but its more similar then the Chicago or here. Not to mention that when they really go on their f-bomb rampages and picking on one another during their show it sounds like the regular vocabulary that goes back and forth between my mom and sister.

It was great to finally hear Kristen sing; even though it wasn't Phantom and it only lasted a few seconds. Phantom will be one of the next shoes I see. The Phantom performance at Easter Bonnet was awesome. The costume for the performer wearing the bonnet was by far the hottest one. I loved their bonnet. The whole performance was bad ass in a nice neat package.

Well, I think I've finished my excited rant for now. There are endless possibilities for another revise, but we'll see. I hope you enjoy the photos.

That was before the show. Woh!

And that's it.

Art of Love won the competition, close call because there were 3 ties for 2nd place and 2 ties for runners up. Congrats to everyone.

Visit Broadway Vegas for more info on upcoming events: broadwayvegas.blogspot.com

The Adventure of Nicky Watts