"I am a mixture."

- Frida Kahlo.

mixture
late middle english
from latin

how many parts
can make you
up.

dreaming of frida

I can't remember when I first became infatuated with frida kahlo. it was later in life than most creative young women discover her I think. she was always a bit mythic to me & I was content to view her paintings from a distance, & flip through the pages of books about her in museum gift shops.

in a few weeks I'm heading to mexico city. I've wanted to visit for many years, but never found the time or the justification. this past summer I thought: I want to go to the frida kahlo museum. & scheduled the trip for that purpose. I'm excited to see her blue house & maybe feel closer to this women whose picture hangs on my wall. she's always been a symbol of permission to me. frida says: ok. now go.

now I want to know more about her. she is quite enigmatic. but the biographies I've found center her as a "married woman" & seem to gloss over her bisexuality, her politics, her contradictions. this is not uncommon in the ways we think about women artists. most often they are asked to be flat things. not allowed the flaws & problems of their male counterparts. I wonder: what will history erase of me? what will it erase of my female friends writing & painting & making art...

two poems for america, october 2017

(day 224)

(day 225)

new adventures are coming...

I recently decided to get back into traveling, after being pretty stationary in either NYC or LA for the past 10 or so years. I'm starting small, but working my way out to larger trips.

To that end I started a travel blog, Angelino All Over, to document my adventures both close to home & far away. Give it a click if you so desire. My first post, about Lime Oregon, went live today. Stay tuned for more adventures in the US & abroad.

personality crisis

& all I want to do

is keep

moving. 

heading to mexico city in a few weeks. happy to get back to my wandering.

reeling

My project of late has been to work on the frozen-in-place-ness I feel because none of my work is perfect, or good enough, or made on fancy equipment. It's a kind of imposter syndrome I guess. I keep wanting to wait to begin until I am sure I will already be good at it (great?) & I have the excellent cameras & lenses & stabilizers to go with it. But if I keep waiting for these things I'll never get anything done at all.

So, to that end, my first ever directing reel went live today in all it's rough glory. I am still working on the audio & music, & have a few more projects I am hoping to add soon, but this is my first go. Watch it below or on my website: natalieraymond.com/reel.



Natalie Raymond Directing Reel (Rough Cut) from Natalie Raymond on Vimeo.

we are what we leave behind

I've been photographing trash.

www.trashangeles.tumblr.com