Actually, they were available to download on the first, but I’m just posting about it now. My neurologist changed my medication again which led to the longest string of migraines and general barfiness and feeling awful yet. I’m just so glad I can edit again. The lack of outlet was REALLY driving me crazy.
I have to say that it’s magical, wonderful, fulfilling, surreal and fills me with overwhelming joy and gratitude that I and my art get to be a part of Peter’s art. His work has had such a deep influence on my whole life in a way that I will never be able to properly put into words, but it is something I will cherish forever. Thank you, Connor Cochran, for making this happen!!
Also, I wanted to let you all know what my friend and fellow spoonie Jessi has been up to! While traditionally, she’s been a painter, her severe fibro symptoms are not allowing much of that right now. Thankfully, she discovered that she can make jewelry even while laying in bed! She just opened an Etsy shop filled with beautiful earrings, suitable for every day wear as well as special awareness ribbons and colors for various invisible illnesses. Do stop by her shop and pick up a pair! They’re very reasonably priced and make gorgeous gifts. The holidays are almost upon us 🙂
Before I get into this post, I wanted to again thank EVERYONE who prayed, lit candles, sent me good thoughts and energy about my battle on Wednesday. I don’t have an answer yet, and most likely won’t for a while, but it did go quite a bit better than I was expecting. I am guardedly hopeful for a successful outcome. And regardless, I went in, faced a terrifying situation and did my best. Whatever happens, I can take comfort in that. So thank you all, from the bottom of my heart; I’m sure all that good energy truly helped. For those inclined, I wouldn’t mind your continued blessings until I hear the outcome! And I’ll try and let you know what the outcome is as soon as I can.
Now, on to this post!
I’ve had some exciting news that I’ve been quiet about for a while, but I can finally spill the beans today! You guys all remember how I’ve been working with Connor Cochran from Conlan Press, publisher of Peter S. Beagle, one of my two literary heroes? It’s all coming together 🙂
LILA THE WEREWOLF AND OTHER TALES by Peter S. Beagle. Conlan Press 2015 ebook edition (Kindle exclusive). Definitive author-approved text combines 6 classic Peter S. Beagle stories with 10 new ones collected here for the first time. Cover photo by Sarah Allegra, processing and design by Connor Cochran. Click here to be taken to Amazon!
THE LINE BETWEEN by Peter S. Beagle. Conlan Press 2015 ebook edition (Kindle exclusive). Definitive author-approved text of Peter’s 2006 story collection. Cover photo by Sarah Allegra Ashley, processing and design by Connor Cochran. Model: Katie Johnson. Click here to be taken to Amazon!
And, the most exciting part for me is that six of these shiny new e-books have my images on their covers!!
MIRROR KINGDOMS: THE BEST OF PETER S. BEAGLE by Peter S. Beagle, stories selected by Jonathan Strahan. Conlan Press 2015 ebook edition (Kindle exclusive). Definitive author-approved text reprinting 2010 Subterranean Press limited-edition hardcover collection. Cover photo by Sarah Allegra, processing and design by Connor Cochran. Click here to be taken to Amazon!
This is so incredibly fulfilling and amazing to me! I began creating images inspired by Peter’s work long before I’d ever met him or had any personal interaction with him. I just genuinely LOVE his work and it made me want to create images based on how his writing made me feel. It’s a little surreal to now have my work on his covers, but absolutely wonderful 🙂
SMÉAGOL, DÉAGOL, AND BEAGLE: ESSAYS FROM THE HEADWATERS OF MY VOICE by Peter S. Beagle. 2015 Conlan Press ebook edition (Kindle exclusive). Brand-new nonfiction by Peter — a collection of original essays exploring the roots of his own voice as a writer, and the people and works that have been his greatest influences. Cover photo by Sarah Allegra, processing and design by Connor Cochran. Model: Bryce Rankins. Click here to be taken to Amazon!
So please click on any of the above images to be taken to Amazon where you can see what titles are being offered and pick up your favorite ones! And if you’re new to Peter S. Beagle… well, you’re in for a BIG treat.
SLEIGHT OF HAND by Peter S. Beagle. Conlan Press 2015 ebook edition (Kindle exclusive). Definitive author-approved text of Peter’s 2011 story collection. Cover photo by Sarah Allegra, processing and design by Connor Cochran. Click here to be taken to Amazon!
If you’re liking the idea of this but don’t own an e-reader, don’t worry. New hardcover editions of these titles will be available in the near future and the plan so far is for at least most of the covers to remain the same.
WE NEVER TALK ABOUT MY BROTHER by Peter S. Beagle. Conlan Press 2015 ebook edition (Kindle exclusive). Definitive author-approved text of Peter’s 2009 story collection. Cover photo by Sarah Allegra, processing and design by Connor Cochran. Model: Patrick Reid. Click here to be taken to Amazon!
Many, many thanks to Connor Cochran, Charlie Petit and Peter S. Beagle for choosing to use my images and working so hard to make the covers look so beautiful. I am truly honored. Thank all you, my dear readers and friends, for your support, any purchases you may make and extra special shout-out to Katie Johnson, Bryce Rankins and Patrick Reid for their modeling in their images! We’re all on book covers!!
I think it’s fair to say that 2014 has been something of a tumultuous year. A lot of very good things happened! And a lot of rather shitty things have happened to. Let’s touch on the bad first and get that out of the way.
There was a heavy dose of bad this year. Some of this has been discussed on the blog; three months of colds, sinus surgery, sinus surgery having dramatic and frightening complications, etc. A lot of it has not been discussed on the blog, however; this does not feel like the proper forum for a lot of the more personal matters, especially ones which involve people other than myself.
Geoff and I have to move. We are really, really, really not happy about this. I’m not going to discus the reasons for the move here, except to say that no one did anything wrong. We always paid our rent, etc. This is a heartbreaking blow; our neighbors have become like true family to us. And while we won’t live too far apart after we all move to our new homes, it will never be the same as when we all lived together on the Compound, as we called it.
When my first surgery complication began and I started bleeding profusely from my nose to the extent that I was truly concerned that I might need an ambulance, our neighbor John came rushing home to make sure I was ok until Geoff could get there. Once John and I decided an ambulance wasn’t needed, he sat on the floor with me and kept me calm and distracted.
When I found myself suddenly clutching a whole litter of baby opossums and in charge of their safety, Donna came to the rescue and helped me keep them safe. (They were eventually taken to a no-kill shelter which would rehabilitate them then release them into the wild when they were old enough.) These are not your average people. When we all found out that we’d no longer be living together, everyone cried openly.
One of the baby opossums
And good heavens, it’s been so good for Calantha to be there! Having a “pack” next door which she can come and go from as she pleases helped her put on a needed five pounds, which she’s maintained the whole time we’ve been here. Basically, absolutely everyone is extremely unhappy about this for a lot of reasons, but there’s nothing we can do to stop it.
Calantha, modeling the Lady Death bonnet
And of course I’ve been able to do a LOT of shooting there! There are SO MANY trees; it’s very easy to make the background look like a forest if you just frame around the tell-tale signs of human habitation. When you’re dealing with ME, being able to do an entire shoot without leaving your yard, or even getting out of your PJs if you want, can be an incredible boon.
This has also been an extremely tight year financially for us (which a move isn’t going to help). Again, I shouldn’t go into exact details here, but a large part of our income vanished early this year and we’ve been trying to stanch the metaphoric bleeding ever since.
Those are the biggest highlights of the bad, of the things I feel I can talk about here. It’s been a really difficult year and there have been many times when I’ve dissolved into tears over one more bad thing happening. The world has felt completely against us most of the year, no matter what we’re planning or how noble it might be, which of course feels terribly unfair. I’m holding out hope that this is all happening for a reason and that things will change soon. Some days that’s a very difficult hope to hold on to. I’ll talk a little more about this when I discuss this year’s new image.
Let’s move on to happier topics for now. Let’s talk about some of the good things that happened this last year!
I got to work with some really fantastic new models, Dan Donohue and Travis Weinand. They were both wonderful; the kind of models who make you want to come up with new concepts just for them. I’m looking forward to working with both of them again!
I was able to have brushes with both of my favorite authors, Robin McKinley and Peter S. Beagle. Robin McKinley was gracious enough to let me write two guest posts for her blog and talk about DreamWorld! In addition to the ongoing work I’ve been doing with Peter Beagle and Connor Cochran, Peter’s manager/publisher as well as my business manager, they had a special showing of The Last Unicorn in Santa Fe, NM, in a theater George RR Martin has helped restore. Since George RR Martin was going to be at the screening, Connor asked for some of my prints to hang in the theater, which led to this amazing moment caught on camera between the two beloved authors. While I have been credited as taking the photo, I was unable to be there in person although I would have LOVED to have been there!
Peter S. Beagle and George RR Martin with unicorn and dire wolf plushies, in front of my prints!
My dear friend and frequent model Katie Johnson started a video series interviewing some of the wonderful photographers she works with called Artist Profile. Katie was kind enough to start the series interviewing me; you can see the video below! The series has been really interesting to watch grow and I’m very honored to be a part of it!
One of my images was featured on Etsy‘s front page which made me squeal like a little girl. Luckily I got a screen capture of it before it changed to another treasury!
Etsy’s front page 08/08/2014
After I released Where Earth Meets The Sky, it was requested that I make a video showing how I’d created the image. Happy to oblige, I made the following video:
But I think the feature I’m most proud of came from winning a contest from Good Light! Magazine, hosted by Viewbug. The contests’ theme was “People and Water.” My image “A Drop of Blood” was chosen as the winning photo, which of course was just thrilling! But the prizes were really meaningful to me; first, a feature on View Bug’s blog about how I captured the image. Next was a really lovely article in Good Light!’s magazine about why the image was chosen:
And then my very favorite part was watching the short video where you can actually hear from the contest’s judge himself (and hear it in his lovely accent!) about why the winning images were chosen. It was truly thrilling and embarrassing to hear someone say such nice things about my photograph! Although I will gently note that the title came first and the image was built around it, not the other way around, but I can certainly see how it could confuse people!
Now, in less photography-related news, Geoff and I got to see the Breaking Bad House. We also celebrated out 3-year anniversary of being married, which Geoff worked hard to made special despite me being deep in the hell of every-three-week-colds.
Happy anniversary!!!
At the advice from Patti Penn, my Reiki teacher, and Geoff, I started making an important mental shift. I realized that I was looking at my future with ME as written in stone; that it was a pre-determined fate for me to always be sick with it to some degree. Sure, you hear about some people who go into remission, and even more rarely, are cured, but it was too painful to hope for that. I tried to not expect that I would always get progressively worse, even though that seemed to be the direction everything was heading in, regardless of whatever diet or lifestyle changes I made. It was less scary to expect that I’d always be dealing with it to some degree; opening myself up to the idea that I might get better some day was making myself vulnerable to extreme disappointment.
But I slowly started realizing that if I expected to always be sick, it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy and I would always be sick. So as frightening as it might be, I had to start letting the idea of being healthy enter my life. And it was very scary, very difficult. Knowing you’re going to be fucked for the rest of your life is something you can adjust to, prepare for and learn to accept. Having the possibility of healing destroyed the mental plans I’d been preparing myself for, and while it would be a very, very good thing to find myself well, the risk of shattering disappointment was so great, I didn’t want to even entertain the idea.
But I needed to embrace that idea, as terrifying as it might be. Geoff and Patti both brought up the same idea to me, completely independent from each other and without knowing what I’d been thinking through. It seemed like a very clear sign. So I’m taking a deep breath and plunging into the frightening unknown. The unknown where I could get better some day. And if I don’t get better, it certainly will be heartbreaking. But if I don’t allow myself to be vulnerable in this way, then I definitely will not ever get better.
This is one of my big plans for 2015. Every day, instead of dwelling on what I couldn’t or didn’t do, focus on what I did do. Even if 99.9% of me feels like complete shit, focus on that .01% where I felt good. Instead of being frustrated, angry and disappointed with the limitations of my body and mentally say nasty, demoralizing to it, I’ll praise it for the good it did. I’ll tell it that I know it’s working so hard, that it’s trying its best and that I appreciate all the effort it goes to. It will take time to make this mental shift, but it’s worth making it. And I will practice grace with myself, both in what my mental dialogue is and with however long it takes me to heal. I believe this is the only way I have any hope of getting completely better some day… and no matter how painful that hope can be sometimes, I will commit to it.
I’ve got a lot I’ll be working on through 2015. I have big plans for my Glass Walls series, which explores animal rights, along with continuing to build DreamWorld. A couple burners are being kept busy with Peter Beagle/Conlan-related plans. And I’ve got numerous projects at various points of completion which I’ll be sharing with you when I can 🙂
I’ve scattered some of my favorite images taken over the past year throughout this post (many of which you can find in my 2015 calendar, on sale here!), but I wanted to leave you with something to inspire you in your own photo creations! So, in no particular order, here are some of the photographers I recommend you start following right now, if you haven’t already! There may be some nudity, so just keep that in mind.
And lastly, though she is not a photographer, I highly recommend following Katie Johnson, one of the models I work with most frequently. She writes blogs for several site which cover a variety of subjects and angles. If you’re interested in modeling or pole dancing to gain confidence, you’ll find her a kindred spirit. If you’re a photographer, many of her articles are directed at you and will help you improve your photographer/model relationships. Plus, she’s just the loveliest person and one I am happy to have in my life and call a friend 🙂
So… this new image. As I’ve said, it’s really been a pretty rough year, all around. I watched a movie with my mom recently, on a day she came to visit me after my surgery and make sure I actually laid down all day (something I have trouble doing).
Winter’s Tale ended up being very much a “Sarah movie” as Geoff calls them. Critics weren’t overly taken with it, and I can see their arguments, but at the end of the day, I still really enjoyed the movie. It’s hard to make mythic, hopeful movies which are sweet without being cloying or heavy-handed, and I felt that Winter’s Tale balanced itself well. It’s also very beautiful visually and several of the themes inspired new creations of my own.
One of the movie’s main points is that “everything happens for a reason” (even the bad things). This has been such an incredibly trying year; right now I can’t imagine good reasons for the numerous bad things which have hounded Geoff and me this year. This image is sort of a peace-offering in a way. A symbol to the universe to say I don’t know what the purpose of these things could have been, but I’m going to trust that there is a reason. And not just any reason, but a good one. One I will look back on later and smile, thinking of all the heartache and knowing it had been worth it.
This is the attitude I want to start 2015 off with. A humble admission that I don’t have all the answers, and never will, but that I am continuing my direction of my life in the hope that tremendous good will be found along this path. At the moment it feels a bit like a blind faith, but I have decided this is the mindset I need to start off 2015. I am taking my leap; I hope the universe catches me.
“A wall of flames 40 feet high was sweeping its way up the canyon, 400 yards away. At that point, they would have had about a minute. Since they couldn’t get to the safety zone, they had to make one of their own. Andrew Ashcraft and Travis Turbyfill, the two sawyers, started attacking the brush with their chain saws, while the rest of the guys swung their Pulaskis, frantically doing what they were trained to do: move dirt, and move dirt faster. They dumped fuel from their drip cans around the zone they’d created, then set the chain saws at the outer perimeter, so that when they exploded no one would get hurt.
[The team’s leader,] Eric, got on the radio. The Hotshots’ escape route had been cut off, he said, and they were deploying their emergency shelters.
Eric’s voice was calm – some said the calmest they’d ever heard him. At 4:47, he radioed his last transmission: ‘Deploying.’ And then, just like they’d practiced, the Granite Mountain Hotshots climbed into their shelters.
Finally, at 6:30 – an agonizing 103 minutes later – the helicopter was able to get on the ground. The onboard medic hurried to the site where they’d seen the shelters. As he approached, he spotted the metal blade from a chain saw and a pickax with the handle burned away. The ranch house was unscathed. Everything else was a smoldering moonscape.
Experts estimate that the fire burned between 3,000 and 5,000 degrees. In the end, there wasn’t much left. But what there was told a story.
The 19 Hotshots were all together. No one panicked, no one ran. Travis Turbyfill and Andrew Ashcraft, the sawyers, were at the edge of the group, closest to the flames. They were cutting lines up until the end.
When Juliann [ed – Andrew’s wife] got Andrew’s effects back, his boots and clothes were gone. His metal belt buckle didn’t make it. His pocketknife. The journals that he kept. There was a piece of Velcro from his watchband but not the watch itself. Even the metal plate and eight screws in his leg, from when he shattered it in a rappelling accident a few years back, had disappeared.
Two things, she discovered, had somehow survived the fire. One was Andrew’s wedding ring, titanium. The other, shrunken and black, was the rubber wristband that said: be better.”
I initially created today’s image to be a companion piece for this photo of Katie and I, honoring the fallen firemen in Yarnell, Arizona almost a year ago.
Though it always makes me cry to think about it, there is such beauty in the men’s calm acceptance of their sacrifice, their solidarity, that they were a complete, solid unit until the very end. Josh Eell’s article says it so wonderfully. They stuck together. In the face of immediate, certain death, they did what they could and then turned to each other for comfort. Shoulder to shoulder, they stuck together until the horrific last.
That unity, that love, that solidarity and bravery touched me more deeply than I could, or can, express. The only chance I had at touching on it was through art. I set up a shoot with Katie and Bryce to portray the doomed but brave men. It happened that some tree branches and very tall bushes in my yard had just been cut down, forming what appeared to be a huge, natural nest. Thinking of the Hotshots as birds with broken, burned wings helped me find the metaphor I wanted to use, a way into the truth I was trying to get at.
It was an easy shoot, what with all the branches having been set up for me by the workmen. I lit a few smoke bombs, snapped the frames and it was done. I loved what I had gotten from this shoot as I looked at the images later. All the same, I found I couldn’t face editing the image. It took many, many months before I felt like I could emotionally handle editing working it up.
I didn’t consciously realize we were coming up on the anniversary of their deaths, but I must have felt it subconsciously. I’ve been haunted by memories of Andrew recently and finally felt that it was time, urgently time, to finish this piece. As I finally brought the files into Photoshop and started working on them, more memories flooded my brain. Like how Andrew, as a young child, had always said “Jee Jie Joes” instead of “GI Joes” and frequently got tripped up between “brought” and “brung.” The trip our families took to Mount Shasta together. Their shelties, who seem huge in my mind, but who I know were actually smallish dogs. Drawing together, playing in the sprinklers, going to the beach, sharing snacks, going to the park, getting into fights, crying and making up again… all the things children do.
I’ve said before that one of the things I mourn in this is that I missed out on getting to know Andrew as an adult. I’ve tried to remember that lesson and have made a point to stay in touch, or get back in touch, with people in my life. I won’t get another chance at Andrew, but I can try and apply the lesson to other friendships.
None of these men deserved their fate. They were true heroes, actively running into the worst, most dangerous situations. That is what the Hotshots were there for; an elite team of firefighters comparable to Navy Seals or Spartans. The only thing I can try and do about it is make an attempt to honor them and their sacrifice. I know that I will always fall short in this goal, but it’s important to try nonetheless. I am also keenly aware that this is not about me or my pain. The pain of Andrew’s family and loved ones is something I can only imagine.
The Hotshots were trapped; birds unable to fly away. There was no escape from the flames. But what remained was love. Love triumphing over the flames by preserving Andrew’s wedding ring and bracelet with his personal motto. Love for the people they were protecting, though they would never meet them. Love for their families, though they left them behind in the line of their duty. Love for each other. Love for humanity. Just love.
That love is what I wanted most to capture in this image and I hope it shines through.
Singed Wings
Singed Wings – detail
Singed Wings – detail One of the three smokey roses scattered through the photo. I used a photo I had taken of beautifully carved roses on a tombstone, which felt so fitting. The delicacy and beauty they add are still tinged with sorrow.
Singed Wings – detail
Singed Wings – detail
My heart goes out to the family and friends of all 19 fallen heroes especially as we approach the anniversary of this tragedy. I’m sure it’s an extremely difficult time for all of them.
Mythic Pictures 