The story behind the Art Part 2 Sly

I first met Sylvester when he was in Junior high school. He was friends with my cousins.   He was very mature for his age and loved movies.

When I started Dlonzo Modeling Troupe, Sylvester became my DJ since he was good with electronics and was also in the school band. I had never seen Sylvester as a model (Although he was the groom in a wedding sequence in my first major fashion show, as an inside joke. He actually liked the model a lot.) I had hoped they would have gotten together. (That’s another story. LOL)

Sylvester and I hung out a lot until I got him his first job at Frenchy’s. It was a sandwich shop near the lakefront in New Orleans. After high school Sylvester joined the military and I never heard from him until 1992. He was living in Seattle. He started telling me about the film festival and the celebrities he was meeting. I had always wanted to make a movie and as a kid the family and cousins were always in front of my camera. Even when they didn’t want to be.

I was good with people and knew if I made it to Seattle something might happen. Since the modeling in New Orleans was coming to an end. (I had gone through some difficult times and decided I’d leave it alone.)

In 1993 I had decided to go to Seattle and this was sort of the beginning of me getting back into the photography. The Seattle International Film Festival had set up interviews with the celebrities and one of the people I had met was a writer, I was brought in as the photographer to take pictures to go along with the story. All thanks to Sylvester.

When I returned to New Orleans, Sylvester had planned to come a few weeks later. One of my cousins and his friend was getting married. It would be Sylvester’s first trip back to New Orleans since he had left in 1984.

I had taken a job working for a friend and I had access to his home. Some how we must have talked about doing some photos. I had arranged for Sylvester to come to the house with me and we ended up doing a photo shoot. After all those years of producing fashion shows, now when I was no longer a part of the scene I would discover that Sylvester was a natural in front of the camera. Perhaps him moving to Seattle opened his mind. Sometimes all it takes is for us to walk out of our own backyard to discover our potential.
Everyone I knew was very comfortable posing for me and I would never ask anyone to do something that I wouldn’t have done as long as I looked good.

The next year when I returned to Seattle Sylvester really surprised me. I came up with the idea which was inspired by a photograph in Madonna’s Sex book. The theme of the Seattle International Film Festival was See what the world is coming to… Sylvester had purchased a pair of the boxer briefs which had the titled across the butt. I was not going to turn down a chance to create some art with my best friend.

Sylvester like myself always wanted to do cinematography. I did both so I had agreed when we would make a film we’d share the job. After seeing the film Bad Boy Bubby, we knew it was actually possible to have several people film a project.

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The story behind the Art

                   Every photograph, drawing and painting has a story. Not just the story that it tells once it is complete, but the story that made the work of art what it is. One of my best non-fashion photo shoots was the image that is now known as Jose’ as Jesus.
It began with a conversation with someone I had photographed a few months earlier, Olav. Olav was putting putting together his portfolio to find work in the U.S. in the modeling and entertainment industry. When he found out I would be going to the Seattle International Film Festival, they suggested I contact someone if I needed a place to stay. I took the information down, but I already had accommodations set up. Still there was something that said contact the person to at least make a new friend. This was my second year attending SIFF so I was prepared for how the people known as Fool Serious, eat, drink and sleep film so to speak.

When one is really involved in the film festival, finding time in between films is difficult, but I managed to find time. My best friend at the time, Sly and I walked over to the apartment of Shane. It turned out that Shane was having a birthday party; he offered us some champagne and he invited us to come back. The concept of the party was that everyone knew him, but they did not know each other. I thought that was a great idea. This way I didn’t have to feel out of place.
My friend and I went to the next screening and we agreed to come back to the party. How could I resist a party that was serving champagne.

  When we arrived back there were quite a few people at the party. I got myself a glass of champagne and I mingled. Once I’ve been some place I don’t have a problem meeting people and I was already up one since I had met the host and my friend was tagging along. There were several interesting people at the party, but one person really stood out.
We began talking and some how we got on the conversation of the crucifix. I think I may have mentioned I had just returned from Italy and how it was an incredible experience. I felt born again. I told him this idea I had for the crucifix and he told me he had a similar idea, but he wanted to build a crucifix, lay it on the floor and have the photographer film from above.

I remember I kept staring at his wrists. There were these red markings as if it were dry blood. I didn’t want to ask and I made an assumption that he might be suicidal. We exchanged numbers and we had arranged to meet the following day.

I remember Jose, Shane and myself met for lunch. We then back to Shane’s apartment to look at photographs. It turned out that Shane was also a photographer and he wanted me to see some of his work. While going through his photo album I spotted a photograph of a cross. My brain immediately began working. There were questions spewing from my lips. Where was the cross located? Could we get there? We had to rearrange our schedules. That meant we’d have to miss a day of films, Sly agreed and we had scheduled a shoot.

I remember going with Jose to see his place, do some test shots and to pick out the costumes we’d use for the shoot.

At this point in time, in NOLA I Never would have been so bold as to try anything like this. This opened up my mind to a world of possibilities. I was no longer just a photographer, I was becoming an artist. It’s easy for me to say that now, but back then I didn’t know. I just liked taking pictures. I just knew I wanted to push the envelope and I was going with what I felt.

The one question I should have asked, but neglected to do so was, how big was the cross? When we arrived at the cemetery where some of Seattle’s celebrities are buried I was amazed at the size of the cross. It was a magnificent work of art in itself. The subject was dwarfed by it’s size, but a bizarre miracle was about to take place. My friend Sly was going to video tape the entire photo shoot. Another friend Tina, was going to do stills of Sly video taping. You have to look closely at the cross because there is no ledge. Jose, the subject appears to be stuck to the cross. This is not photo shop. Jose’ designed the crown from some flowers he found in the cemetery. He changed clothes while up on the cross. The first outfit was a long duster. At the end of the photos on the cross, when we played back the video there was a crow that had come out.

None of us knew how our lives would change after this shoot.

Sly, my friend who was video taping the entire thing was in a very bad car accident and lost his eye sight. Jose who I never saw again, appeared in a music video and was last thought to have moved to Japan. All I ever knew was that he was using the photos in his portfolio. The guy who gave the party, Shane, visited me once in NOLA and I photographed him. We stayed in touch for a while. He moved to Amsterdam and got married and has a kid.

Sly and I remained friends up until 1999. Till this day I don’t know what caused him to stop speaking to me. The footage we had shot we were planning to submit it as a short film in SIFF, but that never happened. I finally got my hand on the footage and it’s been transferred to DVD, but I’ve done nothing else. I’ve only watched the footage twice since. This is also the first time that I am sharing this part of the story in greater detail.

I tried to get the photograph into an art gallery, but the first place I went it was rejected because of the subject matter. I was really proud of this photograph that I enlarged it and had it framed in my home which caused controversy there as well. Who knew art could be such a touchy subject when it involved me.
A few years later I’d place it in a shop called Sirens on commission, but it never sold there either. Still, I consider it to be one of my best non fashion photographs. It is truly a work of art. It shows the potential of my creative mine especially when I have a subject that is as eager as I am to create something unique.

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