Shooting the spring/summer lookbook campaign this season with photographer Matt Nager was nothing short of an adventure. It also held a lot of deeply personal meaning and gratification for me, as our shoot location was a very special place that I’ve wanted to photograph at for the last couple years (shout out to Jacqueline and Micah for turning me onto it). 7 of us made the trek to a tiny campus outside of Las Vegas, New Mexico to photograph at the Dwan Light Sanctuary - a meditation center and spiritual sanctuary (perhaps even a vortex?) commissioned by arts patron Virginia Dwan, and built by iconic solar artist Charles Ross. The sanctuary consists of a circular white room, along with two walls and a ceiling made of Ross’ life-size rainbow prisms. Charles Ross was one of the first people to successfully construct prisms at that scale, which cast brilliant rainbows across the room as the sunlight moves across the sky. I highly recommend a visit.
Rainbows hold a lot of special meaning to me - growing up as a kid in Boulder, my new agey father had prisms in our windows, and the memories of the rainbows that were cast across our maroon 80s carpet while Fleetwood Mac played on the turntable are something I hold dear. I read once that rainbows are “portals to another dimension,” and I couldn’t agree more. There’s just something so magical about the fact that simple sunlight can be revealed to contain every color of the spectrum within it. Perhaps there’s something analogous there to our own human existence. Regardless, rainbows are simply just a joy and a delight to behold.
Beyond nostalgia and mysticism, rainbows also hold a more current significance for me, as a mid-life queer woman and jewelry designer. As a symbol of the gay community that I am a part of, rainbows have now come to embody multiple meanings for me. Not the least of which being a statement of queer joy and triumph - the concept that ultimately was the guiding light for our spring photoshoot. During these challenging times, photographing two visibly queer, gender nonconforming models - the gorgeous Apple Hultz and Royal Zaiking - in a place filled with prismatic rainbow light, holds special significance and importance. I hope that this photoshoot stands as a manifesto and testament of queer joy as resistance, and is as statement-making as it is simply beautiful to behold. As such, I titled this campaign “We Create Our Own Utopia.”
Now, this adventure was not without its trials and tribulations. We made it through an accidental venue double booking (discovered at the 11th hour!), a model’s impulse to dye zir hair purple that morning on a whim, an E. coli outbreak in the town’s water supply (thus rendering showers risky at best), and even a car breakdown at the end. BUT, we persevered. I’m still putting all the pieces together as to what all that meant on a cosmic level. But regardless, our spring/summer campaign shoot turned out as magically as intended. I hope you enjoy it too.
Special thank yous are due not only to Matt and our models, but to my assistant Madeline Cohen, and our photography assistant for the day, David Goodheim, who were both instrumental. Thank you to Recital boutique (and to homie Hannah Proff!) for graciously lending us their beautiful clothing, which I styled along with pieces from my own closet. Shout out also to Lillian Marsh for consulting on hair and makeup, as well as to Matthew Morris, who helped us successfully maneuver the purple hair scenario.
Scroll down to see more of the behind-the-scenes footage of this magical kaleidoscopic adventure. Prism/Solar Spectrum Artwork by Charless Ross © 2025 Charles Ross/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
