MY HISTORY FOR THOSE WHO HUNT FACTS (WHICH I WILLINGLY PROVIDE)
I know a lot of people might like to know about Gemma, about myself, about my psyche. That is the purpose of this Big Long Open Gash, isn’t it. Here are my veins for pillaging. Drink my blood. I am your prey, and you are mine. Here are somethings (but not all things) that my readers might like to know.
Before I invented the Paper Castle, I was definitely a model (I seem to recall…) snatched by Viviens at a recording for National television show Search for A Supermodel. It was here that my little baby sister was wearing a muddy sweatshirt and getting ready to walk for the cameras. She had no idea, I had no idea. She was just an innocent bystander. (In a story that has become urban myth, she had been sitting watching her friends play around, when a scout saw her and encouraged her to enter… the rest is history, and online everywhere)
I hit the scene of the crime with Mama Ward, and eventually, people were like “yo – what are you doing sitting there,” not because I was in the wrong seat, but because apparently they wanted me to do some pounding on that catwalk. Gemma Ward didn’t go through with the other competitors that night, telling the cameras “oh well, at least it was good practice for acting.” After the show, agents pinned us to the staircase (not literally) and gave us cards. Mum was stage left. Many groceries were melting in the back of the car. We went home, probably had some icecream, and absolutely no clue of what was about to come.
Gemma was snappled by IMG after a few test shoots with photographic Westerner, Justin Smith, whilst I worked my brain to synaptic shreds finishing school and starting a B.A at university, soon writing for the magazines that Gemma appeared in. The storied halls of wisdom called me, and in between, Agents called me, though not in black coats or hoods. They made sure I entered a competition of theirs, which I won, and was made their Face of Perth (an privileged honour) for some months.
Soon after this, Gemma was summoned to the center of Times Square New York by thePowers that Be. She was guarded on this mission by Mama Ward who also took this journey. I stayed back and looked after the city from my hallowed position of authority as its Face, drove my brothers around, wrapped my elastic brain around Philosophy of Religion, Linguistics, Europe and English. Things were expanding at an exponential rate.
To make a long story short and simpler, Gemma begun a never before seen engulfment of all the counties of all the lands. She wooed some of the most prestigious and hard-headed designers, campaigns, and personnel, beginning with her walking first for Miucca Prada in Milan. As M.P is the authority on what will be cool way before you think it’s cool, choosing Gemma to open her show led to a slew of people booking her, initiating an avalanche of attention that took her away from Perth for about 3 years. She came home every now and then, always for Christmas, sometimes in between, and I kept my head down trying to pretend my little sister wasn’t being slaughtered internally by an external industry. Meanwhile I surreptitiously devised ways in which to reunite the young Ward witches again, and prevent the Powers that Be from taking my sister away forever… (gasp!)
To date, Gemma has come out incredibly strong regardless of the very, very strange circumstances that happened to her. Her “look” was an innocent, naive, and childlike one, at a time when Brazilian Amazonatrons like Giselle and Isabelli were ruling the runways. She was what Kate Moss was to the Supermodels of the 1980s heydays. Now there are zillions of copy cat Gem (stones), and I hear all the time of the ‘next Gemma Ward,’ which is totally counterintuitive, seeing as Gemma is the most original, quirky and exotically powerful person (INSIDE) you will ever meet. That is if you get past me first.
Sophie On Duty
While Gemma powered through, I was bulldozing books and challenging my tutors, because I was starting to travel a lot more with modelling too. I was devouring spells as fast as time would let me, but alas! Time goes slowly when you choose the rockier roads – which are usually the only way to get somewhere truly worthwhile. I remember squatting under my clothes rack at a show somewhere in Sydney (because I couldn’t leave the country while studying), in full get-up, heels and outfit, under swathes of fabric, trying to block out the yelling and stomping, and focus on Descartes and the Philosophy of Religion. It’s hard to follow Kant’s theory of thought when you have a hairdryer 2 inches from your ear in an urgent hum.
However, the people holding the hairdryers, the cameras, the clothes and eyes were an incredible lot. Australia has a huge history of obscenely talented people. I have amazing respect for those I now call my truest friends. In an industry I had thought devoid of such life, they were the ones who knew real magic, my allies: Akira Isogawa, Michelle Jank, Toni Maticevski, Tina Kalivas, Charlie Brown, stylists Mark Vassalo and Ryan Lobo, and photographers Stephen Ward, Eddy Ming, Georges Antoni and Justin Ridler.
As I traversed the path onward, I was met by some incredible moments with each and every one of them: Gothic dinner parties beside Akira the Minister of Chic. Evenings crafted by Michelle Jank, in which children, men and animals dwelt around one heavily laden table of rotting food. I exchanged many moments of mutual respect with Toni and Tina; from opening Toni’s shows with his love notes clutched in my hand; to Tina wrapping me in an electric moth dress and opening her show by storming out under a whale skeleton at the Museum of NSW.
Sophie Off Duty
Charlie is definitely a witch of some kind. Her generosity and bravura, as well as her house, will forever stay in my mind: The grand piano, the puppy Presley matching the chequered marble floors, the children in bunk beds, the opulent homeliness. I gripped the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in a silver dress with a 20 foot train of silver fabric as Georges coached me to almost leave the ground. These were powerful people to have around. Mark was there from the get-go, and in a move unsurpassed by any of the others, published my writing beside Tim Winton in Mark magazine when I was 19, an honour I still have to dig my nails into my skin about.
These are the memories I have been left with. And although I have some disdain for the fashion industry (hence the burning of Vogues) it is the people who are the reason for which I have no regrets. That the Hand of Life should put me on that path was something to fight against – there are demons, and there are bad shadows that you must not look at for too long…Although I do warn any young traveller against going into that land, because it is a form of torture, I have undoubtedly become a more magnificent person through it. Modelling makes you strong and ruthless, and yet, it is just armour you receive.
I encourage anyone who is in it, who is about to be in it, or who wants to be in it and on that great adventure, to keep your insides alert. Keep your brain. Keep thinking about life. Think about what is inside of you, at least as much, if not MORE than the amount of time you spend thinking about your external self. The shadows can’t find you when you become the thing a shadow can never be…. a Person, and a powerful one at that.
Just a heads up, to prevent any heads rolling.
“We spend so much time perfecting our external selves, when that’s all just going to rot in the end. Really we should be spending time perfecting our souls” (S. Kukainis, model, then 17)
MY HISTORY FOR THOSE WHO HUNT FACTS (WHICH I WILLINGLY PROVIDE)
I know a lot of people might like to know about Gemma, about myself, about my psyche. That is the purpose of this Big Long Open Gash, isn’t it. Here are my veins for pillaging. Drink my blood. I am your prey, and you are mine. Here are somethings (but not all things) that my readers might like to know.
Before I invented the Paper Castle, I was definitely a model (I seem to recall…) snatched by Viviens at a recording for National television show Search for A Supermodel. It was here that my little baby sister was wearing a muddy sweatshirt and getting ready to walk for the cameras. She had no idea, I had no idea. She was just an innocent bystander. (In a story that has become urban myth, she had been sitting watching her friends play around, when a scout saw her and encouraged her to enter… the rest is history, and online everywhere)
I hit the scene of the crime with Mama Ward, and eventually, people were like “yo – what are you doing sitting there,” not because I was in the wrong seat, but because apparently they wanted me to do some pounding on that catwalk. Gemma Ward didn’t go through with the other competitors that night, telling the cameras “oh well, at least it was good practice for acting.” After the show, agents pinned us to the staircase (not literally) and gave us cards. Mum was stage left. Many groceries were melting in the back of the car. We went home, probably had some icecream, and absolutely no clue of what was about to come.
Gemma was snappled by IMG after a few test shoots with photographic Westerner, Justin Smith, whilst I worked my brain to synaptic shreds finishing school and starting a B.A at university, soon writing for the magazines that Gemma appeared in. The storied halls of wisdom called me, and in between, Agents called me, though not in black coats or hoods. They made sure I entered a competition of theirs, which I won, and was made their Face of Perth (an privileged honour) for some months.
Soon after this, Gemma was summoned to the center of Times Square New York by the Powers that Be. She was guarded on this mission by Mama Ward who also took this journey. I stayed back and looked after the city from my hallowed position of authority as its Face, drove my brothers around, wrapped my elastic brain around Philosophy of Religion, Linguistics, Europe and English. Things were expanding at an exponential rate.
To make a long story short and simpler, Gemma begun a never before seen engulfment of all the counties of all the lands. She wooed some of the most prestigious and hard-headed designers, campaigns, and personnel, beginning with her walking first for Miucca Prada in Milan. As M.P is the authority on what will be cool way before you think it’s cool, choosing Gemma to open her show led to a slew of people booking her, initiating an avalanche of attention that took her away from Perth for about 3 years. She came home every now and then, always for Christmas, sometimes in between, and I kept my head down trying to pretend my little sister wasn’t being slaughtered internally by an external industry. Meanwhile I surreptitiously devised ways in which to reunite the young Ward witches again, and prevent the Powers that Be from taking my sister away forever… (gasp!)
To date, Gemma has come out incredibly strong regardless of the very, very strange circumstances that happened to her. Her “look” was an innocent, naive, and childlike one, at a time when Brazilian Amazonatrons like Giselle and Isabelli were ruling the runways. She was what Kate Moss was to the Supermodels of the 1980s heydays. Now there are zillions of copy cat Gem (stones), and I hear all the time of the ‘next Gemma Ward,’ which is totally counterintuitive, seeing as Gemma is the most original, quirky and exotically powerful person (INSIDE) you will ever meet. That is if you get past me first.
Sophie On Duty
While Gemma powered through, I was bulldozing books and challenging my tutors, because I was starting to travel a lot more with modelling too. I was devouring spells as fast as time would let me, but alas! Time goes slowly when you choose the rockier roads – which are usually the only way to get somewhere truly worthwhile. I remember squatting under my clothes rack at a show somewhere in Sydney (because I couldn’t leave the country while studying), in full get-up, heels and outfit, under swathes of fabric, trying to block out the yelling and stomping, and focus on Descartes and the Philosophy of Religion. It’s hard to follow Kant’s theory of thought when you have a hairdryer 2 inches from your ear in an urgent hum.
However, the people holding the hairdryers, the cameras, the clothes and eyes were an incredible lot. Australia has a huge history of obscenely talented people. I have amazing respect for those I now call my truest friends. In an industry I had thought devoid of such life, they were the ones who knew real magic, my allies: Akira Isogawa, Michelle Jank, Toni Maticevski, Tina Kalivas, Charlie Brown, stylists Mark Vassalo and Ryan Lobo, and photographers Stephen Ward, Eddy Ming, Georges Antoni and Justin Ridler.
As I traversed the path onward, I was met by some incredible moments with each and every one of them: Gothic dinner parties beside Akira the Minister of Chic. Evenings crafted by Michelle Jank, in which children, men and animals dwelt around one heavily laden table of rotting food. I exchanged many moments of mutual respect with Toni and Tina; from opening Toni’s shows with his love notes clutched in my hand; to Tina wrapping me in an electric moth dress and opening her show by storming out under a whale skeleton at the Museum of NSW.
Charlie is definitely a witch of some kind. Her generosity and bravura, as well as her house, will forever stay in my mind: The grand piano, the puppy Presley matching the chequered marble floors, the children in bunk beds, the opulent homeliness. I gripped the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in a silver dress with a 20 foot train of silver fabric as Georges coached me to almost leave the ground. These were powerful people to have around. Mark was there from the get-go, and in a move unsurpassed by any of the others, published my writing beside Tim Winton in Mark magazine when I was 19, an honour I still have to dig my nails into my skin about.
These are the memories I have been left with. And although I have some disdain for the fashion industry (hence the burning of Vogues) it is the people who are the reason for which I have no regrets. That the Hand of Life should put me on that path was something to fight against – there are demons, and there are bad shadows that you must not look at for too long…Although I do warn any young traveller against going into that land, because it is a form of torture, I have undoubtedly become a more magnificent person through it. Modelling makes you strong and ruthless, and yet, it is just armour you receive.
I encourage anyone who is in it, who is about to be in it, or who wants to be in it and on that great adventure, to keep your insides alert. Keep your brain. Keep thinking about life. Think about what is inside of you, at least as much, if not MORE than the amount of time you spend thinking about your external self. The shadows can’t find you when you become the thing a shadow can never be…. a Person, and a powerful one at that.
Just a heads up, to prevent any heads rolling.
“We spend so much time perfecting our external selves, when that’s all just going to rot in the end. Really we should be spending time perfecting our souls” (S. Kukainis, model, then 17)