My illustrious career as an actress and model

Ok, my list of five things about me was fairly boring and you probably knew some of them so here’s a deep dark secret that popped into my head this morning; when I was 14 I was signed on at a modeling agency.

I have to go back a bit to really explain this one. I am from a very creative, artistic family. Everyone had their own talents. My mom is an amazing decorator and quilter and can create just about anything with her hands that you can think of. My dad has picked up photography and even guest lectures at BYU on different developmental processes, he’s really talented with stained glass, and he can figure out how to build anything only he always does the highest quality work with his own finishing touches like he decides to build a pond in the backyard, but of course it has to have a waterfall made from sandstone that he quarried himself or he decides to build a shed but of course it needs stained glass windows and a copula and it ends up being so beautiful my mom won’t use it to stash dirty yard tools in it. Then there’s my older sister Candice, genius photographer, famous scrapbooker, and did you know that she used to be very into acting? She was in several plays in high school and college and she did a theater study abroad in London. Oh, and did I mention that she has an amazing singing voice? She was on one of Janice Kapp Perry’s CD’s when she was little and she was always chosen as the soloist in just about everything that you can think of, weddings, choir concerts, plays, you name it. My little brother Eli is the athlete of the family, but don’t think the creative gene skipped him. He’s a drummer and he had his own band through junior high and high school. And let’s not forget my little sister, Marissa. I would say that her creativity lies in her day to day activities. You are NEVER bored around Marissa and she easily talks the people around her into doing the craziest things and they never regret it because they have a blast. Like when Marissa convinced her roommate to dress up for their picture in the ward directory to make it look like a mug shot, huge ratted hair, fake black-eye, and cardboard sign with their number that they each held in front of them and all. Or when they got tickets to the monster truck rally and all dressed up like white trash and spent the evening hooting and hollering. Or a two night before she left on her mission when her girlfriends were spending the night and they had nothing to do so they decided around 1 a.m. to throw an unbirthday party and they went to Walmart to buy cupcake supplies and they each had two dollars to by a birthday gift for someone else in the group, then they went home and made crazy paper hats and partied. You never ever quite know what you’ll be doing when you hang out with Riss. Knowing that she’s so spunky, it’s probably not a surprise that she’s never been shy and when she was younger she really wanted to be an actress. She was in a lot of children’s plays and after a lot of begging and pleading, she convinced my mom to take her to an open call for a very reputable modeling agency (her best friend was represented by them and make a killing just by riding a bike in an Evian water commercial). At the time we lived in Hawaii so the open call meant a trip to the other side of the island and I went along with my mom and sister because I wanted to go to Costco afterwards with my mom. We waited in a big room with all the other kids and one by one they were called out to another room where they were turned down and sent home. We were the last ones left and figured Marissa would meet the same fate (although she was adorable) but instead the agent walked in with contracts in hand for both of us. I was totally surprised. Candice and Marissa were the actresses in the family; I almost had a heart attack mumbling the one line I had in my seventh grade play.

At any rate, we were both signed on and when the photographer came to our house to shoot our new headshots my mom asked him to do headshots for Candice and Eli too. As soon as the agency saw those, they were signed on too. Yep, a whole family of models, which lasted about a month before we found out we were moving back to Utah, and thus ended our modeling careers as we all lost interest and moved on to other things (but not before Candice was an extra in a Jackie Chan movie).

Anyway, I've mostly tried to forget about this embarrassing period of my life, but I was reminded about it by seeing a picture of myself on Candice's blog. I always feel so awkward in front of a camera. I am not photogenic so it's a good thing that I have a patient sister who also just happens to be a photographer or I wouldn't have any decent pictures of myself. Candice recently wrote an article about how so many women don't like to be in front of the camera, but it's important to capture them so we can remember the wonderful women around us and we can save our own memories. So here I am in all of my awkward glory.