Thursday, July 05, 2012

Michella Arichiello - Lead singer of MOEV Polaroid

It must have been somewhere around 1985 when I first saw her. She was in a crowd at a punk concert. She was wearing blood red lipstick and had a cigarette drooped in her mouth all the time. She had mastered the skill of keeping it lit without the smoke ever getting in her eyes. Her nose was big and her mouth even bigger. She might have had thick and beautiful black hair but it was cropped short and in later years she never let it grow out. I photographed her for the first time because she was the lead singer of a band called Moev. It was an artsy alternative scene band that worked only because of her on-stage presence even if she was barely 5ft tall. I photographed her at home with her pet rat. "I don't have to take him out for walkies," she said.

Madeleine Morris

A couple of years later she left the band and her position as lead singer was taken by a young woman called Michella Arichiello. Perhaps she may not have had the riveting stage presence of Morris or simply the band petered out as interest shifted from artsy bands to whatever was in Vogue at the time.

I remember that the art director at Vancouver Magazine, Chris Dahl was always pushing me to try different and new things. He kept saying words like edgy and heroic. I am not sure I could repeat this photograph today if I had to!

 
 
 
 
 

Michella Arichiello Kodak EPN

Madeleine Morris & friend