WHAT THE CAMERA WANTS

Fargo Model Kristi Wilson Takes Her Career To The Next Level

BY ALICIA UNDERLEE NELSON

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JILL OCKHARDT BLAUFUSS

COVER PHOTO BY JILL OCKHARDT BLAUFUSS

She’s right. And she owns it. The flame-haired 22-year-old is here to discuss her modeling career, her recent trip to Italy and the three months she’ll be spending working with a new modeling agency in Seoul, South Korea. But instead of sticking to her professional talking points, Wilson is gleefully jumping down every conversational rabbit hole, discussing and debating a wild range of topics, from politics, travel and art (including her own sketches) to spirituality, tattoos and the supernatural. Most models – and indeed, most people – couldn’t hold forth on gypsy pirates and quantum physics with equal gusto. But Kristi Wilson is not an ordinary person. And she doesn’t claim to be.

“Models need to be a blank canvas, kind of,” she said, choosing her words carefully at first. She looks up, her eyes bright, mischievous, conspiratorial. “I think I’m a blank canvas but I also think I have a personality that I can’t hide. And I think that shows in my pictures.”

As with most models, Wilson’s images precede her. Her portfolio -- her book, in industry-speak -- serves as a photographic resume and showcases her print work. Quality images and a wide range of looks are the goal and Wilson’s book exhibits plenty of both. In one photo, she’s a fierce young Stella Tennant, all angles and eyeliner and a thousand mile stare. In the next she’s quirky and androgynous, with her hair piled high, her long limbs and ivory skin a perfect backdrop for sharp tailoring. In her favorite shot she’s barefaced. The camera kisses her generous sprinkling of freckles and gets lost in her eyes, her gaze fresh and frank and startlingly, almost unnervingly open. She is not a passive beauty, not in pictures or in person. Her physical presence at the shoot confirms this.

Wilson arrives over an hour late with a flurry of mortified apologizes. She worked a double on the overnight shift at the front desk at the Hotel Donaldson in downtown Fargo and she’s horrified that she’s violated her own professional standard and overslept. In person, she is a Waterhouse redhead, a Pre-Raphaelite beauty with a striking, modern edge, flawless ivory skin and a face full of interesting edges and angles. She absently twists her wild red hair up into itself and folds her long legs, clad in knee-high leather boots, under her as she talks. A tusk dangles from one ear, while a delicate fishbone runs up the other. The piercings in her nose are still healing, but she’s removed her jewelry already, since photographers rarely ask her to keep it in. A fox tattoo runs along her inner arm and others peek out from unexpected places – behind her ears, on her hip, running down her ribcage. She has seven tattoos total -- “which I would not recommend for models” she added. She spends a lot of time in make-up chairs getting them covered up, although that hasn’t exactly stopped her from adding to her collection in the six years that she’s been working.

Wilson has been professionally represented since she was 16. She graduated from Fargo North High School a year early and moved to Chicago to model in 2010. Since then she’s worked in New York, done a stint in Italy this spring to build up her portfolio and traveled to Seoul, South Korea for three months of runway and editorial work.

She’s represented by different agencies in different markets, but one constant in her life and career has been Natalie Sparrow, owner of Ultimate Image Modeling and Talent Management in Fargo. Sparrow serves as Wilson’s mother agent. “A mother agent is somebody who prepares the girls, grooms them and then sends them on to the big agents," explained Sparrow. Sparrow currently represents twelve models and actors in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis in this manner and her responsibilities vary from client to client and market to market.

As for Sparrow and Wilson, the two have an almost sisterly relationship. It was Sparrow that Wilson called when she hit a professional snag on a shoot in Italy; Sparrow behind the wheel as the two traveled to far-flung casting calls; and Sparrow on the phone late at night earlier this year when Wilson called from Missoula, Montana, ready to end a temporary modeling hiatus and get back to work. “A lot of the time, models think, ‘Oh, I’m going to move to New York and get myself signed,’” said Sparrow. “And it doesn’t always work that way. You need someone to stand up for you.”

Having a strong support network is especially important for young models just starting out.

“You need to know who to trust,” agreed Wilson. “There are a lot of crazy people in this industry and you have to watch out for yourself.” Modeling can be transient, isolating work and Wilson sometimes worries for the newer girls coming up, the ones with thinner skins, less confidence and no one in their corner.

“The agencies give you tough love sometimes. If they don’t like something, they’ll tell you,” she said, adding that she’s constantly told that her hips are too big for her frame, a reality in an industry that demands that models perfectly fit a sample size―not just for aesthetic purposes, but for efficiency’s sake, since altering or procuring a new outfit can derail a shoot and cost a client money. Wilson makes an effort to eat healthy food, take excellent care of her skin and remain active while she’s working, but she refuses to diet or to deprive herself of something she loves.

“If I want a hamburger, I’ll eat a hamburger,” she shrugged. “This is my life. But the thing is, you have to keep on being like, ‘This is who I am. I love myself and I’m not going to change myself for someone, ever.’ You have to comfortable with yourself or it doesn’t work. If you don’t believe in yourself it will show in your pictures.”

Wilson takes her work seriously. She insists that this profession requires focus, persistence and hard work. And it definitely requires more than just a pretty face. “A model has a certain type of interest that a pretty girl doesn’t,” she explained. “They’re almost like exotic cats: They’re intense, they’re fierce. A pretty girl, they’re beautiful, but they’re not going to scare you. They won’t have that thing that the camera wants.”

Wilson definitely has that thing. In front of the camera she is alert and engaged, finding her light and making a series of tiny physical adjustments that evoke a range of subtly different emotional reactions. She responds to direction with an almost imperceptible nod, working with her photographer to conjure up an image that they are both creating as they go. She is bubbly and curious in person and she can certainly amplify these attributes on film. But more often than not, she gives the camera something darker, fiercer. The angles of her face are striking, her eyes haunt and burn. She is occasionally otherworldly – and it doesn’t always take a photographer to see it. A man on the street in Manhattan once told her she was a mermaid and it seemed fated when they saw each other again, not one time but three, a flame-haired mermaid and her admirer, adrift in the same city. When photographers look through their lenses, they tell her they see a vampire, a fairy, a nymph, a fury, a witch.

Wilson loves this last one. She’s of German (and Polish, Welsh and French) descent and her Oma, Ursula Benzenberg, her mother’s mother, kept witches in the kitchen, just like her family had done in Germany for years. “Witches are good luck and they get rid of the bad spirits and the bad demons and they scare the evil away,” Wilson explained. Being a witch is a compliment in her book. Wilson laughs that in another time and another place, her wild red hair, her otherworldly look, her powerful personality and her love and respect of nature, herbs and botany would probably have prompted whispers that she was an actual witch. And she considers that a compliment as well. She comes from a long line of strong women who aren’t afraid to be different.

“All the women that I know in my life are very strong, independent and kind of scary women,” she said. “I love that. I think that’s what women are. They’re strong, they’re intense and they shouldn’t be less than that.”

Wilson’s Oma is a major figure in her life and she taught Wilson about life, love and her German heritage in the time-honored way that women have handed down their secrets for centuries, weaving them into stories and working side by side in the kitchen. Wilson’s mother, Stephanie Wilson, a massage therapist and small business owner, is another source of support and inspiration. “Not only does she work very hard but she always supported my dream of modeling and helped me with it when I was young,” said Wilson. “She’s always been there. I did not grow up with a rich family, but I did grow up with a rich spirit and my mother was a big part of that. She sacrificed a lot and she believed in me when there wasn't many who did.”

Wilson was raised in a home that seemed to her to be more European than American, where coffee was served after every meal, conversation was an art form and children were expected to be curious and opinionated and participate in adult conversations. She grew from a spirited child who made bows and arrows out of sticks with her father, James Wilson, into an independent and highly literate woman out on her own at 17. Wilson has been working all over the globe ever since. There have been moments when she’s been tempted to take a rest or even step away from the camera permanently, times to physically and emotionally recharge, like the stint in Missoula and extended rests to regroup back home in Fargo. But the rush of her work is part of her now, a rush that she still craves.

“(I love) the randomness of it, the spontaneity,” she said. “You never know how the shoot is going to go. And I think that’s a beautiful thing. It’s raw, you know?”

She’s curious about the work and the culture of South Korea, thrilled to be back in front of the camera and even more excited to be back on the runway again. She did three shows at New York Fashion Week in 2014 and she misses the energy that comes from being in front on an audience. “New York Fashion Week was really awesome,” she grinned. “Runway is of the moment. I can just close my eyes and be there and the energy is so high. It’s new and freeing.”

She will be working constantly in Seoul and she’s eager to get started. She feels wiser, stronger and more prepared than ever.

“The most common misconception about modeling is that it’s easy,” she said. “I think looking in, it’s easy to be like ‘This girl has beauty, she’s in the limelight, she’s glamorous.’ But it’s not like that. It’s a lot of hard work, a lot of perseverance. It is my job, but it’s also my passion.”

Wilson compares the daily grind of a modeling career to college, the same constant process of routine, challenging and sometimes tedious daily work that, after time, leads to the accomplishment of a larger goal. For every show or shoot she books, there are dozens, even hundreds of casting calls. These calls are a combination job interview, audition and networking opportunity that give her a chance to connect with agents and refine her process. “Every casting is a job,” said Wilson. “You’ll sometimes have 14 castings in a day and you’ll have to get to all of them. And you can’t be early and you can’t be late. You’re running around all day and you’re in heels and you’re on the subway with millions of people. It’s work.”

She works hard to be professional and courteous, engaging everyone with her friendly brand of Midwestern charm and writing everyone’s name down in a notebook she carries with her. It’s a small industry and she knows she’ll meet them again. And she wants to be ready. “There are so many people and so many opportunities,” she said. “I want to take modeling as far as I possibly can and then I really want to branch out. I want to make a positive difference in the world.”

College isn’t out of the question someday – she’s attracted to the idea of obtaining knowledge for its own sake – but for now her focus is firmly on modeling. And the world is her classroom. She treats every opportunity overseas like a study abroad trip, every job as a lesson. She’d love to see more of South America, but she’ll only go where her cat --- a snowwhite beauty named Annabel Lee (after the Edgar Allen Poe heroine, naturally) can follow.

For now, she’s enjoying time at home with friends and family while she prepares for South Korea. Each market is different and clients want a different look, a different attitude, she said. Europe loves a clean aesthetic. Miami is all about color, swimwear and a sexy Latina look and New York wants something gritty and edgy. “Asia is another thing,” she said. “Seoul is amazing and I’m getting more excited about it. I’m excited