Here’s my girl who created and runs Passion Pinup Magazine. Chrissy and I have developed a wonderful friendship and make sure to look for both of us in the upcoming Spring Issue that comes out March 21st so stay tuned. I’ve written a few articles on Passion Pinups Magazine on here several times but I wanted to do a feature on the lady who created this fabulous magazine.
Here’s her bio where she talks about her relationship with her guy Brett, how they started dating, her art background, (which by the way I think that’s magical because you all know I went to the Academy of Art University in San Francisco) how they started Passion Pinups, and a lot more.
…ok, here we go!
” I think much like what you see on the instagram posts and facebook page this whole thing was a collaboration between myself and Brett.
We’ve been together for 14 years and I met him when I, I guess you would say, looked a lot different than I do now.
When we started dating he was very into photography and was doing a lot of action sports stuff for BMX. He’d always want to take pictures of me as well but when I would look at the photos, I was not happy with what I was seeing.
So we never really pursued anything with it. I guess what I mean is I felt constantly sick and was not comfortable with the way my body looked. One day while getting ready to go to work, I took a spill on our deck and severely sprained my knee and I resolved after that happened to try to figure out exactly why I was having issues with the way I felt physically and to figure out why I was unable to control my weight even though I worked out daily and watched my calories. I had a friend who told me all of the problems they used to have and how they were able to fix them by going on an elimination diet. Taking out all the known food allergens and they had discovered they were gluten intolerant. I used to always have (and still have to an extent) lots of issues with my gut. I decided that I needed to try to figure out what was causing these issues and this seemed like a good place to start. So I cut out all these possible allergens and started to feel so much better. This also had the side effect of it helping me to lose weight and I started to feel a bit better about the way I looked. One evening I came into the bedroom and Brett said “gee you look…different”. (Guys are quick on the uptake sometimes, lol). At that point I had lost about 35 pounds and was feeling so much better physically. I used to always joke with him that “if I ever got to “x” weight, WATCH OUT, because I am going there. Well, I got pretty close to where I wanted to be and we started talking. Brett likes to do fairy and pinup type art in 3D and I told him, I would so rock crazy outfits like what those girls you render wear, what do you think? Since he was into photography as well, like I mentioned, we discussed doing photos and started to try some different stuff.
It was very nice to finally be able to feel comfortable and not physically ill anymore so we started experimenting. Even though Brett was good at photoing action sports, taking pinup photos was a whole different realm for him. LOL. After some trial and error and lots of photoshoots and outfit buying I said to him, put some of these out there and see what response we get.
So we did. I was a little trepidatious at first because I started doing this in my early 40’s and wasn’t sure how I’d be taken but I figured it’s now or never so I came up with the name Chrissy “Kittens” and posted some photos on Facebook pinup pages. At one point the magazine Delicious Dolls shared out one of my photos and to my surprise it got thousands of likes! I was overwhelmed! It was very cool that others could see what the end result of my hard work was. So we kept taking photos and I would post on pinup pages and the like but never really pursued it because, like for so many of us, it’s just a hobby that I enjoy doing. Brett would send out photos to some of the magazines but we only really got one or two hits back for photos. I was having fun but felt like Brett and I were doing a lot of pretty good stuff and it was hard to get recognition!
I have a background in pen and ink art and told Brett we should just do our own pinup magazine, because, well, we’re artists and we realize how hard it is to get in these magazines! LOL. He loved the idea but then said, I only have you and a friend of ours as models, that’s not a lot to do a magazine! Well, I said, we gotta start somewhere. Put us in it and do some issues and we’ll keep putting it out there. I got on twitter and instagram and started to follow and like different pinups and artists and just said, “love to have you in our magazine”. It took some time but eventually a very nice burlesque promoter from the UK, Lady May J, got back to me and asked how she could help. I said, do you have anyone who would like to be in my magazine. “Sure thing hun” and that basically started it rolling forward. From there it began to snowball and now it’s becoming much easier to get people into the magazine and I finally have people asking me to be in there as opposed to going all over trying to find contributors.
It’s been awesome having the magazine evolve and I love seeing all the different contributors! I’m hoping that other women seeing this magazine being run by a pinup and also having a wonderful partner who supports them in whatever they love (Brett does a lot of supporting…I am also an avid animal lover and have…chickens, turtles, tortoises, spiders, dogs, cats, fish, snakes…) (CHRISSY GIRL, YOU’D LOVE MY THREE SNAKE TATTOOS I HAVE, HEHE. MY MOM USED TO RAISE SNAKES WHEN SHE WAS YOUNG AND I LOVE THEM. HEHE) will inspire them to take charge and make happen any dreams or ideas they may have.
I know personally how hard it is sometimes to work up the courage to say, I’m gonna do this and see where it leads, so I hope that by getting new people involved in the magazine and getting them recognized we help others being to pursue their dreams whatever they may be!
Ugh, there’s so much little nuances here and there that I could go into but that is the gist of it, lol. Essentially this whole thing from me doing pinup to starting the magazine was a collaboration of love between two people who believe in each other and try to lift each other up every day to wherever their passions may bring them.”
I loved reading Chrissy and her journey and like I said earlier, I’m so glad her any I have become good friends. I’ll post her social media info at the bottom. Enjoy these lovely photos of her in her everyday life. She is so beautiful and such a kind lady.
Chrissy is so amazing and I know I’ve said this before but I’m very glad I met her. We have so much in common and just always seem to click. Here are her social media site info and stay tuned for the Spring Issue of Passion Pinups on March 21st!
INSTAGRAM: @chrissykittens, @passionpinups, @brettmiddaugh
WEBSITE: PASSIONPINUPS.COM/
FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/passionpinupsmagazine/
TWITTER:
And this is the centerfold image that they used for Spring. You can see my art piece on the left.
Bombshell 