Being a Mermaid - My Visit to the NC Mermania Convention 2017

Photo by Mertography

January 21-22 found me at NC MerMania 2017: the largest gathering of Mermaids and Merfolk in the world. Performers and hobbyists from all over the globe came to splash around, connect, giggle and play at the Greensboro Aquatic Center in Greensboro, NC.

This was the largest Merfolk convention to date: over 400 mer-people and their families came out to join in the fun.

I spent all of Saturday morning and afternoon in the pool, swimming and connecting and laughing.  There were so many faces I'd only seen online -- mermaids are a close knit bunch on Facebook -- and it was great to meet these incredible ladies in person.  I also got to reconnect with friends from past mermaid portfolio destination trips to the Bahamas and Hawaii and Mexico.

Tail Making

I make all my own mermaid tails (I brought my newest Ariel tail and my Light-up Glimmer tail this year), so I loved talking to the other mermaids wearing handmade creations.  I met one mermaid who'd found my Neoprene Mermaid Tail Tutorial and created her own unique tail based on my methods.  I could barely contain myself.

The range of materials and tail designs was endless.  Sequins, fabric, neoprene, duct tape, paint, glue, silicone, monofins, and real shells or found materials all came together in a splash of form, color and function.

For the non-maker mermaids, there are a handful of companies that create customizable silicone "realistic" tails for purchase.  Some of the larger companies include FinFolk Productions, MerTailor and MerNation tails.  I also encountered plenty of gorgeous tails made by smaller companies or individuals looking to participate in the mermaid craze -- Merbella Studios is one of my favorites among these.

Kid's Swim

I got the chance to participate in the kid's swim.  Watching little girls becoming a mermaid for the very first time is really powerful.  I perform at a lot of kid's birthday parties as a swimming mermaid, so swimming with the kids just feels so right and so natural to me, and I can really connect with them and watch their spirit unfold and soar. This might have been my favorite part of the day.

Photo by Mertography

Fathoms Below Ball

The evening festivities included a gala dinner and a Fathoms Below Ball dance party.  I provided the entertainment with my LED Light Dance Show, which I customized to the event by adding mermaid-themed persistence-of-vision (POV) images to my Supernova Poi and Morning Star Double staffs (with Adafruit inside!).  The crowd went wild whenever mermaids made of light appeared in the air around me.

photo by Mertography

photo by Mertography

photo by Mertography

The theme of the ball was illumination, and lots of people came in light-up costumes.  These ranged from Luminex dresses, to custom-made angler-fish masks, to the cheap but effective method of just adding battery powered light strands to a dress.  I've never performed for such a luminous audience.

Mermaid Glimmer

After the ball wound down, everyone headed over to the hotel pool for an after-hours swim with Mermaid Glimmer.  Glimmer is my own personal one-of-a-kind creation: an arduino powered, bluetooth-controlled swimmable mermaid tail with around 200 addressable LEDs.  When the lights go out, Glimmer lights up the pool with LED rainbows and everyone watching turns into a 7 year old girl.

I am filled with gratitude for getting to be a part of such a wonderful, accepting, loving community.  With the Live-Action Little Mermaid Movie set to come out in 2017, mermaids are coming more and more into the public eye.  Mermaids are the new Vampires!  You heard it here first.

My Little Mermaid FanFic Photo!

Glimmer the Mermaid -- New tail creation and show offering

I haven't posted in the last few months because I've been pouring all my energy into creating this.

I call her Glimmer the Mermaid.  :) (She's got her own facebook page, that makes her real!)

I made the LED swimmable mermaid seashells at the end of 2013, and wore them to the NC Merfest convention and they were a huge hit.  When I got home, I decided the shells needed a light-up tail to complement them.  The rabbit-hole opened up, and I dove right in.

The end result is absolutely stunning, and I am completely delighted with it.  This was the most learning-intensive and difficult and frustrating project I've attempted in.. well, since college, I think.  I have had to learn so much in so many different fields, and I've encountered so many amazing people and communities along the way.

This tail uses about 180 Adafruit Neopixels and an Arduino Micro to control them.  It's got a bluetooth feature -- I can control it with my android tablet and change the animations and brightness of the lights.  I plan to add audio sensors and possibly motion or color sensors as well (that'll be phase two, I think).

It is designed to be swimmable.  I'm doing the first full water test probably next week, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I used enough glue that nothing shorts or zaps me.  Nothing has so far,  and all the partial water tests I've done have worked fine.. but strapping a big battery and a bunch of electronics on, and then going for a swim, makes me a little nervous.

Mermaid in the bathtub!

But.  Swimming Mermaid LED Tail!!!

This is a neoprene tail painted with Jones Tones.  I used the same basic method for the tail as I used for my last neoprene Ariel Mermaid Tail, but I spared no expense this time.  I used a competitor monofin (which I like SO much better than the Rapid).  I made the scales larger and added lots of rhinestones and gems and lace.  When the lights are off, it almost comes across as "Mermaid Wedding" -- but I love the fanciness and I love how the predominantly white color scheme goes with the lights, whatever color they are.

The lights on the top part of the tail are individual neopixels cast in resin for diffusion and waterproofing.

 The lights on the bottom are neopixel strips encased in Dragonskin silicone.   This keeps them flexible (almost to a fault -- I have broken them a couple times already!) and very waterproof.

Also I made a glowing tiara with more of the resin cast neopixel "jewels".  Because Glimmer needed a glowing tiara.

All together, the outfit is just stunning.  I never want to take it off.  This tail is significantly heavier than my other tails have been (oof, abs!) but it should be close to neutrally buoyant in the water.  

I got to wear it to the A's Game season opening party at the Oakland Coliseum this past week. They put me by the sushi bar, HA! 

Glimmer was very well received.  Although, with that particular audience, most people seemed to be more excited about the light-up seashells than the fancy animated tail.  (Men.  What can you do?)

Once all the bugs are worked out and the swimmability tested, Glimmer will be available for all kinds of wet or dry events and appearances.  I'm also hoping to do a lot of photo shoots as the weather gets nicer.   I want to do sunset beach shoots, and underwater cave shoots, and fancy swimming pool shoots and snowscape shoots.  I just want to wear it everywhere.  :)  

Edit: If you're interested in geeky details about construction or coding, I'm blogging about all that stuff over at my Fire Pixie Fashion Blog.. take a look.  :)

Quarry Lakes Mermaid Swim in Fremont, CA

Our local swimming mermaid pod had a fantastic get-together and swim party at Quarry Lakes in Fremont in late July.  

The San Francisco Bay Area pod, hosted by the Mermaid Atlantis, gets together at least once a month to swim, giggle, exchange mermaid secrets and flip our fins at each other.  This was the first gathering I've attended and it was absolutely delightful and fun.

Julie from the Tri-City Voice Newspaper came out and took some photos and wrote up an article about the event, and about mermaid culture in general.  It's a fun read, and besides, I got my picture in the paper in my brand new tail.  Who says nothing interesting ever happens in the suburbs?

These mermaid get-togethers usually draw around 10-15 people - professional mermaids, semi-pro ladies with their own home made tails, and newbies who just love mermaids or want to try swimming in a tail for the first time.  It's so delightful to watch women (and the occasional intrepid mer-man) light up and giggle, and live out this childhood fantasy that so many of us had.  

Some days I just feel so lucky to be a mermaid!

Swimming Mermaid in Maui

I just got back from a week in Maui.  I love Maui!

It was mostly a vacation trip but I brought my swimming mermaid tail with the aim of getting some fun underwater photos by Maui's clear blue ocean reefs.  

We went to a snorkeling spot in Kihei.  My swimming mermaid tail is pretty well designed, in 2 pieces so it's a little easier for me to get around than in a one-piece silicon tail, but it's still kind of fiddly - I have to pull the top half on then sort of waddle as close to the water as possible before sitting down to pull on the bottom half, and then there's a lot of strap-tightening and velcro and snapping that needs to happen before I'm ready to swim.  I found a fairly convenient rock and started the process, focusing hard - every time a wave splashed in, it tried to carry away the bottom part of the tail, and the rock I was perched on was so knobbly and volcanic that it was quite the task to get tailed-up.

Once I got the last snap in place, I looked up.. to see a whole gaggle of tiny little girls standing 10 feet away from me, stock still, with their mouths hanging open.  I cracked up and almost fell off the rock.  I waved at the girls and scooted off the rock into the ocean where I swam away into the surf.

We rented an Olympus TG820 and discovered that it takes really amazing clear photos underwater.  I also discovered that my tail is *very* buoyant in salt water.  

We did 2 days of shooting.  The first day, our location wasn't all-that but the lighting was nice.  Unfortunately, I look like I'm holding my breath and squinting in almost all the photos.  It's sort of a "this is painful" face, which doesn't quite sell the mermaid.  :)  The second day I was a bit better about that, and we found some good coral, so we got some good shots.. but MAN is it hard to 1) hold your breath without seeming to, 2) swim as hard as you can to as deep as you can get with a very buoyant tail, 3) maintain the proper distance from the photographer, and 4) smile in a relaxed and lazy way at the camera while your eyes and lungs are burning.  Next time I am wearing a weight belt. 

Actually that might be my next project.. making a pretty, mermaid-approved weight belt.  :)

I imagine there will be some sort of slide show / video made from all the photos at some point, but for now.. here are my favorites!