Bearded and Shucked: 2nd Annual Mermaid Day Parade

Artist Aaron Sheppard recently hosted the second annual Bearded & Shucked Mermaid Day Parade, in honor of the Coney Island tradition. Sheppard (Joshua Tree) and Erin Stellmon (Baltimore), both former Las Vegans, collaborated on last year's first procession through Joshua Tree, California, and shared their memories of Coney Island and the parade with Settlers + Nomads. Mikayla Whitmore participated in this year’s event and contributed this gorgeous photo essay documenting the festivities:

Desert rats flocked to the sand in Joshua Tree, California, transformed into sea-loving creatures for a day of marching on scorched earth followed by rounds of mud wrestling  and self-reflection.

Later, long after the sun had fallen away, a fellow mermaid glistening in the moonlight washed off the mud caked to his body while sitting in an inflatable pool and proclaimed, "After a night of many answers I only am left with questions. I've tasted the God's blood. I sipped the sweet disaronno of this land - he put it in my cold brew. I bathed in the sweet pool of the mermaid horde." And with that, the once bedazzled mermaid stood before us a mere man, and together we shed our personas and removed sunbaked makeup, only left to dream about the same day, next year.

Mikayla Whitmore, Las Vegas native and UNLV graduate, has exhibited at multiple venues including P3Studio at the Cosmopolitan, Marjorie Barrick Art Museum, & Humble Arts Foundation. She was recently awarded Best Photographer in the City of Las Vegas by Desert Companion Magazine. She currently balances her studio practice with work as curator for two exhibition spaces for Clark County, researching dinosaur species, and road tripping.

Aaron Sheppardworks between mediums and is represented by Western Project in Los Angeles where he was featured in a two-person exhibition with Carol Caroompas last year. Other recent projects include a 2016 performance and audio works created in collaboration with artists Johanna Wagner and Karolina Sulich at Projekt Raum – Pool in Karlsruhe, Germany and a solo exhibition and mural commission in Las Vegas this past spring. He lives and works in Joshua Tree, CA. Link to his e-book “Midway” here.