CATHOLIC ECTOPLASM

Photography : Darren Westlund

Digital Art : Darren Westlund

Model : Wendy

Location : Mission San Miguel Arcángel, California

If you squint hard enough you can see the ghosts of saints and jellyfish in the dusty light filtering through the high windows in Spanish missions. Well, at least I can, given the right seafood. People sometimes ask me what inspired this photo. I tell them it's based on a vision I once had in a Barcelona hotel room after spending the day in a seaside bistro eating delicious fried sea centipedes with a Dallas cowgirl named Lori Jo Jones."Try eating the spinal cords," Lori Jo entreated me, "they taste just like peppermint candy." It was truly the worst case of food poisoning I've ever experienced. I'm pretty sure I turned Catholic that day. An atheist probably wouldn't have survived.