NUDE Magazine Flashback- Carrie Leigh: Alicia Marie

ALICIA MARIE
Photographed by Carrie Leigh

As a child, Alicia spent fifteen years of her life pursuing the art of ballet. Although committed and passionate towards dancing, she incurred many injuries. One of those injuries would end her career as a dancer. At seventeen, months before entering Julliard, she was told that she needed a hip replacement and that dancing would more than likely be over for her. “I was devastated, but my mom, who has been the queen of guardian angels to me, encouraged me to continue on and start a new career.” Just a week following her eigthteenth birthday, Alicia left Michigan, where she was born and raised, to pursue modeling in New York.

“After so many auditions, dead-ends, closed doors, and no thank you, I was at my breaking point.” After living in New York for three years, Alicia began to show signs of discouragement. Despite small breakthroughs such as being a cover model in two books and achieving an editorial in a national magazine, her progress became taxing and even overwhelming. While thoughts about quitting became more frequent, she would turn to her mother for encouragement.

Taking her opportunity as a sign, Alicia brings a different kind of beauty to Nude. While not just a pretty face, Alicia is a curvy model, who is able to use her dance background to produce graceful poses. Her goal is to inspire others to be comfortable with themselves and who they are. Her refusal to drop weight to maintain an image is grounded in her beliefs to portray realistic images to readers as well as other models and young girls. She wants to show that “You can become successful in a world where, if you have the drive and strength, you don’t have to blend into the mold.”

While emphasizing natural beauty, Alicia’s message is passed down to the many that wish to follow her career path or even in her footsteps. Her desire to remain true to herself vibrantly shows in the picture selection for this quarter’s copy of Nude.

“I am ecstatic to work with Nude. I’m grateful not only to be part of the beautiful art that Nude portrays, but also that I was given a chance to be part of something with such high integrity, while sticking to who I am.”

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