205: Onken & Eleven Blurring the Lines Between Artist and Muse

Published: Aug. 4, 2021, 5 a.m.

\u201cNick was such a huge part of capturing the beauty of our relationship.\u201d\n- E11even \n\nHello friends! Welcome back to ONKEN RADIO (previously NION Radio), the podcast where we explore the body, mind, and soul of the creative entrepreneur. It\u2019s my goal to help you take your creativity, business, and life to the next level. I\u2019m so glad you\u2019re joining me on this journey.\n\nToday, I\u2019m excited to bring to you another episode with my dear friend, Eleven. We chatted in Episode 204 about their transition to non-binary. As a follow-up, we both decided to create another podcast that dives deep into how our relationship has progressed since we first met in 2013.\xa0\n\nWe\u2019ve been able to explore different spaces in our lives as friends, creative collaborators, and Eleven\u2019s even been a muse for me, my photography, and ONKEN hats. Today\u2019s episode is all about blurring the lines between the muse and the artist as we explore beyond friendship. Let me just give you a little preview here:\n\u201cWe\u2019re dealing with sexual identity and identity alchemy and it makes a lot of different processes. [Throw in] a kindred relationship with best friends [and we are] blurring the lines between the artists and the music in a really potent and powerful way.\u201d - Eleven\xa0\nThrough all of our experiences, we\u2019ve remained friends. As our friendship deepens, we wanted to share that journey with you while challenging ourselves and our friendship in a space of vulnerability. It\u2019s a powerful episode I hope you find value in as well, so let\u2019s go!\nWho is Eleven?\nGrowing up as Lynette Cenee, Eleven was raised in a world blended between religion and stage magic, with parents that were both involved in the church, as well as practicing magicians. This provided a pathway to growing up as a performer and developing a keen understanding of hair and makeup to create all the glitz and glamor needed on stage.\xa0\n\u201cI found myself living in LA and getting cast to be the hair and makeup [person] for some really incredible projects. I felt very conflicted, because I grew up on stage as the talent, and then found myself behind the scenes thinking, \u2018Okay, this is great [but] I really want to be the one that people are preparing to be on screen.\u2019 I just needed to believe I\u2019m worthy of it, and decided to start seeking outside of being the hair and makeup [person], and seeking casting calls to be the talent.\u201d - Eleven\nChoosing to focus on being in front of the camera again led to an opportunity to be cast on a new TV show that required hair and makeup professionals on camera as experts. Participants would be given help to launch a new YouTube channel with a whole production company behind them, as well as a team of 13 people to manage all the social media components. That\u2019s what launched the career of Lynette Cenee \u2014 the name Eleven was given at birth \u2014 for the next 10 years.\xa0\n\nThe show focused on creating different beauty videos while also telling Eleven\u2019s story transparently online, which included their marriage in 2015. It was a challenging relationship requiring a lot of alchemy to work through. It was after deciding to leave the marriage though that Eleven was invited to visit Peru.\xa0\xa0\n\u201cI had been feeling the call towards doing deeper plant medicine work with ayahuasca. This whole evolution began in 2018, and it\u2019s been this wild journey into this space of psychedelic Renaissance and deeper work and a whole new transition. A new avatar kind of made its way through the process and now I am identifying as Eleven \u2014 a non-binary cosmic being, and it feels more myself. I\u2019ve never felt this authentic and true, and it feels great.\u201d - Eleven\nEach step along Eleven\u2019s journey to becoming the person they are now has built upon the lessons they\u2019ve learned at each growth stage.\xa0\nNick and Eleven\u2019s Backstory\nEleven and I were first introduced on set in 2013 when our mutual friend Scooter hired us for the Teen Vogue photoshoot of Tori Kelly. Eleven said:\xa0\n\u201cI remember this whole thing about,