From a living hell to living in chaos Laura Caraway, better known as Sister Bonez, has lived an unconventional life full of creativity and adventure.
Caraway is a Citrus College alumna, Kaos Records employee, model and artist.
She received three associate degrees from Citrus in psychology, art and english in 2013. She then transferred to the Academy of Art University San Francisco, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in costume design in 2017.
While she has four degrees under her belt, her academic journey was not always rewarding.
Caraway was kicked out of San Dimas High School with a 3.8 grade point average. It was not by expulsion, but by coercion.
Caraway said she was called to the principal’s office toward the end of her fall semester senior year, in 2006. She said she feared that had done something wrong, but that visit proved to be the opposite.
Her principal said she needed to leave the school before the following semester, and there were only two options to choose from.
“She (Caraway’s principal) literally told me, ‘If you stay, we will make your life a living hell your senior year,” Caraway said. “If you go early, we have a package set aside for you that we’ve already planned.’”
At the time, Caraway said the school was due for an evaluation that would leave the school with a star rating.
Caraway said the rating would include not only an evaluation of the school’s performance, but the school’s image as well.
She said the principal wanted her and her friend’s out of the school, because they dressed alternatively.
“The way that we (Caraway and friends) looked was offensive to them,” Caraway said. “They wanted you to look clean cut.”
Caraway described her fashion at the time as cyber goth. Her outfits usually consisted of a corset, mini skirts and various styles of tights.
As for the package offered to her, it consisted of a plan to attend a continuation school in Azusa and graduate early. While that was something Caraway expressed she did not want to do, she ended up going and finishing high school early.
Even though she sacrificed the last semester of her senior year for her style, it is a decision she does not regret because her style is integral to her identity.
Caraway said her fashion is inspired by her artistic expression, which has always been a part of her.
In elementary school, she said she would go through phases. She said she would wear bell sleeve shirts because she thought she was a witch. Another phase was wearing a stack of alien necklaces.
Her style has evolved since high school, but it has remained true to her identity. Her clothing, makeup, hair, piercings and tattoos let the world know who she is, an artist who embraces eccentricity.
“People will probably look at me and say I’m goth, but if people ask, I just say I’m an artist,” Caraway said.
Whimsical makeup decorates her features, long green hair surrounds her body and colorful dresses often cascade down her frame.
“I would say I’m more artsy and colorful with a gothic sort of style,” Caraway said.
Her style and identity might have been despised in high school, but it was accepted and embraced in Citrus College.
“When I was at Citrus College no one treated me disrespectfully, thankfully,” Caraway said. “I feel most of the students were embracing my weirdness because I connected with a lot of people there studying theater, art, music and English. It was a fun time and I loved the relaxed energy on campus.”
The students may have been a highlight to her experience at Citrus, but she praises her past art professor, Dyane Duffy.
“She was really essential in my painting process,” Caraway said.
She learned several skills working with materials such as acrylic paint that she still refers to.
It was during her time at Citrus where she began working on her comic book series, “Phuck Que.”
The comic features six original characters that Caraway said are inspired by random bursts of creative thoughts and people she has met.
One of those characters is inspired by her friend Chris Motionless, the lead singer and frontman of the band Motionless in White.
The two had met in 2009 through a modeling website called Model Mayhem. Caraway said she was looking for a man to model with and came across his profile and decided to message him.
She asked Motionless if he would like to model with her. At the time he was on the East Coast, but he agreed to the next time he was in her area.
She saw that he was in a band, and later she went to see them perform when they went on tour.
“He used to do shows at the music venue Chain Reaction when he first started out,” Caraway said.
They never ended up doing an official photoshoot together, but he still ended up being a main character in her comic series “Phuck Que” that she began writing while attending Citrus College.
The comics are available for viewing and purchase at Kaos Records in Covina, along with her stickers and handmade jewelry.
Caraway modeled a lot in her twenties, and still does.
She models for friend’s creative projects and is compensated in trade agreements. For example, they both profit from the photographs because she will make stickers out of them and her friends will sell prints.
Her modeling gigs have landed her some cool opportunities like being endorsed by a corset brand and modeling for alternative style companies.
“I just did a photoshoot with Rock Rebel through my friend Rawl of the dead,” Caraway said.
While she enjoys modeling, her personal art and comics are her pride and joy because she fell in love with it at a young age.
Caraway thanks her father for paving her path to becoming an artist and making comics. When she was a young girl, she would accompany her father at work. He had a typewriter, crayons and paper, but no toys.
“I credit him for my story writing, because he made me sit there and do it,” Caraway said. “I pretty much had to be an artist.”
The memories of being in her father’s office connect with her current endeavors, such as her several comic series. Caraway developed a love for comics because her and her dad would read the “funnies” from the LA Times every Sunday.
She began making comics in high school. Caraway said she would ask to leave them at Kaos Records so people could pick up some copies, and the owner, Ray Devries, agreed.
At 15 years old, she began working at Kaos Records and was allowed to start selling her comics and jewelry there.
“She’s our best employee,” Devries said. “She’s bubbly and everyone loves her.”
Caraway said she loves working at Kaos Records and can’t imagine not doing so.
She is Laura Caraway to her friends at Kaos Records, but well known by her nickname and Instagram handle, Sister Bonez.
In the goth subculture, nicknames are tied to people’s characteristics or life experiences and often embrace the macabre. This is especially true for Caraway.
“My pen name ‘Sister Bonez’ was given to me by a band called Undercover Slut mixed with friends from high school,” Caraway said.
The lead singer of Undercover Slut called her “the virgin sister” in an interview she did for her zine in high school. He did so because Caraway expressed her beliefs of remaining a virgin until marriage.
She was called “bones” by friends in high school because she was quite thin due to an eating disorder.
“Sadly I was anorexic in high school, so my friends called me bones,” Caraway said.
From there, her friends mashed the two nicknames into, “the virgin sister bones.”
“I abbreviated the name in my twenties to ‘Sister Bonez’ because people thought ‘The Virgin Sister Bones’ had a double meaning, and I swapped the ‘S’ to a ‘Z’ because a girl online stole my identity in England,” Caraway said.
That is how Sister Bonez came to be. Throughout her years of constant change, she has never strayed too far from her home, Kaos Records.
“I like it too much here, it’s like a second home to me,” Caraway said.
She may have avoided a living hell in high school, but being in Kaos is something she embraces.
