Art Therapy

"..the painting is a really crucial part of the artistic process for me. I helps me organize my ideas and visually convey the concept behind every song."

I'm offering prints of my paintings as perks as part of my crowdfunding campaign

In my project Borg Queen I wear many hats. Having a career where I can use as many of my skills as possible and be creative has been a lifelong goal of mine. I knew I could never be content just doing one thing. I have to do all the things! The trouble was that I could never find a "job" where I could do that. When people ask me what I do I'm reluctant to tell them that, "I bring complex psychological concepts to life through as many artistic disciplines as possible" because it makes me sound like a pretentious douche, BUT that's exactly what I do. Most of the time I just tell them I'm an artist or a musician and that will usually segway into a conversation about all the shit that I do within this project that I call Borg Queen.

Today's post isn't about everything I do because that would make for an extremely long post, and who has time these days to read something longer than 5 paragraphs with all that other click bait you have to get to. Today's focus is the paintings that I create for every song that I write. Doing the painting is a really crucial part of the artistic process for me. I helps me organize my ideas and visually convey the concept behind every song.

My album Sex, Drugs & Shiny Brass Poles is 10 songs and 10 paintings that tell a true story of why I fell into addiction and how I found my way out. SDSBP is a coming of age story set in a strip club. Each song is a life lesson or insight I gained from working as a stripper. The first 5 songs are written from my perspective as an addict who had lost all hope and put her faith in money. The turning point in the album is when I have a spiritual awakening and the last 5 songs are written from my perspective as a woman who has come into her own and discovered her life purpose despite still being a stripper.

Track List & Paintings

Prints of all the paintings are being offered as perks through my current crowdfunding campaign on Indigogo https://igg.me/at/SexDrugsAlbum

1. This Is Real – 

It’s a reverse Cinderella story. It’s about having being a young adult with goals, hopes and ambitions, but having them destroyed by circumstances beyond control like illness, a bad economy and death. It’s about the huge mistake a lot of young people make which is making money a priority in life. I foolishly thought that money would solve all my problems and give me comfort, but when it didn’t I became depressed and turned to alcohol and drugs.

2. Sex, Drugs & Shiny Brass Poles – 

In short it’s about the trap of greed that a lot of strippers fall into. You get so obsessed with making money that you lose perspective and fall into a vicious cycle of making a bunch of money, but spending it as fast as you make and never getting ahead.

3. Little Miss Liquid Courage – 

It’s about me selling out to the playboy standard of beauty so I could make more money as a stripper. There’s a tremendous amount of pressure in the exotic entertainment industry to make yourself look as close to humanly possible as a Barbie Doll just so you can make more money. Sadly, I succumbed to that pressure and hated myself for it.

4. Hedonist: The Birth Of Venus Demilo – 

It’s about me coping with domestic abuse by turning to various forms of hedonism that were in turn killing me. My hedonist lifestyle took over my personality and eventually transformed me into the alter ego that I was playing on stage.

5. The Bottom Of The Glass –

 It’s about hitting rock bottom as an addict, being totally alone and just crying out to anyone or anything that will listen.

6. My Resurrection – 

It’s the turning point and about facing my demons of greed, abuse and addiction and telling them that they no longer control me.

7. It’s Over – 

It’s a break up song about my abusive relationship with my addictions.

8. We’re All Whores – 

It’s an insight that I had when a customer basically called me a whore for taking my clothes off for money. We all have a price. We’re all a commodity. We’ve all done something for money that we wouldn’t have done otherwise. Therefore, we’re all whores.

9. Lapdance Romance – 

When you’re a stripper you’re not supposed to fall for the customers, but it ended up happening to me. I tried to deny my feelings for him, but I couldn’t so I took a chance, gave up control and allowed myself to fall in love.

10. Imago Dei – 

It’s Latin for image of God. It’s about being a stripper and a person of faith at the same time.

Prints available through my Indigogo crowdfund here

Lapdance Romance Part 1 - A Labor of Love, Persistence and Complete Insanity

Waaaaaaaay back in July of 2010 I wrote a little ditty called Lapdance Romance. I wrote it as a romantic gesture for a man I met and fell in love with at a strip club. We met because he was lonely, bored and on a whim decided to go to his local strip joint and get a lap dance(or 4). As fate would have it, I was the lucky stripper and we fell madly in love. Then some shit happened, we broke up, I wrote the song as a big romantic gesture, we got back together, got married blah blah blah etc. It's the kinda stuff movies are made of really. However I'm not a filmmaker, so I wrote a song and painted a lovely picture about it instead.

So, when I originally wrote the song, I recorded a demo of it using only Reason 4.0 and Sonar as my DAW in my makeshift home studio one sunny summer afternoon. I then presented the song to my estranged sweetheart as a romantic gesture to let him know that I still loved him. It truly was a labor of love. 

Fast forward almost 4 years later and I'm still working on the damn thing. I had some lofty goals for this song and they're finally coming to fruition. It wasn't just enough to record my crappy home-recorded demo and give it to the object of my affection. NOOOOOOOOO, not me, that's just not how I roll. I needed to make a production of it, literally. I wanted to make a full-on cinematic style, professionally shot music video. So that's exactly what I did. It may have taken 2 almost years from the beginning of production til now, and they're have been numerous obstacles(illness, lack of money, battles with producers) to overcome, but the end is now in sight. 

This has been an amazing period of learning and growth for me both personally and professionally. It's been frustrating at times, but overall one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I'm gonna save the rest of the story for my next post though, but I guess you could say it all began when I approached my friend Arcelia Ocana of Ribbit Ribbit Studios to direct my video...

Triple Threatin' It

I am now officially a triple threat, and here's the evidence. Of course, I can't take all the credit. The concept was Arcelia Ocana's, the director who hired me for her project "Mime Love."

This project originated when I asked her if she'd be interested in making a music video for my song "The Bottom Of The Glass." I sent her the painting and the song with a brief explanation about the song being about my addiction to alcohol. I guess it inspired her. She had a green screen project that she had to do for school and she wanted to use my story, my art, my music and my services as an actor. Of course, I'm not one to shun the spotlight so I said yes.

"Are You Real" is the official title of the video, and it features two of my songs, "It's Over" and "The Bottom Of The Glass." The background is green screened and flashes several images of my paintings for my Borg Queen music and visual art project Sex, Drugs, & Shiny Brass Poles. This video is really the true story behind the inspiration for starting Borg Queen and my concept for Sex, Drugs & Shiny Brass Poles.

I wanted to do something where I could utilize all of my artistic skills, so I decided that I would make a series of paintings, and write a song for each painting. My eventual goal is to do a tour with theatre style rock opera performance for Sex, Drugs and Shiny Brass Poles, but I don't want to get too ahead of myself right now. I still have to finish painting and songwriting first. I've learned to apply the lessons in my recovery from alcoholism to my creative process. I just have to take it one day at a time.

Angst Makes For Good Art

So my personal life has been somewhat of a mess lately. The beautiful tapestry that was my relationship with my partner caught a snag about 2 years ago and began to unravel. As it unraveled we made numerous attempts to fix it, but to no avail, it was never the same again. It had become forever marred and over the past month it has become apparent that it's time to just let it go. Saying goodbye to a 4 and a half year relationship that started off with so much promise has been horrifically painful, and it's like walking around with a dagger in a still beating heart. With every pulse I am in agony.

This isn't a relationship blog so I'm not going into any further detail about the break-up, but there is something really great that has come of it all. My acting has never been better! Also my ability to sing and scream at the same time has returned too.

In the past week I was able to record a song that I had written about 2 years ago when my relationship started to really tank. The song wasn't written about my relationship with my then boyfriend, but was actually about me quitting drinking. At the time I started to notice the parallels between my dysfunctional relationship with my boyfriend and my dysfunctional relationship with alcohol, so I wrote "It's Over."

A few months ago I painted the corresponding painting. Interestingly enough it was at a time when it became apparent that the wedding that my then fiancee and I were supposed to have was never going to happen. The use of the bridal imagery and the wedding being cancelled are purely a bizarre coincidence. I didn't realize the connection until my mom asked me if the painting was about the wedding being cancelled. I used the bride because I needed something to symbolize an intimate relationship, and I needed something light colored to contrast against the dark background.

Now that it really is over, the real genuine pain that I feel makes it so much easier to scream-sing making the song much more effective. Also, with my acting I had to film something that required me to do a lot of crying and freaking out. No problem. All I had to do was release the emaotional flood gates and let the pain flow freely. Even in my last acting class my instructor noticed the difference.

Pain is a fact of life none of us can escape, but at least I've been able to take that pain and make some really good art.

A "To Do" List

So today is May 26, 2010 and I'm feeling productive and inspired because I'm riding last night's wave of accomplishment, so I'm making myself a "to do" list for today.

1. Paint a sexy pin-up Irish themed "Happy Birthday" picture for Dan (my partner).

I have this thing with my paintings for Dan. I paint him pin-ups based on various events in our relationship together. Here's all the ones I've done so far, plus a little synopsis of the event or concept that inspired it.

"You Make My Head Swim" is about the night we met in at St. Pete's an Edmonton "gentleman's club." I was feeling like a fish out of water in Edmonton until I met Dan in a chance encounter VIP show.

"50cc's Of Your Love - Stat" Well...let's just say that we got passionately carried away on day and 13 times later I ended in the Emergency Room, but it was beautiful really because that's when I realized that I had fallen in love with him.

"The Ultimate Conquest" like all great art, it's about about "doing it." Only this time it's about conquering the libido.

"Sex Cauldron" This one is about our mutual love of The Simpson's episode where Principal Skinner and Mrs. Crabapple hook up and Helen Lovejoy accuses them of "Having S-E-X in front of the C-H-I-L-D-R-E-N" and then Krusty says, "Sex Cauldron?! I thought they shut that place down!" Anyway, Dan and I were out on a walk and started talking about that episode and laughing about that part in particular and Dan had mention that "Sex Cauldron" would be a great name for a Halloween-themed strip club, and that the sign could have a sexy witch with a cauldron on it. He painted such a vivid picture in my mind that I had to return the favour by painting it for him on a canvas.

"From The Bottom Of My Heart" was a Valentine's gift and I don't think any explanation is needed.

2. Submit myself for some student films so I can get a few more screen credits on my acting resume.

It's gotta get done, and it has been a while since I've exercised my acting muscles.

3. Submit my head shot to the local extra agencies.

Obviously my goal is not to be a career extra, but I'd like to make the best use of time of my hiatus from my interior design job and get as much on set experience as possible. Plus any extra cash right now isn't gonna hurt.

This list is starting to looking pretty ambitious so I'm going to stop adding to it and see if I can get it all done today. Here's hoping!