To be or not to be your brand image?

It’s important to distinguish the difference between turning “on” one’s brand image when appropriate and refraining from activities that would tarnish that image, and actually being and living that image.  If your brand image is a reflection of your true, authentic self, this shouldn’t be too difficult a balancing act to manage. But consider an artist with an “outlandish” brand image — take an artist like Bjork or Madonna, for example.  They’re both supremely talented, enigmatic and ever-changing costume wearers. They “turn on” a certain brand image for the public at certain times, but neither lets a publicly-created image dominate her life.

This is a key skill in navigating the divide between one’s brand image and one’s authentic self — knowing that difference and being authentic, even in the midst of fame’s encroaching. Sometimes our brand image is in line with who we really are, and that’s great.  It makes things easier. Sometimes it’s an overstatement of our best qualities. Sometimes it’s an exaggeration of our sensuality. Sometimes it’s mysterious, or filled with double meaning.

The point is, we must distinguish those traits of the brand image that we play up when in public and determine whether they are worthy of being enacted in our personal lives, or if, in fact, living our brand image could be detrimental to our relationships.

 

Window Vibes

It’s 4:49 on Fulton Street

The Muslim man is singing his prayers

Ruby Shoes is open for business

M.A.D. Hardware is cutting keys

 

                                                    and I’m writing music

 

My Life In Brooklyn..

My life in Brooklyn is one of those love/hate stories from the movies.  I go through periods of complete wonder and satisfaction with how I could have landed in one of the most diverse corners of the world, and other times I find myself wishing I were somewhere else, asking, “How did I get here, and why am I STILL here?”

But I’ve discovered the tipping point at which you become “a New Yorker”, and that is the point at which you cannot stand the city any more for one second, and yet, you can’t bring yourself to leave it behind.  The New Yorker is cynical but still soft somewhere, singing the tune that’s also in your head since you both heard it just before descending the steps to the train.  Weird coincidences in this city happen all the damn time, but then again, I have ceased to believe that anything is ever really a coincidence.

Anyhow, back to my love/hate. As an artist, it’s difficult here.  Perhaps I used to think it was difficult everywhere, but that’s before I discovered the Europeans’ appreciation for true art that celebrates beauty and carries with it a real message — sometimes gritty, sometimes lovely, but always worthy of a stage.  I glimpsed this cultural richness as a college girl living in Spain, but it was as a touring artist in Berlin that I felt more welcomed with open arms than I’ve ever felt on home turf.  

As I prepare myself to leave my home country within the next few months and plant roots in the artistic music community of Berlin, I find the whole exercise of leaving the U.S. as an eery foreshadowing of the direction in which American culture is going these days.  To think, at four years of age, I sang of “my land of liberty” as if I meant it.  

Now, twenty-six years later, the liberty is in leaving.

 

honest decisions..

Starting to feel now instead of just thinking.. starting to breathe now instead of just sinking..

it was all in my head before, but I am a changed woman, for perseverance IS rewarded with the great secret!  

ABOVE: ME IN BERLIN — JULY 2007