I am a partner in Lunicorn along with artist Laura Cameron Jackson. I
was born in 1966 in Ayrshire and had dreams of working in
the music industry and becoming a writer. I also had a mysterious
inclination towards unicorns.
My Background
I started writing gig reviews and celebrity interviews for
local newspapers, and started managing bands. Within a few years, I
stumbled into a job as Scottish PR for Wet Wet Wet, started writing a
music column for a tabloid newspaper and became guest arts reviewer on
QFM in
Paisley. I was also writing short stories and poetry, with
some published success.
Whilst I still had a passing interest in the more mystical side of
life, the unicorns were retreating. My own frequencies grew lower as I
became enmeshed in the not so glamorous world of rock and
roll.
I reclaimed some integrity when I grew somewhat disillusioned
with tabloid life, and realizing a gap in the Scottish-based music
magazine market, I decided to create my own magazine called Bigwig. It
ran successfully for three years, sold in all the usual High Street
outlets, and also around the world. Infamously banned by John Menzies
on the 2nd
issue for featuring a safe sex pack as a cover mount, it also broke new
ground with its monthly 'Artbeat' feature where up and coming and well
known artists were invited to review new albums visually i.e. as a
piece of artwork, a painting, a sketch. Rolf Harris even signed up for
this.
In 1995, I won Cosmopolitan Magazine's Women of Achievement Award for
media for my work with Bigwig.
In 1997, I went freelance again and worked for a number of music
industry clients including Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy (both London
and Scotland). In Scotland, I organized the first ever Tartan Clef
Music Awards whose recipients included Sharleen Spiteri, Simple Minds
and Lulu.
I launched whisky on the Isle of Arran with Ewan McGregor, opened new
music stores with the late Noel Redding and Hank Marvin, and
was invited to become a director of Chrysalis's bid for the new Central
Scotland Regional Radio License with Billy Connolly.
I did Scottish press for Joan Armatrading and a variety of
promotions with MTV, Glasgow City Council and Barcardi. I worked with
Tony Wilson on the In The City Conference in 1997,
and had the joy of attending one of his famed meetings in Manchester,
where the refreshments on offer were certainly not of the tea and
coffee variety.
In 2000, I decided I should probably get a proper job, as at 34
wondered how long I could continue to do youth PR. I soon became
publicist at BBC Scotland. In this, I accompanied the BBC SSO to LA for
the grammies winning front page in Los Angeles Times for their
nomination, orchestrated the promotions surrounding Radio Scotland's
25th anniversary, plus the usual bump and grind of getting column
inches for BBC Scotland's TV output.
Throughout all of this, I was once again, furthering an interest in
mind, body and spirit (with the
latter often being the bottom of a bottle of Jamesons).
Where I am today
Getting tired of tip-toeing through egos and becoming frustrated at the
back-biting nature of my industry, I, along with artist partner, Laura
Cameron Jackson, created Lunicorn. The unicorns were back.
Lunicorn's philosophy is about believing it can happen, believing in
ourselves, and looking to the energies of the universe to believe
anything and everything is possible. I wanted to do something tangible,
something I truly believed in, and something that could help others
believe in themselves too. In order to make that ring true in my
own head, I had to cut the cords of the world I was coming to despise,
and so in December 2005, I quit the safety of my BBC salary and pension
and went full time with Lunicorn.
What a learning curve the last two and a half years have been?
Stretched and challenged more than ever before in my life, I now
understand exactly why Lunicorn happened and what has now to be done.
Whilst, I have had to return briefly to the world I left, I have done
so with a different perspective and only to help finance Lunicorn.
Lunicorn has evolved from a stall selling hand-crafted 'believe' kits
to a brand offering unicorn workshops for kids, magical unicorn
meditations for children on cds, and believe books. And in finding my
own innocence and
spirituality again, life has got simpler, kinder and much, much
happier. Helping others both to firstly see and switch on the light in
themselves has been mind-blowing. It's true what they say, nothing is
higher than
a spiritual high. So, what will the next chapter bring? Watch this
space,
the unicorns have a plan.
