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12/20/2020 0 Comments

Lady Brain Presents - 2020 Year in Review

Welp, that was certainly not the year we planned for. But despite everything, Lady Brain Collective members stayed creative and stuck together, and Lady Brain Presents did our best to showcase their awesome work to the community. Here's a quick video recap of just some of the work we did and fun we had. Thanks to all of our members and Patreon contributors for supporting us - and if you're not yet aboard the Lady Brain train, find out how to join and/or contribute - 2021 will be even better with you in our fam!
Video Description: This video slideshow features various social media graphics, photographs of Lady Brain Members, gig flyers, screenshots of virtual/zoom events, and member artwork - all occurring at Lady Brain Presents, either in physical locations or online over the year 2020. The video covers the following topics:
-Community Gatherings (Lady Brain members at open mics, house concerts, venues)
-Virtual Showcases (Lady Brain members participating in online events)
-Workshops and Meetups (images of hikes, vision boarding, guest speakers, virtual presentations)
-Lady Brain Media (photos of podcast guests, Lady Brain writers, online reviews, gig flyers, social media graphics, blog features)
-Lady Brain for Hire (gig sharing and business spotlight social media graphics)
-Lady Brain for Change (Lady Brain raised $600+ for RAINN)
-How to Join - www.ladybrainpresents.com/join -How to Support - www.ladybrainpresents.com/contribute or www.ladybrainpresents.com/shop
​-See You Next Year & Photo credits to local photogs/friends who captured this year’s events: Sydney Prather, Alyssa Douglas, Darci Fontenot, Cathryn Beeks, Mary Hamer.
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12/17/2020 0 Comments

December Member Meetup Recap - Candlelight Vigil and Throat Chakra Meditation with Tori Roze

Thanks to all who closed out 2020 with us at our final virtual meetup of the year! We held space and shared silence for all the losses we've experienced and witnessed this year, we expressed what we'd like to leave behind and take with us into the new year, and we participated in a guided throat chakra opening meditation facilitated by Lady Brain member Tori Roze of Roze Wellness. We highly recommend reaching out to Tori if you/your team are looking for a way to grieve and heal and grow with intention - she offers virtual Reiki sessions, Reiki-blessed jewelry, guided meditations, and more. Below are a couple snippets from Tori's session that may help you realign with your purpose and voice going into 2021. 
Transcription: “​And you can repeat these here with me if you'd like: I am understood. I am a good listener. I am authentic. I have integrity. I am honest. I speak my truth. I have a voice. I have a story I am worth knowing. I trust myself. I am a creative being. I have no limitations and I love myself warts and all."
Transcription: “When you're ready, you can open your eyes and wiggle your, and shake your body and jiggle and readjust and come back into this space. Stretch, get some water, do what you need to do. A really good thing at the end of this is to give yourself a hug. Cause we are all missing hugs, like big time. So if you actually give yourself a hug and hold it there for a minute, it actually has like the same effect feels pretty good. You can do this any time you feel like you need to be held to because you're literally holding your heart right now. Thank you everybody. I appreciate all of you guys really big time. And I want you all to just be out there flourishing being your most badass selves and sharing what it is you have to share because that's what you are here for. So share that stuff." 
If you're a San Diego-based womxn or non-binary/gender non-conforming creative who is interested in building community, collective education, and resource sharing, we'd love to have you! Please register to join Lady Brain Collective here! 
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11/16/2020 0 Comments

November Member Meetup Recap - Heart Berries Book Discussion

Thanks to folks who participated in this month's book discussion of Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot. It was an honest read from a wonderful writer - highly recommended! For anyone who missed the book or the discussion, we came up with some journaling prompts inspired by the book as it relates to Lady Brain Collective. No need to read the book to chew on these prompts! Let us know what you come up with! (Questions also listed in plain text below for accessibility).
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Image Description: Infographic with pink and purple accents featuring icons of various berries. Pink, purple and black text reads "Lady Brain Presents Creative Journal Prompts Inspired by the Memoir Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot. Eight questions are listed in pink and purple color blocks...see below for text description.

1. What are some narrative devices or styles you commonly use? And for what strategic purpose, if any?

2. How have you been able to articulate traumatic/painful experiences for your own healing or to help others heal?

3. What does complicity and responsibility look like for you as a person or as an artist?

4. What stories live inside you that won’t exist in the world unless you create them?

5. What stories have impacted your capacity for empathy? How can you use art to help others empathize with what they might not identify with or understand?

6. What is "expected" of you, your identity, your culture, etc? In what ways do you want to embrace or resist that as an artist?

7. What did you need in your past that you didn't receive or couldn't quite articulate? How can you ask your community for what you need now?

8. ​In what ways can you  anticipate or listen to the needs of your community and respond to those needs within your capacity?
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10/22/2020 0 Comments

October Member Meetup Recap: Zopen Mic

Thanks to all members who participated in this month's virtual open mic meetup! Lots of heartfelt and poignant pieces were shared, covering an array of topics like love and acceptance, social change, processing time and anxiety during a pandemic, and more. In lieu of a community gathering this month, we thought we'd share some of the pieces that were performed on this public platform. Read on for a partial replay and discover if any of these artists' words or music resonate with you!

Julia Sage

Original Song: Here Comes the Clock
View this post on Instagram

□ . . Did you hear that sigh of frustration in the beginning? At first I was gonna edit it out, but decided to leave it alone. When you are a songwriter who writes in different languages and one of them is not your mother tongue, sometimes it can get quite frustrating when it comes to singing your songs out loud... words don’t flow together naturally so you have to be thinking about the pronunciation way ahead of time; keep track of the consonants and vowels flowing together in a way that feels unnatural a lot of the time... so yeah, sometimes it’s frustrating because you hear something in your head that you can’t quite replicate smoothly because you put too many words together in a verse to get your point across... therefore, the annoyed sigh after having to record the song for the upteenth time □

A post shared by Musician, Songwriter, Artist (@thejuliasage) on Oct 14, 2020 at 11:07pm PDT


Bonnie Nicholls

Original Song: Nothin'

Dishes in the sink, evidence of drink
In bottles and cans near the door
Unanswered texts, unrelenting requests     
To see if I've got off the floor

All I wanna do is nothin', lie around and give in to the fear
All I wanna do is nothin' and slowly disappear

Curtains drawn, weeds in the lawn
Detritus on the porch
Bed unmade, bills unpaid   
The whole place should be torched 'cuz

All I wanna do is nothin', lie around and give in to the fear
All I wanna do is nothin' and slowly disappear

No energy left  to explain the entropy inside my brain    
Inertia is the only thing that 
moves      
me     
now

All I wanna do is nothin', lie around in bed all day
All I wanna do is nothin' and slowly slip away
Slowly slip away, and slowly slip away

Susan Lipson

Original Song: Let's Reframe
Complacency is how things go from bad to worse
And it really is a curse
When silent shrugs are all we show.
Standing by, not standing up
Is the reason things don't change
For we ALL must rearrange
The status quo.
The worst of history repeats
Unless we stop the trend.
It's up to us to end
The unjust treatment we allow.
We can say it's not our fault,
That we've done nothing wrong,
But we owe more than a song;
We've got to act and stand up now.


Chorus:
Who are we?
Let's reframe
As if viewing Earth from space
We're just multicolored folks--
The human race.
Who are we,
staking claims
Based on pigment in our skin
When the color of our blood Is just the same?!


We're part of systems that allow
Injustice to exist
Now it's time we all resist
The -isms hidden in our laws.
No human merits privilege
More than any other,
We ALL come from a mother--
To grow in peace is our shared cause.
Only what we add in goodness
Can measure human worth
For we're all here on this Earth
As vital cogs in a machine.
So, if some of us are broken
Then ALL of us must fix
The social structure, adding bricks
To build foundations not yet seen.


Who are we?
Let's reframe
As if viewing Earth from space
We're just multicolored folks--
The human race.
Who are we,
staking claims
Based on pigment in our skin
When the color of our blood Is just the same?!

Until we give up stupid notions
That anyone's worth more,
We ALL know what's in store:
More of the same.
Unless we teach our kids that they are
No better and no worse,
We'll maintain the racist curse
With no one else to blame.


Who are we?
Let's reframe
As if viewing Earth from space
We're just multicolored folks--
The human race.
Who are we,
staking claims
Based on pigment in our skin
When the color of our blood Is just the same?!

Chorus repeats

Astra Kelly

Original Song: Heavy

Heavy, unsteady
Waiting for voices to follow
Heavy, unsteady
Searching for words I can swallow
The rain came to shatter, pouring down pain
Drowning perceptions we had
Waiting, unchanging
I won't give in to the madness

Chorus:
Heavy, heavy
I can't carry this weight
Steady, steady now
Lean into faith, til we break
Through

Thoughts come in like tremors
Sirens signal the storm
The rain came to shatter, reflections of me
Pieces of the puzzle to place
Heavy, yet ready
Guide me into grace

Chorus:
Heavy, heavy
I can't carry this weight
Steady, steady now
Lean into faith, til we break
Through

Bridge:
Dreaming of finding home, safe from the storm
Be weightless my soul, when fear lets me go

Chorus:
Heavy, heavy
I will carry this weight
Steady, steady now
Lean into faith, we will break
Through

Lindsay White

Original Song: A Little Piece of Quiet

It's like the windows in my spirit and my soul 
have all been painted over
It's like the locks in my heart 
were changed, and not by me 
and no one made me a key

It's like I'll never know what could grow 
outside these gates
What kinds of fates would await me
It's like these poison clouds are shrouds 
upon my ears
It gets harder and harder to hear

I just, I just need
A little piece of quiet
Turn it down
Shut it out 
Gimme more of that sweet silence

​It's like more people just keep dying all the time
with bigger numbers come smaller headlines
I make a fist, resist, 
but this twisted mind it binds my wrists
I exist in fits
Is this all there is
If I killed this sound
Would I drown or live

Repeat Chorus

Cathryn Beeks

Original Song: This Time
let's face it
we're not gonna change
some people's minds

they weren't raised right
taught to kill and fight
you know the kind

and all I can hope for is
their children will see the light
look with your heart, kid
You know what they're doing ain't right
 
this time we are living in
makes me wanna give in and die
but this rage keeps me living
injustice makes me wanna try
I don't understand how some
folks can turn a blind eye
no more will I ignore
I aint letting up this time
 
It's now or never
I ain't ever seen it this bad
so many years of pretending
what we had
now everything's broken and
every one is the glue
If you won't join us
I will fight harder than you
 
let's face it
we're not gonna change
some people's minds
they weren't raised right
taught to kill and fight
you know the kind

and all I can hope for is
that their children are not blind
look with your heart, kid
we'll make it better this time

Thank you, readers, for stopping by and lifting up our members by bearing witness to their work! Community members and prospective members, please check out our FAQ pages if you are interested in being a part of the Lady Brain fam!
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9/25/2020 0 Comments

September Member Workshop Recap: Vulnerability with Dr. Lorri Sulpizio

Thanks so much to those who attended our Virtual Cafe workshop on the topic of vulnerability with guest facilitator, Dr. Lorri Sulpizio, Director of the Conscious Leadership Academy and the founder of the Center for Women’s Leadership at the University of San Diego. Lorri guided attendees in a discussion about where we are, what we need, what we are learning, and what we might shift to adapt to this moment and meet ourselves. 
We started with a check-in and shared answers to Lorri's prompt: What is one of the biggest shifts, creatively or otherwise, you've had to make in the last several months, and what opportunity or insight have you noticed from this time?

We also talked about some of the ways anxiety can push us into a disequilibrium or detachment that prohibits us from accessing our vulnerability or makes us feel as though being vulnerable might threaten our safety. We learned some myths surrounding vulnerability, for example:
  • vulnerability is weakness
  • I don't do vulnerability
  • I can go it alone
  • I can get the uncertainty and discomfort out of vulnerability
  • Trust comes before vulnerability
  • Vulnerability is disclosure
  • Systemic vulnerability is the same thing as relational vulnerability

Lorri challenged us to identify how these myths show up in our lives, where they are coming from in our experiences, and think about what we can do to challenge them and rewrite our narratives moving forward. She also talked about developing strong networks of support to combat those times when our traditional support systems (family, etc.) might not be able to show up for us as we hoped. See clip below:
TRANSCRIPTION: It's really hard if people have failed you in the past, people who you hoped and expected to show up for you, and didn't, that's really hard. And again, it's similar. I would say, find those folks that do you know, groups like this, you know, that maybe it's not the same as a spouse, parents, siblings, unfortunately, but you know what? These people are people who are going to show up for you. And that's amazing, you know, finding the folks that will show up for you and be there for you is huge. And it's an amazing gift. And so then maybe once you find that space, it's like, okay, I do have people in my corner, and people do show up for me so I can tell myself a new story that it's not true that nobody shows up for me. People who live like me kind of authentically creatively, they show up for me, those are my people, you know? Those other people like, oh, they're in my life. What can I do about it? I'm related to them. So I'm going to find a way to get through, but I've got these people, right? Who do see me and that's such a powerful feeling. And so it's worth finding it. And then slowly that power can overwhelm the lack over here, if that makes sense.​
Stay tuned for our September community gathering, where we will channel some of what we've learned and share pieces of art centered around the idea of vulnerability! If you're interested in learning more about joining Lady Brain Collective, start by visiting our FAQ, then head over to our JOIN page to submit a membership application!
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8/21/2020 0 Comments

August Member Workshop Recap - Q&A with Mona Tavakoli

Thank you to everyone who attended this week's member workshop Q&A with Mona Tavakoli! Her positive energy, insight, and commitment to being part of a team was a breath of fresh air in today's often-dark, isolating times. Below, enjoy a couple clips from our virtual call where Mona talks about showing up authentically for social justice. 
TRANSCRIPTION:  “​I think what became really clear to me was through Rock Camp and why that space is so important to me is that could I, by just being myself, could I by just being Mona, with all of my quirks and all of my beauty and all of my insecurity, exactly as I am, could I come to this space? And just by showing up to the space, can I help somebody else feel free or seen or loved? So that was walking the walk for me. So being on stage as a person of color and feeling like maybe that's gonna be important somehow, but then going and being the boots on the ground for Rock Camp, and not just being Persian Mona, or not being lady Mona, but just being myself and creating a space where other people can come and just be themselves. You don't have to be the best drummer in the world. You don't have to have technical skills. You don't have to be a great teacher, to be honest with you. You just have to come into the space and say, 'Let's do something together. Let me teach you something that I know the best way that I know. And can you then reflect something back in that space? It was so powerful and it felt like, that's social justice, that's equanimity. That's creating an equal playing field for all girls. That's saying, 'I'm going to be who I am. You be who you are. And let's create a space.' And music is the medium in that way. Right? And writing a song or learning an instrument is - this is going to sound weird, but a distraction to learn those deeper values of communication and allyship and compassion and self-love and how to be a better citizen of the planet."
TRANSCRIPTION:  “So if you want to be a social justice warrior advocate, you have to be yourself, and you have to be true to you, and do the things that feel true to you and be of service that way. Is it through songwriting? Is it through poetry? Is it through volunteering? Is it through creating space or a meal for somebody else? There's so many ways to be creating equality in your own life that is true to you and not true to the vision of somebody else's social justice."
If you're a local woman or gender-marginalized creative who is interested in building community, collective education, and resource sharing, we'd love to have you! Please register to join Lady Brain Collective here! ​
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7/15/2020 0 Comments

July Member Workshop Recap - Building a Community Action Plan

Thanks so much to members who participated in any/all of our Community Action Plan workshop series. While our workshops are typically offered privately as a feature of membership and to ensure proper safety and support of our members, we decided to share the steps we covered below just in case any of our readers might find this exercise helpful in their work towards creating racial and social justice. This is an all-hands-on-deck situation, so we hope this framework helps you feel empowered to take (or follow) the lead in the various communities to which you belong. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions!
Step 1: Identify Your Communities
(transcription here for accessibility)

Step 2: Estimate Your Impact
(transcription here for accessibility)

Step 3: Where Will You Lead? Where Will You Follow?
(transcription here for accessibility)

Step 4A: Anxieties, Actions & Desired Outcomes when Leading
(transcription here for accessibility)

Step 4B: Anxieties, Actions & Desired Outcomes when Following
(transcription here for accessibility)
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5/18/2020 0 Comments

May Member Workshop Recaps - Media Assets 101 & Recording Home Vocals

Thanks so much to everyone for attending both of our virtual workshops this month and helping us keep this community together even though we are restricted from gathering in person! 

Special thanks to Jules Stewart for giving us a great rundown on resolution and sizing of images during our discussion on Media Assets. We also talked about bios, pull quotes, promo photos, and more. It's always great to be prepared and professional when it comes to working with folks in the media!
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As for our Recording Home Vocals workshop, our special guest Amelia Sarkisian talked to the group about various microphones, set up, signal flow, gain structure, and more. Given the circumstances of sheltering in place, it was beneficial to discuss ways to become more proficient in our home recording set-ups. There's so much to learn - we'll definitely be revisiting this topic in the future!
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4/4/2020 0 Comments

April Workshop Recap - Livestreaming 101: Tips, Tricks, and Tech

Over the last year, Lady Brain Collective has worked diligently toward building a strong community with a real presence in physical spaces. Needless, to say, recent events surrounding the corona virus threw us for a bit of a loop. But we realize that tough times call for stronger ties, so we are adapting and moving many of our workshops and showcases to a virtual setting until the coast is clear and we can gather IRL. 

Kicking things off in the workshop realm, Mary Bee and Mary Hamer led a wonderful Zoom presentation on the topic of Live Streaming 101: Tips, Tricks, and Tech. During the meeting, attendees discovered new and interesting ways to showcase their work and broaden their audience online. Members shared tips and tricks on all things live streaming, ranging from best practices, various streaming platforms, and recommended software and gear. ​
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While we're still a little salty about not being allowed to share physical space, we know it's for the greater global good, and all those familiar faces on Zoom helped us feel connected! We will continue to offer virtual member workshops on relevant topics for the duration of our shelter-in-place experience. 

If you're a San Diego-based creative womxn interested in participating in this member workshop, we'd love to have you! Please complete your membership application and subscription below!
JOIN
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3/4/2020 0 Comments

March Member Meetup & Workshop

Members, please mark your calendars for this month's meetup and workshop. First up, we'll be continuing our hike series on Tuesday, March 10. Then, on Sunday, March 29 we'll be holding a workshop on the topic of recording quality vocals at home. Our guest speaker will be Amelia Sarkisian who has studied and worked at some of the top studios in San Diego. Please check our private Facebook group and/or Member Toolbox for all the details! Prospective members, find out how to join the collective and access all the benefits of membership here.
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