Excerpts

Chloe Trujillo Artist/Designer/Musician Now it was time for Chloe to find her way back to herself after escaping death. The brutal assault caused her a tremendous amount of pain physically and emotionally. Despite this, she feels it sent her in the direction she needed to go. "The attack made me realize that I care about living, I care about my life, I care about it all. There was so much inside of me that I wanted to bring out, but a bit of fear always held me back. Now I felt, 'What's the point of holding back, what do I risk? Nothing!' If people don't like it, so be it. You can't please everybody." Despite these renewed feelings of empowerment, she was still traumatized. She was able to find comfort expressing herself through singing. "I was at the point where I couldn't walk the streets because I would freeze from loud sounds. I didn't show it on the outside, but I couldn't breathe. Singing was so healing for me. The breath and the sound helped me so much." Elicia Castaldi Artist/Designer/Entrepreneur Now that she had reconnected with her innermost artist and was free of all preconceived notions of who she should or shouldn't be, Elicia was ready to manifest her dream: "Paper has always been a big obsession of mine. There used to be this amazing store in New York called Kate's Paperie, which was my favorite place on earth. It was like Barney's, but for paper. So, designing illustrated paper products that could sit on those shelves has been in the back of my brain for many years. During that year of painting, I started to see a card line emerging through my artwork, so I began writing cards--I couldn't stop! I wrote about 300 cards the first time I sat down to start writing them! It seems like a crazy amount, and it was! It just came so easy to me to come up with ideas, and it felt right. Fast forward to December of 2018, when I launched Girl w/Knife with ninety-six greeting cards, four journals, three notepads, and four gift wrap designs; I said to myself, 'This is already a success because I've gotten here--I've created this body of work and this company--every aspect of it. From the name to the products, logo, website, catalog, social media, and everything in between. I wholeheartedly love all of it, every single piece because it is me , full stop. My career is completely on my terms now, and I could not be happier or fuller of ideas for the future.' Debby Holiday Singer/Songwriter It was Debby's turn to break into the music scene with that same drive and fearlessness. "I started a band called Stiletto that ended up winning a KNAC award. This was a big deal for me since KNAC was a hard rock station and, for some reason, my being black and female made it surprising to people that I could even play rock 'n' roll! After all these years, I still have people come up and ask, 'How did you learn rock 'n' roll?' There are so many people who don't really know where rock 'n' roll came from. It came from the blues and black folks, y'all! Excuse me, Big Momma Thornton--this is where you got everything from! She's the woman who wrote 'Hound Dog.' Very few people know that song started out as an anthem of black female power." Drea de Matteo Mom/Actor At this point, Drea's life and spirit were broken, but following her heart would once again prove to be the impetus for change: "I'll tell you how I actually got sober. I'll never forget the day the call came into my dad's store. A young boy died in a motorcycle accident, and a heart was on the way to the hospital for Munkey. I was really fucked up on drugs, and I didn't even go home to get anything. I left my dad's store, took a taxi to LaGuardia airport, and got on an airplane to Florida. I just took off and showed up in Florida in the waiting room of the hospital. They had already taken Munkey's heart out. The transplant wasn't being accepted by her body and she was on life support. My mother heard what happened, and she knew I wasn't right in my head. She took the next flight to Florida to take care of me while I thought I'd be taking care of Munkey. When she got there, I lashed out at her, and she said, 'You do what you need to do, Drea, but I'm right here for you.' I was blown away--that was the beginning of second chances for everyone. After a few weeks, the heart finally started to work for Munkey. I stayed for about a month sleeping on the floor of her hospital room. While I was there, the nurses helped me to get sober. When she recovered, I moved her into my room at the apartment and slept on the couch. She lived with me ever since. After this experience, my mother wrote the most beautiful play called The Heart Transplant -it's unbelievable. She wrote it for me for my 25th birthday." Cheryl Cohen Founder & President, Wasteland Stores Cheryl has had to weather many storms during the learning curve of running her own business. "When people ask me about the secret of Wasteland's success, I always tell them, 'You learn more from adversity than from success.' When I am having success, it feels good, but when I made mistakes, especially early on, that's when I acquired the knowledge that benefitted me most in operating the business. For example, years ago, we went on a vacation to Seattle and fell in love with the city. We started looking at storefronts to open a Wasteland there. Of course, we found one, and it was a huge expensive space. We had also just opened an online store that had a lot of expenses. We almost went bankrupt. I was losing everything. I called my accountant, and he said, 'You have to file for bankruptcy--it's the only way out for you.' I got off the phone and thought, 'Like fuck we are!' I refinanced my house and figured a way out. That's why I am so careful now and tell people certain risks are worth taking and others are not." Kathy Jacobs Actress/Model/ Entrepreneur "It seems ridiculous to me that it's an issue to see a person at my age in a bathing suit or whatever else they want to wear. Are you saying we can't do that anymore? No one is telling musicians like Keith Richards they're too old and can't go play on tour, or that they are not relevant because of their age. Why should it stop women? It seems men can keep doing whatever they want until their last breath. Everybody deserves the right to shine. I can't imagine being anything but supportive to someone for who they want to be and doing what they want to do. The thought of deliberately trying to make a person feel bad or hurt is so foreign to me. I read this excellent book, This Chair Rocks--a Manifesto Against Ageism by Ashton Applewhite. It has a ton of statistics in it. One of them is that despite retailers and mass media rarely featuring women over fifty, we are the demographic with the most disposable income. It also said that in the next ten years, advertisers are going to realize this and start focusing their marketing on this age group." Kathy's determined to do away with the stereotype of women and aging. She has recently been doing national commercials again, modeling, stand-up comedy, and was featured in the latest music video for the band Green Day as a sexy seductress. "I think we must change the way we see other women our age and the way we all see each other. When we throw that positive energy out there, the world will give it right back to us. As long as we collectively stand up and say, 'Hey, we are still in the game.' Think about it, if you are fifty, you could potentially live another fifty years. Are you going to spend the next fifty years feeling less than? I don't think so." She lives by her two mottos, "Wear your age like a crown," and "Old is gold." She sums up her current mindset in her uniquely Kathy way: "I could either be eating off the senior menu at Denny's or posing in a bikini for Sports Illustrated . I choose to pose in a bikini for Sports Illustrated ." Excerpted from Wisdom of Wildly Creative Women: Real Stories from Inspirational, Artistic, and Empowered Women All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.