Today we’d like to introduce you to Couleen LaGon.
Couleen, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
Born in Atlanta, I’m an original “Grady Baby.” Mom raised 6 of us; my dad died when I was 7. He played bass guitar with B.B. King, Otis Redding, Bobby Blue Bland, Duke Ellington, and others. He introduced me to music as a kid, and I started playing drums.
I was later in a high school singing group, which I left. Shortly after they were signed to BadBoy Records by Sean “Puffy” Combs and became the R&B group 112. I was in the Navy at the time and spent a few years doing Top Secret satellite communications for the NSA. A year and a half out of the service, I found myself discovering the producing of music, but I was out of my mind, and shortly out of a home. August 5th, 2003 I was a homeless veteran, and a year later I was homeless again. While living out of a warehouse and sleeping in my friends studio, I landed a 64k check from an eight-page project plan that I wrote, from a private investor. Also, I had been developing an artist who was later discovered by Ceelo Green. She was soon signed to Interscope Records, and I found myself with a production deal with Ceelo and a pub deal with EMI.
I had some minor successes with film and television but found my talents to be much more lucrative in the corporate world and began producing corporate promo videos and web content. A few years later, I was inspired to create a nonprofit teaching children all the things that took me from being homeless to being an artist an entrepreneur. From video production to visualization exercises, kids are now taught and inspired daily, in a 113-year-old house in one of the most amazing neighborhoods in Atlanta.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
Your Art My artwork, or the art that I add to, is often the human spirit. I have learned that I was built to encourage and lift up human beings. Daily, it is primarily through a video and audio production afternoon program for kids ages 6-12. I also teach meditation and mindfulness, practices as well as visualization exercises. I am so often told, messaged or written the most wonderful messages of hope and inspiration, primarily from parents whose children have been deeply affected by the program. I inspire a small town of children to co-create their reality and not compete for it.
The sterotype of a starving artist scares away many potentially talented artists from pursuing art – any advice or thoughts about how to deal with the financial concerns an aspiring artist might be concerned about?
Encouraging Artists Success, I believe, was best described by Earl Nightingale. And I quote, “…success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal or goal.” If an artist has a goal in mind, which sprang from their own inner voice and being, and this artist is daily working toward it, making and executing plans, then he is already successful. As far as characteristics, the primary one should be a desire to succeed.
So, be encouraged if you currently have your back against the wall. You will soon understand that the spirit of desire is best cultivated in an environment where you have “had enough.” Secondly, develop the habit of taking personal action. If you are continually attributing your failures and lack of opportunities to someone else, you lack personal power and the ability to command your own life, by believing some power you need lies outside of yourself. Third, develop your intuition by listening to and following your own inner voice. Lastly, once an image has formed on your mind for what it is you are trying to accomplish, keep that image in the front of your mind and accompany it with the feeling of it happening RIGHT NOW.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
On our website: www.marchensagen.org. We have recently released an album of children’s music and have over 90 videos on our YouTube channel.
Contact Info:
- Address: 418 Church Street Decatur Ga 30030
- Website: www.marchensagen.org
- Phone: 4049419188
- Email: couleen@marchensagen.org
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/wesaymsa
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/wesaymsa
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/wesaymsa
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