My Story

If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would be living the adventure that is my life today, I wouldn't have believed you.
I grew up dancing and singing in a choir, and I loved fashion and the performing arts. I wanted to perform, to be a designer, to create. However, I came from a family that encouraged me to focus on academics and stressed the importance of having stability and security, so I ended up in law school.

At the time, I thought it was the right thing to do, because everyone around me was so happy about it. I was happy knowing that they were happy, but at the end of my first year in law school I started to realize that I couldn't spend the rest of my life as a lawyer. I started having internalized panic attacks and felt like I was living for someone else, on borrowed time, trying to figure out what I was going to do - and then it happened.

The moment that changed my life. I moved into a new apartment that was contaminated with toxic mold, and over a 3 month period I went from being completely healthy to extremely ill, bedridden, emaciated, and in physical pain every waking moment. My entire face and 50% of my body was covered in an excruciating rash. I was diagnosed with MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity) and Environmental Illness and had to medically withdrawal from law school. I spent the next several years in treatment for being more or less poisoned by toxic mold. I lost virtually all my possessions. The health department would not let me take my personal items from the apartment, and they were taken to an incinerator and burned. The entire apartment community was shut down and gutted. I lost nearly all of my friends. They just stopped calling.

I look back now though, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Why? Because it made me fearless. It gave me time to reassess my priorities. I prayed to God that if I could be well and normal again, I would live my life to the fullest, the way it was meant to be lived, and my prayers were answered.

As I began to heal, I developed a new perspective on life. I realized that with my health I could do anything. I stopped caring what people thought about me. I developed more compassion for other people, and I started to develop a plan-- a detailed plan in writing of all the things I wanted. I looked at the plan every day and believed that I was going to get it, and took massive action to manifest it. As my values and priorities shifted, my life changed dramatically.

In 2005, I recorded a record in Mandarin for the overseas Chinese (Taiwan) market. That deal didn't end up being what I expected it to be, but it was a great learning experience.

In 2006, I decided to start my own fashion line, which I had been developing for some time. I called it Fortune Denim. I had no design background and knew no one in the fashion industry, but I believed I could make it happen though hard work and persistence. Fortune Denim is now carried in over 300 stores in the US and distributed in a number of other countries. It's an incredible creative outlet for me and I'm so blessed to be able to work with the people on my team.

A year later, I decided to write and produce my own record. It was important for me to have complete control over the writing and producing. I wasn't sure how I was going to do it, because I had never written any of my own songs before. I bought a couple of song-writing books and read them. I started working on the record a little each day, and it started to become a reality. Around the same time, I was fortunate enough to be introduced to a record producer named Chris Salmeron. He really got what I wanted to do and we decided to team up and do this record. Since then he has become one of my closest friends, and I am so grateful to know him.

Chris did all the beats, and I wrote the lyrics and melodies. Sometimes Chris would give me a CD of beats and I would write to them. Sometimes I'd come up with something in my head and he'd work the music around it. I wrote most of the songs in under 30 minutes. "Torture Me So" was written and arranged in under 10 minutes. Anything that took me over an hour was scrapped. I wrote the songs alone while driving in a circular route on the freeways of Dallas. A few more were written driving around Los Angeles.

All of my songs are about real experiences I've lived, feelings I've had, or people I've known. The emotion is raw, and I know we've all had similar experiences. Maybe you'll just love dancing to the beats. They're all very intimate to me, and I sincerely hope that you will connect with them. Thank you for taking the time to visit my website and taking an interest in what I've created.

I still hold true to the dreams of my childhood and I hope you do too.

Karen