Heather

was my lighthouse in the northern-most city on earth, the last settlement before the North Pole. We were making a film, She was quiet, attentive, visionary and always disappeared at night. Drinking in the Arctic is equal to breathing, it’s how the locals survive and thrive. For us, a film crew of Pirates, it’s also Nirvana, Valhalla; choose your paradise.

Heather was sober and avoided our antics at night by disappearing into her room with a guitar. I asked her about her sobriety one day and was struck by her strength and commitment to staying sober. Her serenity and will reminded me of time when Alcohol didn’t control me. I had once stopped drinking for two years and it was the happiest time in my adult life, I thought that I’d learned to drink like a normal person but that only lasted for a few weeks. Heather was a version of myself that I missed but She never sold me, she just was….

The more we talked the more she revealed about her past the scars and how that pain had transformed into music. Heather is also CrowJane and her music is a wall of beautiful noise. The first song she played for me, “Man’s world” is a wave of rage and dissonance that severs my bones. I relate her pain to my daughter’s pain and it splits me in two. When you see CrowJane perform it’s hard to imagine that Heather is in there because the two people are completely different. Heather is quiet and soft and CrowJane is 10feet tall and jagged. She’s a Baddass.

I’m a disciple of CrowJane, made a music video for her and will help her to be seen in anyway she needs. Heather was our makeup artist and she did that to feed CrowJane, who rose from the rubble. Heather is my light house because she never stopped being true to her self. She reminded me that I had the same light within and I got sober about a month later and it’s been 1,150 days as I write this. “Be infitesimal now.”

She’s a #portraitofstregth, portraitofanartist, and thankfully a #portraitofafriend, my friend.