Everyone has heard the saying, “If you want something in life, you have to go after it”. Well that’s what one local girl did and is making her dreams a reality.
Lainey Lilly grew up in Milltown, Head of Bay d'Espoir and is the daughter of Clyde and Marie Lilly. She is 24 years old and has a lot of positive things going on in her life at a very young age.
After high school graduation she moved away to St. John's to attend school. But she decided that school wasn't what she wanted at that time and she started looking for work instead. She had random jobs and just moved around trying to find her way.
Lainey is presently living in Grand Falls-Windsor, and has been there for almost three years.
“All my life I’ve had a passion for music. I always wanted a guitar but it wasn't until I was 17 that I actually got one. It was second hand and I bought it for 75 dollars. With that I learned a few basic chords from a talented guitar player but shortly after I stopped playing. “It was just by chance that my cousin, who I moved in with, had a guitar and during that time I was unemployed and spent most of my time alone, so the guitar was my favourite past time. Eventually after spending hours and hours a day playing around with it, I taught myself to actually play. I started playing a lot of Neil Young songs at first and then one day, just for fun, I put a video on utube of me singing and playing a Neil Young song. I got a lot of great comments and messages of people liking my voice and that encouraged me and started me singing along when I played,” stated Ms. Lilly.
“After learning a bunch of songs, I decided to branch out and write my own. I've always been a writer and enjoyed writing since I was a child. I've kept a journal since I was 11 years old so that came pretty natural to me. In fact, I realized playing my own songs was a whole lot easier than learning someone else's. It was more fun and rewarding as well. It was here in Grand Falls where I got on a stage for the first time at a local cafe that have weekly live entertainment.”
“One night I went to Murphy's Café, expecting to see a show, but the performer never showed up. Since there was a crowd of people there, I asked the lady at the front if I could get up and play a few songs for the crowd. I have no idea where the courage came from because I was always quite shy in public settings. Anyway, she agreed, I got up and played for about an hour and after that night I got regular gigs there playing my songs.”
Lainey will be releasing her first album this coming summer titled “Credibility”. Her producer, Jason Woodford is putting the final touches on it and she is so excited for the process to be complete. Lainey wrote all the songs on her album and she played the guitar to all her songs.
Lainey also has an interest is modelling. “I would have to say Marilyn Monroe influenced me into that. I'm a huge fan of hers, not for her celebrity status, but I've read several books about her life and I could really relate to her personal side. Life struggles, relationships, self-esteem, and just getting by in life with nothing but a dream and luck. She became sort of a role model to me and I had my hair bleached and would sometimes wear my makeup like her.”
“One day I came across a website that focused on Newfoundland models. It was basically a site where anyone could post his or her modelling photos. So just for the fun of it, I did myself up like Marilyn Monroe and had a friend take some pictures. I posted the photos on the site and then I started getting messages from photographers and people became interested in me as a model.
It was just one of those things that just happened. Someone found me on the site and they needed their portfolio updated and wanted me to be the model. From there I started modelling for different artists, mostly for their portfolios updates. I did get an offer to model in Toronto, which was a huge deal to me, but there were several things going on in my life (like recording my album) and other personal reasons that made me turn down the offer. It all worked out though because recently I got hired by a local store called Della Vintage to model their clothes, which consist of vintage clothing. I'm a huge fan of the 50's and was more than happy to work for Della Vintage.”
“I have always had an interest in art and that has always been a part of my life. I don't remember a time when I didn't draw or paint, it just came naturally to me. My parents let me draw on the walls of my bedroom with markers; they were pretty cool like that. When I was younger, in school, I used to draw pictures for people a lot and I remember when I was in grade 2, my teacher's son was an artist, and I guess she thought I had some talent and deserved some good paper, so she gave me a professional sketch book. That was my first of many. As I got older and my drawing improved I started getting requests from people to draw for them and they would pay me. I never saw my artwork as a moneymaker, and I still don't. I would still be drawing even if I never sold one before. However, now getting paid for my art is just a little bonus.”
“I'm not in school at the moment but do I plan on going back in the future to study History and English, which is another interest of mine. My life is really full right now with several projects that I enjoy spending my time doing. I would really like to thank all the people in Bay d’Espoir who have supported me but mostly to my parents and my boyfriend, Mark, who have been an inspiration and influenced me towards being ambitious and achieving my goals in life,” stated Ms. Lilly.
If anyone would like to purchase or view Lainey’s work, they can visit www.facebook.com/laineylillyarts
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