The day her father carried the smoking TV out the door for the last time was the day Lorraine Devon Wilke unknowingly embarked upon her life as an artist. Once the kicking and screaming stopped and the remaining quiet led her and her many brothers and sisters to their vivid imaginations, she unexpectedly found the world to be a very creative and colorful place without the dulling noise of canned laughter. The record player now accompanied every waking moment, whether her mother’s Perry Como, her brothers’ James Gang albums, or the Beatles, Joni Mitchell, and Crosby, Stills and Nash she and her sisters devoured. Her father took them to musicals, her mother created worlds with backyard carnivals and hand-made dolls; her brothers and sisters painted, wrote outrageous basement shows, picked up guitars and sang until there wasn’t a stage they could step on and not set the room on fire. That was the truest, most cherished legacy of her family life...artistic spirit. From there she pounced into her own version of consummate creativity: a theater major at the University of Illinois, she learned stage acting and script writing and spent most of her sophomore year traveling with an award-winning original musical that took her and her cast mates to the Kennedy Center. The pounding activity of live performance piqued her interest in recording and performing with bands, a passion that ironically compelled her early departure from school when the one that wooed her onto the road became too great an adventure to ignore. Dreams and westward bookings landed her in Los Angeles, where she decided to embrace the fabled city of movies and grand destinies by trying her luck as an actor. For 5 years she studied with Robert F. Lyons, a protégé of famed acting guru, Milton Katselas, and while she honed her skills, learned how to teach the craft, performed in countless plays, landed some TV and film roles, and enthusiastically pounded the pavement along with the best of them, the siren song of music was always a seductive pull. She launched back into full-time rock and roll in the 80’s (see Music Page), but continued to keep her feet firmly planted on all sides of her creative road. When she and filmmaker, Pat Royce, sat around her apartment talking long and hilariously enough to come up with a timely, clever screenplay based on their tumultuous lives, the result was To Cross the Rubicon, a 1.7 million dollar feature produced in the early 90’s by the Lensman Company out of Seattle, directed by Barry Caillier, which went on to win awards on the festival circuit, had a short but successful domestic run, and was released in the late-90’s on DVD and video. The film starred acclaimed singer/songwriter, J.D. Souther, and featured one of her favorite performers, David Crosby, in a small but memorable cameo. Co-starring as a prodigal rock and roll singer attempting to find balance between dreams, reality and men who’ll commit, Lorraine co-wrote and recorded several of the songs on the soundtrack, one she performed as her character, winning accolades in her hyphenated role. (see Film Page for reviews.) Life took another unexpected but profound turn when she and the Lensman Company’s attorney, Pete Wilke, met and were married before the film was even edited, an event that heralded the most creative and fertile period of her life. Son, Dillon, followed and after living a life of travel and passionate pursuit, Lorraine took some time to breathe, revel in family, write a bevy of new songs and screenplays (see Writing Page), as well as develop her left-brain skills working as a management and development consultant in a variety of business arenas. Small theater and indie films were also her playground for much of this period, but as always, music again came knocking. With a variety of plates spinning throughout the early 00's, she immersed herself once again in band life with ROAD TO BLUE (see Music Page) and the eventual recording of her first full-length CD, Somewhere On the Way (see CD Page), a well-reviewed collection of soulful roots/rock originals which was marketed in a variety of innovative and refreshing ways. While continuing to work in the music industry, she also wrote and directed projects both creative and industrial, developing her expanding skills as a photographer along the way (see Photography Page). Most recently, Lorraine has embarked upon a transitional period in her work and business life (see Business Page), exploring a number of entrepreneurial endeavors that hold promise as well as seeking out other intriguing opportunities that utilize her considerable business skills. Never one to leave her Muse too far behind, she has just completed her first novel (see Writing Page) and begun her second, while continuing her travels around the world with camera in hand, developing a number of photographic projects based on her work. Ultimately, she experiences her greatest joy in life with her family, where all things creative are found and the legacy of inspiration continues.