i'll be here next thursday...

Fear Not at the Trickster Arts Salon

From Jennifer Maria Harris, the artist:

Trickster  is a monthly Arts Salon that describes itself as a clubhouse for artists, seekers, thinkers, and players dedicated to community, creativity, and openness. This month's theme is appropriate for the start of the new year: the Juke Joint at the Crossroads, with a juke joint being a place to eat, drink, and dance your blues away, and crossroads being a place to make new decisions. This one-night event will include an installation of Fear Not Radio and Fear Not Indirect Mail,  performances by We are the unReal, Tom Jonesing, Wesley Frederick, and  DJ Fact.50, a workshop on connecting with your Wild Self by Gino Dante  Borges, body painting, a photo booth, and general merrymaking. Costumes are encouraged, though not required, and drinks are BYO.

I hope to see you there!

Trickster Arts Salon
2519 Mission Street

San Francisco

January 27, 2011

8PM - Midnight

a spa day for our professional minds!

wow! i showed up for a free conference at san francisco's herbst theater yesterday. even considered not going. but since i went, looks like i've had a life-changing experience.

what was it? the *dynamic adaptability conference: new thinking and new strategies for the arts*. when introduced by the director of grants for the arts at city and county of san francisco (yes, we have that), kary schulman explained how the conference planning committee decided to design the kind of conference art world professionals would pay thousands of dollars to attend... but let's make it free!

ah, the power of free!

i would have been suspicious that the conference was jenky, except for the option to reserve your own box lunch! for free also! at that point during pre-registration i felt they must have excellent funding.

turns out the wallace foundation is in the middle of a four year grant with an over $7 million budget. their charge is basically to research best practices for artists to be supported, promoted, sustained. which in turn builds and sustains our communities.

the agenda of the 9am-5pm conference covered

• the brain science behind creating and appreciating art,
  
• data and stats on the professional lives of artists and how to best engage with their audience,
  
• inspiration for creating a deeper connection between artists and their communities, and finally
  
• an overview of demographic and technological changes

{jonah lehrer and holly sidford}

the highlight of the day came for me at the beginning with johah lehrer's presentation on the science behind decision-making. the research he shared helped illustrate that there is a scientific reason behind things we do. for me, the data released some of the burden that *i should be different, better, faster...* and he also provided a solution for success: being educated on how the mind functions, accepting the mechanisms of how we work, and staying focused on harnessing the strengths of these outcomes.

in fact, the whole tone of the day was highly focused on what's *right* in our artistic worlds. there was a lot of good news. as artists, we've already accepted a life-long recession. topics of the day pointed out ways to hyper-succeed at leveraging our best practices, of engaging with our communities, of bringing excitement and joy into the lives of our audience members, making them part of the process, bringing us all together.


all in all it's pretty simple and straight-forward:
find art you like. have a better life.


*i'll be sharing more specifics of my experience at this conference over the next week, including a list of actionable take-aways! chime in if you were at the conference or have heard about the organizations or presenters who participated!