TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

Carlee Wright

TEDxSalem launches Artist in Residence program

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TEDxSalem has just launched an Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram.

This pro­gram pro­vides sup­port for an artist to cre­ate an art instal­la­tion that will help set the tone for our event, com­mu­ni­cate the event theme and con­vey an ‘idea worth spread­ing.’

The Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram is a TEDx Incu­ba­tor Project that was start­ed by TEDxMt­Hood (for­merly TEDx­Con­cor­diaU­Port­land), which was the first large-scale event to have an Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram where local artists work in con­junc­tion with the main event. TEDxSalem is one of the first events to launch an Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram under the men­tor­ship of TEDxMt­Hood.

It is a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty for an artist to share their work with a new audi­ence and in a new, dynam­ic way.

Are you an artist? Click here to learn more about the TEDxSalem Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram.

Happy New Year…Save the Date!

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TEDxSalem Buttons
TEDxSalem But­tons

Hap­py New Year!

A great deal of thought is put into every aspect of TEDxSalem, from the speak­ers to the loca­tion, the recess activ­i­ties to the food served. One of the most excit­ing aspects of plan­ning our event each year is pick­ing a theme. But sur­pris­ing­ly, it is not always as easy as it sounds.

The con­cept of theme is some­thing in the back of our minds all year round. We want an idea that is focused but open, unique but under­stand­able. When get­ting down to busi­ness for select­ing this year’s theme, we talked about it for days. Back and forth, a few ideas here and there. A thought ran­dom­ly in a mes­sage. A note scrib­bled in the mid­dle of the night.

TEDxSalem theme graphics by Von Glitschka
Past TEDxSalem theme graph­ics by Von Glitsch­ka www.vonglitschka.com

As my co-cura­tor Bri­an Hart will tell you, the themes for our first two events seemed to come to us pret­ty easy, but this year it was hard to find the right word for TEDxSalem 2015.

“We want some­thing that push­es bound­aries, some­thing that doesn’t sound too com­mon, but is instant­ly rec­og­niz­able and gets you in the right mind­set,” he said.

Sit­ting at the Gov Cup, where the mag­ic hap­pens, bounc­ing ideas off one anoth­er. The con­cept of courage was brought up, but courage just did­n’t have the right ‘oompfh.’

Then we start­ing brain­storm­ing. It went some­thing like this…

Car­lee: brave, brav­ery, courage, fear­less, adven­tur­ous…

Bri­an: That’s it! FEARLESS!!

After the ini­tial excite­ment sub­sided, we thought about it fur­ther to make sure it was indeed the right word — the right theme.

“It passed every test,” said Bri­an. “I imme­di­ate­ly thought the ques­tion: ‘What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?’ I think about this ques­tion often and I try to live life as if I could not fail at any­thing I want­ed to accom­plish. Way back, when we were cave­men and women, our fight or flight instincts saved our lives, but now a lot of our fear is hold­ing us back from our true poten­tial. I thought about how fear­less our speak­ers are for get­ting on stage and shar­ing their idea worth spread­ing, how our plan­ning team and all of our vol­un­teers are fear­less, and how our atten­dees are fear­less leav­ing their inhi­bi­tions at the door and look­ing for­ward to what the day will bring.”

It takes courage to be fear­less, but being fear­less holds some­thing a lit­tle more than just courage. It is that extra step, that abil­i­ty to face any­thing, to take on the most dif­fi­cult sub­ject or task with a cer­tain ener­gy.

Be fear­less.

And mark your cal­en­dar. We look for­ward to see­ing you on Octo­ber 3 at TEDxSalem 2015.

Things to do while in Salem…in addition to TEDxSalem

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I Love Salem
I Love Salem by Car­lee Wright

As tick­ets sold and reg­is­tra­tions rolled in, we noticed many out of town atten­dees will be join­ing us at TEDxSalem this year.

As the event begins ear­ly, we antic­i­pate some peo­ple will be join­ing us the day before. Addi­tion­al­ly, we expect some may elect to stay the night after they expe­ri­ence the won­der and inspi­ra­tion of our TEDx event. We hope this is the case, because as much as we love host­ing TEDxSalem, we also love shar­ing our fair city.

So if you are here for an extend­ed stay, here are some ideas to make your week­end one of the most event­ful of the year.

Like live music?
Lev­el B The­ater Pub, 445 High St SE, fea­tures late night live music both Fri­day and Sat­ur­day.
Check out the diverse pop stylings of Wam­pire, Miss Mas­sive Snowflake, Coro­na­tion and Thomas Mudrick 9 p.m. Fri­day. Doors open at 8 p.m. Cost is $15. And at 9 p.m. Sat­ur­day, local band Whisky Nick and the Dusty Bot­tles opens for Boston band Tall Heights. Doors open at 8 p.m. Cost is $7.

Inter­est­ed in art?

The Hal­lie Ford Muse­um of Art, 700 State Street (at the cor­ner of State and Cot­tage streets), fea­tures a num­ber of per­ma­nent gal­leries that reflect the cul­ture and her­itage of the Pacif­ic North­west, in addi­tion to rotat­ing fea­tured exhibits. Right now, “John James Audubon: The Birds of Amer­i­ca” is on dis­play and “A Con­tem­po­rary Bes­tiary” will be open­ing Sat­ur­day. It is open Fri­day 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sun­day 1 to 5 p.m. (It is also open Sat­ur­day, but you will be busy, right?!) Cost is $6, $4 for age 55 and old­er; $3 for edu­ca­tor or col­lege stu­dent with school ID.

Look­ing for some­thing cul­tur­al?
Eigh­teen miles north­east of Salem you will find the quaint town of Mt. Angel. This week­end is their annu­al Okto­ber­fest event with live music and enter­tain­ment, plus food and beer galore. Get all the details at their web­site: www.oktoberfest.org 

Or maybe you want some­thing Celtic? Ceili of the Val­ley Society’s Pan Celtic Ceili is hap­pen­ing 8 p.m. Fri­day. It fea­tures Irish, Scot­tish and Bre­ton music by Eugene band D’nA plus ceili (social) danc­ing. There is a les­son offered at the begin­ning of the night, and dances are called, so no expe­ri­ence is nec­es­sary. And it is not required that you bring a part­ner, either. Cost is $10. Doors open at 7 p.m. For infor­ma­tion vis­it: www.ceiliofthevalley.org

Aim­ing for the out­doors?
Salem boasts over 2,200 acres of parks. Of spe­cial inter­est is River­front Park, 200 Water St. NE. It is a 23-acre park locat­ed in down­town Salem right off the Willamette Riv­er. Here you can see the EcoEarth Globe, also called the acid ball. It was orig­i­nal­ly a large tank that held acids used by Boise Cas­cade and has been upcy­cled into pub­lic art. At the park, you can also vis­it Salem’s River­front Carousel, which is open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Fri­day and Sat­ur­day and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sun­day. Rides are $1.50 per per­son.

At the edge of River­front Park is the Union Street Walk­ing Bridge which spans the Willamette Riv­er. It is a ver­ti­cal lift, Pratt through truss bridge that was built in 1912–1913 which has been con­vert­ed for use by pedes­tri­ans and bicy­cles. It also joins down­town Salem to West Salem.

A sec­ond pedes­tri­an bridge from River­front Park to Minto-Brown Island Park is also under devel­op­ment. Learn more at http://www.cityofsalem.net/mintobridge

Just want to explore?

Talk a walk­ing tour of His­toric down­town Salem. Along the way you will find a vari­ety of eater­ies, gal­leries, and shops.

We hope your vis­it here com­ple­ments your expe­ri­ence at TEDxSalem as thought-pro­vok­ing, inspi­ra­tional and uplift­ing

PS: If you are com­ing from out of town and have not yet made a room reser­va­tion but would like one, we rec­om­mend the Grand Hotel which just hap­pens to be a cou­ple blocks from the TEDxSalem venue! Addi­tion­al­ly, if you are look­ing for more Things to Do, check out the States­man Jour­nal Things to Do page and the Trav­el Salem cal­en­dar.

#salemsgotmoxie Instagram Contest

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#salems­got­mox­ie TEDxSalem Insta­gram Con­test

Did you know…

The theme for TEDxSalem 2014 is MOXIE, which is defined as a force of char­ac­ter, deter­mi­na­tion, courage, ener­gy, or nerve.

TEDxSalem wants to know: What does MOXIE mean to you?

Show us some­thing with MOXIE. It could be you your mom, your cat, your couch (or your mom’s cat’s couch)

Post your “MOXIE” pho­to to Insta­gram and tag them #salems­got­mox­ie
(If you want, you can also tag @tedxsalem)

The pho­to with the most likes on Insta­gram by 10 p.m. PST Wednes­day, Sep­tem­ber 3rd will be award­ed two free tick­ets to TEDxSalem on Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 13 at the His­toric Elsi­nore The­ater. That’s a retail val­ue of $100. Actu­al val­ue: price­less.

There is no lim­it to how many pho­tos you can enter, so get snap­ping. The con­test begins now and runs through Sep­tem­ber 3, 2014. Don’t delay, share your MOXIE today!

(Fine print: Prize is not redeemable for cash. Win­ner will be con­tact­ed upon con­test com­ple­tion. We must hear back from the win­ner with­in 48 hours to claim prize. If we do not hear back with­in 48 hours the tick­ets will be award­ed to the own­er of the pho­to with the sec­ond most likes. All pho­tos must be prop­er­ty of the per­son who posts them.)