TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

Christopher David

Cayla Skillin-Brauchle: An artist with questions

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Cayla Skillin-Brauchle

TEDxSalem is proud to intro­duce our 2018 artist-in-res­i­dence Cay­la Skillin-Brauch­le, who will bring the theme “Through the Look­ing Glass” to life on stage through her art. The theme’s idea of shift­ing per­spec­tives inspired her work.

Cay­la sees the look­ing glass as a kalei­do­scope or a mag­ni­fy­ing glass, but also a mir­ror, all of which show art’s capac­i­ty to give us dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives, she said.

An assis­tant pro­fes­sor of art at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty, Cay­la is excit­ed for her involve­ment in this year’s TEDxSalem.

“I think it’s inspir­ing to hear peo­ple’s sto­ries of find­ing their a‑ha moments,” she said.

She’s also excit­ed to get to know the Salem com­mu­ni­ty bet­ter and meet peo­ple who are inter­est­ed in think­ing cre­ative­ly about com­mu­ni­ty and oth­er fields.

Cay­la moved to Salem two years ago after spend­ing a year in India on a Full­bright Schol­ar­ship. She enjoys liv­ing and work­ing in west­ern Ore­gon in all but one way. Cay­la says she has lived in the trop­ics dur­ing mon­soon sea­son, but that expe­ri­ence did not pre­pare her to “under­stand the length and depth of the rainy sea­son in Ore­gon.”

She also enjoys the small­er com­mu­ni­ty feel of Salem. Cay­la grew up in a rur­al com­mu­ni­ty in cen­tral Ver­mont ‚“which has four true sea­sons.” She finds Salem to have a sim­i­lar ethos of self sus­tain­abil­i­ty and out­door appre­ci­a­tion.

Cay­la describes her­self as a con­cep­tu­al artist who seeks to chal­lenge peo­ple’s per­cep­tions regard­ing both what and how they think. Many of her projects com­bine com­plex draw­ings, bright col­or­ful cos­tumes and per­for­mance.

“A lot of my work is absur­dist. I often set up scenes that are absurd…the func­tion of that is to allow peo­ple to con­sid­er oth­er pos­si­bil­i­ties than they do in their every­day life.”

Cay­la will not only design the instal­la­tion, but will also give a talk and lead a recess activ­i­ty. She hopes that peo­ple will be inspired to think about the dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives in Salem.

Pets: No. I have a part­ner and a gar­den. That’s enough. We trav­el a lot.

Favorite Movie: “Amelie”

Favorite Book: “Bell Hooks”, Teach­ing to trans­gress is very inspir­ing to me right now.

Favorite Music: I’m cur­rent­ly lis­ten­ing to a lot of the B52’s. They are awe­some, weird fem­i­nist musi­cians. Also, girl rock from the 80’s and 90’s, singer song­writ­ers, and music I can dance to.

Favorite Food: Right now, the toma­toes from my gar­den.

Favorite Salem Food: Flash fried Brus­sels sprouts from Tap­root Lounge & Cafe

Favorite Drink: Milk shakes at Minto Island Grow­ers farm stand.

Hob­bies: Gar­den­ing and cook­ing. “I like to do stuff with things from my gar­den, like mak­ing pick­les.”

Creativity in action

In coop­er­a­tion with the Salem Art Asso­ci­a­tion through a pro­gram cater­ing to the Artist-in-Res­i­dence con­cept, Cay­la will be work­ing on her TEDxSalem stage instal­la­tion on-and-off at The Annex from Dec. 12 to Jan. 6.

Salem Art Asso­ci­a­tion exhi­bi­tions are always free and open to the pub­lic. Gallery hours are Tues­day-Fri­day from 10 am‑5 pm, and Sat­ur­day-Sun­day from Noon‑5 pm (Annex week­end hours may dif­fer, please call 503–581-2228 to check avail­abil­i­ty). Learn more at salemart.org/programs/annex.

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Brad Burge has an ‘idea worth spreading’ for a solution to help with PTSD

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Brad BurgeTEDxSalem is proud to announce anoth­er sur­prise speak­er for our Jan­u­ary 6, 2018, event “Through the Look­ing Glass.”

A few months ago, Brad Burge returned from Burn­ing Man, the tem­po­rary city of artists and cre­ators in the Neva­da desert. He was there vol­un­teer­ing for the Zen­do Project, a group that sup­ports peo­ple who are hav­ing dif­fi­cult episodes with psy­che­delics or oth­er drugs.

Brad is Direc­tor of Strate­gic Com­mu­ni­ca­tions for the Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Asso­ci­a­tion for Psy­che­del­ic Stud­ies (MAPS), an asso­ci­a­tion that rethinks the role of psy­che­del­ic drugs in our soci­ety. The Zen­do Project falls in line with the first part of MAPS’ mis­sion: edu­cate and reduce harm.

“We don’t call it a bad trip,” Brad said, “because every psy­che­del­ic event brings up infor­ma­tion that needs to be dealt with. The Zen­do Project has found that they can pro­vide sup­port in a way that offers the best out­come pos­si­ble.”

Tra­di­tion­al respons­es of police or med­ical per­son­nel, while well mean­ing, he said, can make a bad trip worse. Those respons­es don’t allow a per­son to fin­ish pro­cess­ing the thoughts and mem­o­ries that have come up. At Zen­do Project, in con­cert with law enforce­ment and med­ical staff, they sit with the per­son, offer sup­port and lis­ten until they are safe to return to their friends. Brad reports that the ser­vice is so suc­cess­ful that Burn­ing Man is plan­ning for a sec­ond Zen­do Project facil­i­ty next year.

The sec­ond part of MAPS’ mis­sion is to pro­vide research into new ways of treat­ing psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders with psy­che­del­ic drugs. Rather than being counter-cul­ture, MAPS works with­in the sys­tem to explore the legit­i­mate ben­e­fits psy­che­del­ic drugs may have in treat­ing men­tal health.

Brad describes the results they are see­ing in their work with PTSD as “real­ly promis­ing.” So promis­ing that the FDA grant­ed them break­through ther­a­py des­ig­na­tion, which means pre­lim­i­nary clin­i­cal evi­dence indi­cates that the drug may demon­strate sub­stan­tial improve­ment over exist­ing ther­a­pies. They are now mov­ing into phase III of clin­i­cal tri­als.

Brad’s per­son­al sto­ry brought him to MAPS while he was work­ing on his doc­tor­ate at UC San Diego. After study­ing both psy­chol­o­gy and com­mu­ni­ca­tions at Stan­ford, Brad’s mas­ter’s research on psy­che­delics inter­sect­ed with his own jour­ney of men­tal ill­ness.

He had been on lithi­um for near­ly 11 years when he had his first expe­ri­ence on a psy­che­del­ic drug. Brad’s train­ing and edu­ca­tion on the evils of psy­che­delics stood in sharp con­trast to his expe­ri­ence.

“For my whole life I had been raised to believe that men­tal health phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals work like keys in a lock… that I was some­how bro­ken and need­ed to be fixed… For the first time in my life I felt like I could be a whole per­son… I felt like I had been miss­ing out on oppor­tu­ni­ties to grow.”

Brad’s per­son­al expe­ri­ence of the impact that ther­a­peu­ti­cal­ly guid­ed psy­che­delics could have has moti­vat­ed him to edu­cate peo­ple about the pol­i­tics of drugs in our soci­ety and to pro­mote the legal research of the ben­e­fits that these drugs can have.

Come to TEDxSalem and hear the rest of Brad’s sto­ry as he offers us a glimpse into an unex­pect­ed future for psy­chi­a­try in Amer­i­ca.

Speak­er: Brad Burge

Pets: “My part­ner has a pet, a beau­ti­ful lit­tle cat, Maho, that is very talk­a­tive, and I have effec­tive­ly adopt­ed her.”

Favorite Movie: “Sci-fi always works. I am super into imag­in­ing what the future holds.”

Favorite Book: “Dune”

Favorite Music: Grate­ful Dead or glitchy tech­no. Brad also con­firms lis­ten­ing to Alaba­ma 3 “for sure.”

Favorite Food: Sala­mi. “Because it keeps for a long time out of the fridge.”

Favorite Drink: Guaya­ki Yer­ba Mate

Hob­bies: Big time back­pack­er: “I just got back from a 45-mile hike through Sequoia and King’s Canyon in Cal­i­for­nia Sier­ra. I hope to find some back­pack­ing or hik­ing while I am in Port­land.”

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Mas Blue comes to TEDxSalem in January

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TEDxSalem is proud to announce one of the first of our sur­prise speak­ers —

Mas Subramanian

Mas Sub­ra­man­ian trans­formed the world’s col­or palette in 2009 when he dis­cov­ered the first new blue pig­ment in near­ly 200 years.

The world respond­ed with won­der for YIn­Mn Blue, a bright, elec­tric hue. Cray­ola released its “Blueti­ful” cray­on as a cel­e­bra­tion of his dis­cov­ery. Artists have embraced the new blue, which was recent­ly released as an oil paint by the Shep­herd Col­or Com­pa­ny.

Many refer to it as Mas blue, a nod to the inventor’s name and the word for more in Span­ish. Artnet.com even announced that this dis­cov­ery will be chron­i­cled in Har­vard Art Museum’s pig­ment col­lec­tion.

“I have filed a lot of patents in my life,” Mas said, “but none have changed my life like this one.”

Mas, a pro­fes­sor of mate­r­i­al sci­ences at Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty, first sub­mit­ted his research to the Jour­nal of Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety  in 2009. Since then he has been fea­tured by The New York Times, NPR, the Ore­gon­ian, Men­tal Floss, Quartz, Busi­ness Insid­er, Fast Co. design, The Tele­graph, Forbes, Today, NY Mag, and even Cos­mopoli­tan.

But Mas didn’t just dis­cov­er a new blue, he dis­cov­ered a new way to pro­duce pig­ment for both blue and many oth­er col­ors as well.  YIn­Mn blue is non-tox­ic, has heat-reflec­tive prop­er­ties and is set to rev­o­lu­tion­ize indus­tries from home and auto paint to roof­ing.

As a young boy in India, Mas was inspired to pur­sue the life of a sci­en­tist by the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which he con­sid­ered one of the great­est movies ever made.

“What was fic­tion in the movie became real­i­ty. The movie showed a tablet-like device which resem­bled the iPad of today. That was amaz­ing!”

Mas earned a Ph.D. in Chem­istry from Indi­an Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, Madras, India and was a post­doc­tor­al fel­low at Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty. He has writ­ten sev­er­al books and worked as lead researcher for DuPont Chem­i­cals.

Mas was raised in the Hin­du faith, which has had a sig­nif­i­cant impact on his life and giv­en him val­ues to pat­tern his life after.

“I con­sid­er Hin­duism a “phi­los­o­phy” rather than a reli­gion. Respect is an extreme­ly val­ued com­po­nent of the every­day life in India.”

Mas says the val­ues of renun­ci­a­tion, giv­ing, ded­i­ca­tion, truth and non-vio­lence have helped him to live well and be a bet­ter per­son. Mas also makes a point to influ­ence his com­mu­ni­ty.

“One of my pas­sions is to inspire young minds (both boys and girls) to become sci­en­tists.”

Mas also invites two to three local high school stu­dents to his lab at OSU each year to gain hands-on expe­ri­ence in sci­en­tif­ic research.

Mas and his wife love trav­el and learn­ing about oth­er cul­tures and cus­toms. They recent­ly spent three weeks in the Aus­tralian out­back learn­ing about Abo­rig­i­nal Aus­tralian cul­ture.

Mas says trav­el is the best kind of edu­ca­tion he has expe­ri­enced.

“Trav­el gives me time to think, observe and learn new things — cul­ture, food, his­to­ry.”

TEDxSalem is excit­ed to wel­come Mas and his ‘idea worth spread­ing.’

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Seth Tichenor: Why philosophy?

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“Why phi­los­o­phy?” Seth Tichenor has been answer­ing that ques­tion for more than 20 years.

For Seth, it’s just the way he thinks. He remem­bers hav­ing his first philo­soph­i­cal thought at age 3, but it wasn’t until col­lege that he real­ized it was what he want­ed to do.

“I was talk­ing with a friend,” he recalls, “when he point­ed out that what­ev­er I do, I’m going to approach it from a philo­soph­i­cal per­spec­tive.”

Seth, a 2018 TEDxSalem speak­er, real­ized that he would always ask ques­tions such as “why do we do it this way?” “how might oth­ers do this?” and “even if we could, should we?”

Now he talks phi­los­o­phy to any­one will­ing to lis­ten, whether it’s part of his work as a phi­los­o­phy pro­fes­sor, life­guard, swim instruc­tor or dri­ver for vis­it­ing musi­cal acts.

Seth describes him­self as an Ore­gon native and a for­mer All-Amer­i­can swim­mer liv­ing in Asto­ria with his part­ner Gad. He finds a way to use all his pas­sions to bet­ter the com­mu­ni­ty. He spends a lot of his time as a life­guard and swim instruc­tor. With all the water sur­round­ing Asto­ria, Seth sees it as a pub­lic ser­vice.

But the Philosophar­i­an project is his pas­sion.

The Philosophar­i­an project aims to bring phi­los­o­phy into the lives of every­day peo­ple. It start­ed with pro­mot­ing local phi­los­o­phy talks and grew into a larg­er project that includ­ed a road trip of prac­tic­ing “guer­ril­la phi­los­o­phy tac­tics.”

Seth bemoans the fact that study­ing phi­los­o­phy doesn’t finan­cial­ly pen­cil out for most stu­dents. The Philosophar­i­an vision treats phi­los­o­phy as a nor­mal part of the real world. It was inspired by stu­dents who were inter­est­ed in phi­los­o­phy, but who didn’t have room for it in their class sched­ules and Gad’s back­ground in Alter­na­tive Edu­ca­tion and Kines­thet­ic Learn­ing.

In his free time, Seth stays active with hik­ing and water sports. He is a com­pet­i­tive swim­mer in mid­dle dis­tance but­ter­fly and freestyle.

“I’m like Seabis­cuit,” he said, com­par­ing his water skills to the race horse. “I’ve got finesse.”

His swim back­ground also influ­ences the way he thinks. Seth describes his world and his phi­los­o­phy as being dynam­ic and emerg­ing, much like water.

“Water makes its way into a lot of my think­ing,” he said. “My class­room looks out over the Colum­bia, and I will make a ref­er­ence to water at least once a week in my lec­tures.”

Seth also enjoys paint­ing and doing cos­tum­ing work with Gad. He has been a pro­fes­sor of phi­los­o­phy for 23 years and teach­es at Clat­sop Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege. He was named teacher of the year in 2015. He has an M.A. in Phi­los­o­phy of Reli­gion from Boston Uni­ver­si­ty and is a PhD can­di­date at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hawaii at Manoa in Com­par­a­tive Phi­los­o­phy.

If you have ever won­dered how phi­los­o­phy might be rel­e­vant to you, come see Seth at TEDxSalem and expe­ri­ence his guer­ril­la phi­los­o­phy tac­tics for your­self.

Speak­er: Seth Tichenor

Favorite Book: The Glass Bead Game by Her­mann Hesse: “It real­ly dis­cuss­es the strengths and lim­its of for­mal intel­lec­tu­al aca­d­e­m­ic work.” Or Can­nery Row by John Stein­beck.

Favorite Music: Chet Baker’s jazz, Arcade Fire and art rock, old punk, under­ground hip hop such as Dead Prez.

Favorite Food: “Thai or Indi­an food with vibrant tastes – I’m aes­thet­ic, but not a good sense of smell. I also got a taste for that kind of food while attend­ing grad school in Hawaii.”

Favorite Drink: “I’m very fond of Fort George Vor­tex IPA, or a well-made Man­hat­tan or a Moscow mule.”

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.