TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

Speakers

Marie Greene: Bringing the Maker movement to center stage

By

Marie Greene

Marie Greene is a mak­er.

When she was bare­ly dou­ble-dig­its, she learned the lyri­cal lan­guage of knit­ting, a skill inher­it­ed at her grandmother’s side.

An end­less cre­ative out­let, knit­ting pro­vid­ing con­tin­u­ous learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and a con­stant chal­lenge. And for a mul­ti­tasker, like Marie, it was also a great com­pan­ion activ­i­ty that com­ple­ment­ed her life through­out the years. Whether dur­ing her time as a project man­ag­er in hos­pi­tal finance, while rais­ing her three boys, or with her activist and com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ing activ­i­ties, knit­ting could (and did) hap­pen any­where.

Even­tu­al­ly, Marie’s hob­by turned into a pas­sion that launched a new career — knitwear design­er — allow­ing her to join her ana­lyt­i­cal skills with her cre­ative side.

“It’s some­thing I’ve known my whole life, but I def­i­nite­ly didn’t turn it into a busi­ness on pur­pose. I sort of fell into that,” she said.

And while Marie may spend many hours rapt in yarn — she is an entre­pre­neur after all — when she steps from her cre­ative cocoon, she nev­er far from her cre­ative com­mu­ni­ty. In addi­tion to lead­ing the Salem chap­ter of the Ris­ing Tide Soci­ety, a group that helps and sup­ports those involved in cre­ative busi­ness­es, she also loves to write, cook and trav­el.

“I just got back from a cou­ple weeks in Europe where I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to teach knit­ting, vis­it a cou­ple coun­tries, enjoy some great food, and see some ter­rif­ic archi­tec­ture which real­ly inspired me,” Marie said. “I take a lot of ideas that I come across while I am trav­el­ing, espe­cial­ly in regards to archi­tec­ture, and I trans­late it into my designs.”

But for Marie, the act of cre­ativ­i­ty goes beyond her job a pat­tern design­er, beyond the art of knit­ting. She’s also a fiber guru, an obses­sive food­ie, an ama­teur gar­den­er, a wife and a moth­er. Encom­pass­ing it all, Marie is a mak­er. And being a mak­er exceeds the act of just creating…it’s telling a sto­ry, shar­ing a piece of his­to­ry, pass­ing on a tra­di­tion. It’s self-expres­sion. It’s art. It’s func­tion. And it’s also the top­ic of her “idea worth spread­ing” that she’ll share at TEDxSalem V on Jan. 6.

Speak­er: Marie Greene

Lives in: Salem. Marie, her hus­band and three boys moved to Salem — on a whim — just over four years ago. “We came out for a vis­it and just felt so con­nect­ed to the com­mu­ni­ty. We knew instant­ly we were home.”

Job: Knitwear design­er at Olive Knits

Favorite book: Essen­tial­ism: The Dis­ci­plined Pur­suit of Less by Greg McK­e­own. “There are oth­er books I love but as some­one who has the ten­den­cy to want to do all the things all the time, that book is a real­ly good reminder. Helps me come back to cen­ter, to what I am here for, what I real­ly want to accom­plish. I reread it every 6 months. It helps me check in with myself.”

Favorite food: Cheese and wine (Her rec­om­mend­ed wine is any Stoller Reserve Pinot)

Favorite movie: Fly Away Home. “It’s so super cheesy, but I total­ly love that movie.”

Guilty plea­sure: Nordic noir. Grit­ty, moody for­eign crime dra­mas on video or audio.

Fun Fact: Marie is chron­i­cal­ly ear­ly. “I wake up ridicu­lous­ly ear­ly in the morn­ing — 3:30 a.m. is my aver­age wake up. I am such a morn­ing per­son. All my best stuff hap­pens in the morn­ing.”

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.

Jackson Rayne: Magician. Escape artist. TEDxSalem speaker.

By

Jackson Rayne

Illu­sion­ist. Escape artist. World record break­er.

TEDxSalem explores more than ‘ideas worth spread­ing’ at its Jan­u­ary 6th event, which will fea­ture both a talk and per­for­mance by Las Vegas-based magi­cian Jack­son Rayne.

When asked what he is pas­sion­ate about in life, Jack­son is quick to respond: peo­ple.

“I love learn­ing and I love teach­ing and inspir­ing oth­ers. Life is tough and I feel great pur­pose when my work can pos­i­tive­ly affect peo­ple through enter­tain­ment,” he said.

No stranger to Salem, Jack­son attend­ed Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty where he grad­u­at­ed with his BA in Eco­nom­ics. It’s also where he gained nation­al media atten­tion for his first under­wa­ter escape and real­ized his oppor­tu­ni­ty of a career in mag­ic.

And for the past 25 years, Jack­son has been push­ing the extremes, both phys­i­cal and men­tal, through dynam­ic illu­sions and dar­ing escapes. What began for the fun of learn­ing, devel­oped into a call­ing that’s earned Jack­son a place on cen­ter stage as a head­lin­ing per­former as well as recog­ni­tion on nation­al tele­vi­sion.

But it doesn’t stop there. Jack­son is also the hold­er of mul­ti­ple world records.

“I broke the fastest escape from a posey strait­jack­et,” Jack­son said. “My orig­i­nal record break­ing time was 7.26 sec­onds which I can now beat by quite a bit. I also broke the world record for most escapes from a straight jack­et in one hour with 54 escapes.”

“I did­n’t even know I was capa­ble of break­ing a world record,” he said. “The first time I was locked up the jack­et it took me 45 min­utes to escape but I did it. Once I fig­ured out the most effi­cient route it was just a mat­ter of time. It actu­al­ly looks very easy now when I escape because it hap­pens so fast.”

Join us at TEDxSalem to hear illu­sion­ist Jack­son Rayne’s ‘idea worth spread­ing’ and pos­si­bly a lit­tle some­thing else we might have up our sleeve.

Speak­er: Jack­son Rayne
Hob­bies: Flag foot­ball, golf, snow­board­ing, and trav­el­ing the world
Favorite food: New York style Piz­za and sushi
Favorite place to relax: Aru­ba
Favorite beach: Horse­shoe Bay, Bermu­da
Favorite peo­ple: Mani­la, Philip­pines
Favorite cul­tur­al des­ti­na­tion: All of Japan

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.

Creativity for all: Meet TEDxSalem speaker Laura Mack

By

Laura Mack

Art makes the impos­si­ble pos­si­ble.

Salem artist Lau­ra Mack bridged the gap between Trump and Hillary sup­port­ers even if it was just on can­vas. She start­ed with pho­tographs of scream­ing pro­test­ers and then redrew the faces in char­coal, soft­en­ing their eyes, clos­ing their mouths.

“I tried to turn these angry pro­test­ers into thought­ful lis­ten­ers,” she said, “bring­ing us to the table to lis­ten to each oth­er.”

She hopes peo­ple see that it’s pos­si­ble to find com­mon ground. Mack doesn’t have much time for her art these days as a moth­er of two, col­lege instruc­tor and art advo­cate, but she does spend a lot of time think­ing about the cre­ative process.

The abil­i­ty to see things and solve prob­lems in a new way is not just for artists, she said. It’s a vital skill for every­one.

That thought inspired her to cre­ate a class at Chemeke­ta Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege that fos­ters the cre­ative process. Most of her stu­dents don’t con­sid­er them­selves artists.

Art is one of the tools she uses to teach, but it’s not the only one. Stu­dents also do improv, cre­ate lists, per­form, make books and invent. One time she asked stu­dents to pick two objects, such as a bench and a con­vey­er belt, and think up 50 inven­tions.

“After about nine,” she said, “things start to get inter­est­ing.”

“We’ve been trained to get one right answer,” she said, “instead of stick­ing with it and com­ing up with a bet­ter idea.”

That process of being inspired, ask­ing ques­tions, tak­ing time, incu­bat­ing ideas and refin­ing leads to bet­ter ideas whether that’s in com­put­er sci­ence or psy­chol­o­gy, she said.

But many col­lege stu­dents strug­gle at first because they haven’t thought this way since ele­men­tary school, she said. As an art advo­cate, Mack devel­ops pro­grams that will keep the cre­ative process in schools through col­lege.

“Cre­ativ­i­ty needs to be main­tained from a very young age,” she said. “We don’t want to wait until col­lege.”

When she’s not teach­ing or cre­at­ing, Mack hangs out with her two boys, hus­band and their new pup­py Vad­er as in Darth Vad­er.

“It’s an iron­ic name because he’s incred­i­bly sweet,” she said.

She also vol­un­teers at her son’s school, offer­ing art class­es. That expe­ri­ence inspired anoth­er pro­gram meant to fos­ter the cre­ative spark. Hear more about Mack’s vision to keep that spark going in Salem-Keiz­er schools and in class­rooms around the world at TEDxSalem V.

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.

Rose Barker: The Value of Identity

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TEDxSalem speak­er Rose Bark­er is equal parts world trav­el­er and safe­ty guru.

 

She spent a year in Ecuador doing every­thing from vol­un­teer­ing at a church and orphan­age to get­ting her kite­board­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and swim­ming in the ocean near­ly every day.

 

“It was a full expe­ri­ence,” she says.

 

She also lived in Mex­i­co for about a year, vol­un­teer­ing as an inter­preter for sev­er­al non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions.

  

Yet she bal­anced her desire for adven­ture with an empha­sis on safe­ty. A self-described “para­noid trav­el­er,” Bark­er invent­ed a ‘Pass­port Pock­et’ to safe­ly and com­fort­ably con­ceal pass­ports, mon­ey and oth­er vital doc­u­ments inside one’s cloth­ing.

 

Despite her focus on safe­ty and pro­tec­tion, her out­ward dis­po­si­tion is friend­ly, open. The first word that comes to mind is ‘ebul­lient.’ Not only in the way that she greets vis­i­tors with a hug and insists on offer­ing them some­thing to eat, but in the way she talks — thought­ful­ly, ani­mat­ed­ly.

Bark­er believes strong­ly in social jus­tice and liv­ing in com­mu­ni­ty. She worked at CAPACES Lead­er­ship Insti­tute, a Wood­burn-based non­prof­it geared toward devel­op­ing advo­ca­cy in Oregon’s migrant farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty. It was dur­ing her time at CAPACES that Bark­er got inter­est­ed in increas­ing access to legal ser­vices, which she calls “empow­er­ing.”

“You have to know what your rights are in order to stand up for your­self,” she says.

Her inter­est in advo­ca­cy and safe­ty even­tu­al­ly merged and led to a career as a cer­ti­fied risk man­age­ment con­sul­tant. She gives talks to employ­ers and state agen­cies about the impor­tance of, and use­ful tech­niques for, pro­tect­ing one’s iden­ti­ty from hack­ers and thieves.

 

“Our iden­ti­ties,” she says, are “one of the most valu­able things we own.”

 

And reclaim­ing your iden­ti­ty is a tough bat­tle. Vic­tims can have a chal­leng­ing time prov­ing that some­one else stole and assumed their iden­ti­ty to com­mit a crime. Iden­ti­ty theft, she said, is one of the few crimes where the vic­tim is guilty until proven inno­cent.

 

She hopes to help oth­ers pro­tect them­selves before it’s too late. If you want to learn about the inter­net of things and how to keep your­self safe, check out Barker’s talk Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6 at TEDxSalem.

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.