TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

TEDxSalem V

Samantha Chisholm Hatfield: Combining science with storytelling

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As we edge ever clos­er to our big day, we intro­duce one more per­former and pre­sen­ter for our event: native sto­ry­teller and sci­en­tist Saman­tha Chisholm Hat­field, whose inter­ac­tive sto­ry­telling tech­niques com­bine the oral tra­di­tion­al knowl­edge of Native Amer­i­cans with stan­dard sci­en­tif­ic inquiry to con­vey a fuller pic­ture of the envi­ron­ment.

Dr. Chisholm Hat­field earned her doc­tor­ate from Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty in Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ences, with a focus on the tra­di­tion­al eco­log­i­cal knowl­edge (TEK) of Siletz Trib­al Mem­bers. She is an enrolled mem­ber of the Con­fed­er­at­ed Tribes of Siletz Indi­ans, from the Tutut­ni and Chi­nook bands, and is also Chero­kee.

Dr. Chisholm Hat­field has worked with the Ore­gon Cli­mate Change Research Insti­tute, and has worked to coor­di­nate trib­al par­tic­i­pa­tion in North­west Cli­mate Sci­ence Cen­ter and USGS Cli­mate Boot Camp work­shops. Her dis­ser­ta­tion has been her­ald­ed nation­al­ly by schol­ars as a pio­neer­ing tem­plate for TEK research. She is a Native Amer­i­can Long­house Advi­so­ry Board mem­ber at Ore­gon State, and a fea­tured blog­ger for the Union of Con­cerned Sci­en­tists. She was select­ed as an H.J. Andrews For­est Vis­it­ing Schol­ar, and cho­sen as a Kore­an Foun­da­tion Fel­low­ship Field Research Schol­ar to study TEK in South Korea.

Dr. Chisholm Hat­field talked with us about her per­for­mance, and the val­ue of bring­ing Native per­spec­tives into the study of ecol­o­gy.

TEDxSalem: Talk a lit­tle about your appear­ance at this year’s event.

Saman­tha Chisholm Hat­field: I’m very excit­ed to bring a strong Native voice to offer a per­spec­tive not many have heard, or are even aware is there!

Look­ing through a Native look­ing glass out at the world pro­vides a rich depth and tra­di­tion­al views that are long­stand­ing. I offer a look at what grow­ing up Native “looks” like, what it takes to become an aca­d­e­m­ic pro­fes­sion­al, and why I do the work I do.

Many peo­ple are unaware of the rich­ness that Native Amer­i­can cul­ture brings, as well as the long­stand­ing and cur­rent con­tri­bu­tions that Native cul­ture holds.

TxS: How do you believe it ties in to the theme of the event, “Through the Look­ing Glass?”

SCH: Many times it is assumed that per­spec­tives are all the same, or that a clas­sic stereo­type is cor­rect. Per­spec­tives vary from per­son to per­son when look­ing at the world, and the depth and breadth of cul­ture brings about a beau­ty that many miss when they assume or accept a stereo­type.

A look­ing glass can hold mul­ti­ple facets, depend­ing on the angle, so to [see] the light that shines through a Native “angle” is some­thing most have not had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence. The dom­i­nant world­view most are accus­tomed to see­ing, hear­ing, and believ­ing is not always the only view.

TxS: You’ve men­tioned that there are very few Ph. Ds doing what you do in the Native com­mu­ni­ty. Do you see your­self as a role mod­el for oth­ers Native Amer­i­cans to fol­low?

It’s not up to me to say. I hope to be show­ing a dif­fer­ent way to look at sci­ence and look at native cul­ture. So all peo­ple through TEK can gain anoth­er per­spec­tive, anoth­er way to see how the world works, and what diver­si­ty real­ly means.

TxS: What would you want the audi­ence to come away with, hav­ing learned about indige­nous TEK? What is your hope for the event?

SCH: I’d like for par­tic­i­pants to be more aware about the depth of indige­nous knowl­edge and TEK; how sto­ries are the back­bone of our tra­di­tions and the term “sto­ry” often entails mul­ti­ple lev­els. Enter­tain­ment has a pur­pose and is often a very effec­tive tool used for teach­ing.

I also look for­ward to [shar­ing] what it takes to live in two worlds, and the chal­lenges Natives face as they live and work in main­stream soci­ety. Native Amer­i­cans have often been termed the invis­i­ble minor­i­ty because of the lack of acknowl­edge­ment, and I rou­tine­ly hear indi­vid­u­als say they have nev­er met a Native per­son, when in real­i­ty chances are that they know some­one who is Native but don’t rec­og­nize it due to stereo­types and assump­tions.

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place 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.

Make the most of your TEDxSalem experience

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We’re less than two weeks away from TEDxSalem V “Through the Look­ing Glass.” Don’t have tick­ets yet? Don’t wor­ry, you can still get them here.

Do we all have our tick­ets now? Good! Now read these ten tips on how to get the most out of your TED expe­ri­ence Jan. 6 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

10. Take notes! Bring a small note­book or down­load a notes app for your smart­phone. You def­i­nitely want to remem­ber those moments that made you smile, made you think or just jumped out at you. Take a moment dur­ing the event and at the end of the day to jot down the insights you gained.

9. Be present in the moment. We love that you want to Tweet and Insta­gram about your amaz­ing TEDxSalem expe­ri­ence. But don’t get so wrapped up in your phone that you miss a poignant moment dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion or a TED talk!

8. Be open-mind­ed. Some of the ideas worth shar­ing may be shock­ing. Some might be a lit­tle con­tro­ver­sial or entire­ly new to you. Don’t write off a TED talk even if you find your­self bristling at it. Be open to new ideas!

7. First in the door, last out the build­ing. Get there ear­ly. You can find your seat, chat up the per­son next to you, get com­fort­able and see what oth­er good­ies await through­out the day. Last year, par­tic­i­pants had the oppor­tu­nity to pur­chase books writ­ten by our speak­ers or get some awe­some TEDxSalem swag. Stay the whole day and leave late. Lis­ten to every sin­gle talk. Do the break­out ses­sions. Ask a mil­lion ques­tions. By the end of the day, you won’t want to leave!

6. Bring some­thing to share. It can be some­thing tan­gi­ble like your busi­ness card or some­thing that’s not like a thought-pro­vok­ing ques­tion or a great book you’ve read recent­ly.

5. Do your research! We love a good sur­prise, and we hope some of the top­ics and thoughts will be delight­fully sur­pris­ing. But there’s some­thing to be said for get­ting excit­ed about your favorite speak­er ahead of time! Take a moment to read the TEDXSalem blog for more infor­ma­tion about each speak­er. Revis­it last year’s speak­ers to get in the spir­it of TED! Or vis­it the offi­cial TED blog for more engag­ing TED talks and choose a few favorites.

4. Net­work, net­work, net­work! TEDxSalem is not a pas­sive or iso­lated expe­ri­ence. You are at the beau­ti­ful Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter with hun­dreds of peo­ple just as excit­ed about new ideas as you are! Talk to every­one. Intro­duce your­self. Don’t ask what they do for a liv­ing — ask what they’re pas­sion­ate about. Make friends, get con­tacts, dis­cuss the TED talks with them. Force your­self a lit­tle out of your com­fort zone and chat up a stranger. (Did the intro­vert in you just cringe? It’s ok. TEDxSalem is for intro­verts, too.)

3. Our vol­un­teers are a resource! They are the heart, soul and back­bone of TEDxSalem, and they are there to make your expe­ri­ence extra­or­di­nary. If you need any­thing at all, don’t hes­i­tate to ask them!

2. Be sure to par­tic­i­pate in the break­out ses­sions. One high­light of TEDxSalem is our speak­ers, but there’s so much more that goes on through­out the day. If you real­ly want to make the most of your time, don’t shy away from sit­ting in on the break­out ses­sions and shar­ing your own ideas. It’s all about mak­ing you think.

1. Immerse your­self in the spir­it of TED! TED is a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion devot­ed to spread­ing ideas, usu­ally in the form of short, pow­er­ful talks. It began in 1984 as a con­fer­ence where tech­nol­ogy, enter­tain­ment and design con­verged (hence the name) and now cov­ers almost all top­ics, includ­ing sci­ence, busi­ness and glob­al issues. Keep all of this in mind as you approach Jan. 6. The day is devot­ed to shar­ing ideas!

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, 2018, 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.

Tippy Toe: Taking over the TEDx stage

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As if there wasn’t enough to see and do, atten­dees of this year’s TEDxSalem event “Through the Look­ing Glass” will be treat­ed to a per­for­mance by Salem’s own Tip­py Toe Dance Stu­dio.

The stu­dio focus­es on bal­let, but also teach­es hip-hop, con­tem­po­rary, and pas de deux, along with fit­ness class­es and com­pet­i­tive danc­ing.

Those who came out to 2015’s “Fear­less” event will remem­ber their lights-out com­bi­na­tion per­for­mance with the Tru­Root break­danc­ing squad.

We sat down recent­ly with stu­dio founder Rebec­ca Swish­er, 32, and stu­dio man­ag­er Nicole Tea-Pel­ley, 20, about their upcom­ing per­for­mance.

TEDx Salem: Tell us about the start of the stu­dio.

Rebec­ca Swish­er: “We cre­at­ed it in 2009, and I had been work­ing local­ly as a chore­o­g­ra­ph­er for quite some time. And I kept being asked by friends and peo­ple that I would meet in the com­mu­ni­ty: ‘Oh, could you just teach my child dance, or my friend dance,’ and so I start­ed with just a hand­ful of stu­dents, actu­al­ly in my back­yard, we built a small stu­dio for it.

And I just kept think­ing, if I’m going to have a stu­dio, I want­ed to do it dif­fer­ent­ly than stu­dios had been in the past. So, we’ve real­ly grown into this family…We real­ly focus on dancers find­ing their indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, their own cre­ativ­i­ty, and just feel­ing free to express them­selves in any way. And we’ve real­ly become a fam­i­ly out of that.”

Nicole Tea-Pel­ley: “From the ground up from the lit­tle kids to the old­est dancers – We have peo­ple who are in their lat­er twen­ties here – every­body knows every oth­er per­son who dances at the stu­dio, and we all can build off of that, and we become bet­ter dancers off of that.

We all have dif­fer­ent traits and you’ll see that in every stu­dio, but com­pared to oth­er places that I’ve seen, we real­ly embrace that, and we use that to make our­selves bet­ter and more well-round­ed.”

TxS: How do you feel your per­for­mance will align with this year’s theme, “Through the Look­ing Glass?”

RS: “…when I think of TEDx, I think of a safe place where peo­ple come togeth­er to share ideas, and how it has this rip­ple effect with­in our com­mu­ni­ty when we share ideas with each oth­er. When think­ing ‘through the look­ing glass,’ I thought of that and put it on a larg­er scale.

Our piece express­es not always going with just the norm, not always just fit­ting in a par­tic­u­lar social group or way of think­ing… We’re try­ing to express to peo­ple being open to new ways of think­ing and real­ly expe­ri­enc­ing free­dom from that.

Once you’re will­ing to chal­lenge the way you’re think­ing a whole new world can open up to you.”

TxS: What can the TEDx audi­ence look for­ward to? What are you going to hit us with?

NTP: “They won’t just see dancers on a stage — they’re going to see real peo­ple, and the real emo­tions that peo­ple go through, as they, as Bec­ca was say­ing, break out of the norm of soci­ety and real­ly con­nect with some­thing in them­selves.

Because no mat­ter what somebody’s jour­ney is, every­body has gone through some­thing sim­i­lar to that, in one way or anoth­er. With this piece we are real­ly try­ing to con­nect with peo­ple on that lev­el. We get real­ly real, we get to points where we’re not doing spe­cif­ic moves, but we’re just being our­selves, and I think that peo­ple will real­ly be kind of shocked by that. And it’ll make them think real­ly hard.”

RS: “There’s also a lit­tle bit of sur­prise ele­ments in the dances, of pair­ing togeth­er dif­fer­ent styles of dance that you wouldn’t nor­mal­ly think of putting togeth­er.”

TxS: Tell me there’s going to be break­danc­ing!

RS: “There’s a lit­tle bit of break in there, yeah.” (laughs)

TxS: How do you keep it fresh?

RS: “Well, I don’t pay atten­tion to what oth­er peo­ple are doing. We def­i­nite­ly do things our own way, and we all play a part in chore­og­ra­phy, and we move the way we’re feel­ing.”

TxS: What do you want to accom­plish at TEDxSalem this year?

RS: “I want to feel like our mes­sage has been heard, and I think TEDx is a real­ly good plat­form for that. For me as an artist, when I have some­thing that I need to express, I need to be able to know that I was heard or I was seen, and it’s like some­thing in me that has to get that out.”

NTP: “I’m excit­ed about the con­nec­tion between the audi­ence and us. TEDx has audi­ence mem­bers from all walks of life, but def­i­nite­ly there’s a strong sense of peo­ple who do have the artis­tic and cre­ative minds there. And I think that if we can con­nect with some of those peo­ple and impact some of those peo­ple, that’s where we get real­ly cool new and big ideas, and that’s where that flow starts to go that we real­ly are inspired by.”

TxS: Now this is real­ly impor­tant — How are you going to avoid hit­ting the TEDxSalem sign when you dance?

RS: “That’s a real­ly good ques­tion. We’ve actu­al­ly been tap­ing out our stu­dio [floor], to say if you cross this line of tape you are going to be hit­ting the TEDx sign. So right now that’s our plan of attack.”

Learn more about the stu­dio at www.tippytoedancestudio.com, and join us Jan. 6 to catch ’em live on our stage.

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, 2018, 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.

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.

Noah Strycker: Seeing the world, one bird at a time

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Noah StryckerIt all start­ed with the bird feed­er.

Specif­i­cal­ly, the bird feed­er that Judy Kap­pler attached to her fifth grade classroom’s win­dow at Oak Hill Ele­men­tary School in Eugene. Every time a new bird came to vis­it that feed­er, she paused the class to observe it.

One of her stu­dents, Noah Stryck­er, was riv­et­ed. So much so that he built his career on birds, writ­ing books about them and pur­su­ing them all over the world.

Stryck­er has just pub­lished his third book, Bird­ing With­out Bor­ders, about what’s known in the bird­ing com­mu­ni­ty as “The Big Year” – a com­pe­ti­tion to trav­el far and wide to iden­ti­fy as many bird species as pos­si­ble, whether by sight or by sound.

His first expo­sure to the Big Year was at the age of 12, when he picked up King­bird High­way, Kenn Kaufman’s mem­oir of drop­ping out of high school to do his own Big Year in the 1970s. Stryck­er says he “read that book over and over,” but the goal to embark on a Big Year of his own coa­lesced when he was a stu­dent at Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty, writ­ing for Bird­ing mag­a­zine along­side his course­work.

After grad­u­at­ing in 2008 with a Fish­eries and Wildlife degree, he made birds his full-time career, work­ing on field projects with var­i­ous uni­ver­si­ties. One of his first such projects out of col­lege saw him camp­ing out in Antarc­ti­ca with a colony of 300,000 Adélie pen­guins – which became the basis of his first book, Among Pen­guins.

When Stryck­er final­ly start­ed his Big Year in Jan­u­ary 2015, he’d hoped to iden­ti­fy at least 5,000 birds around the world. His grand total by Decem­ber 31 was 6,042 – at the time, a world record – and he esti­mates he was able to iden­ti­fy 95% of them by sight. His trav­els took him to all sev­en con­ti­nents (only one of which, Africa, he’d nev­er pre­vi­ous­ly vis­it­ed), to both remote and sur­pris­ing­ly mun­dane loca­tions such as cities, farms and land­fills.

He jokes that he speaks three lan­guages: “Eng­lish, about 80% Span­ish, and Bird.” That came in handy when trav­el­ing across 41 coun­tries, some­times with bird­ers who spoke no Eng­lish; the only lan­guage he had in com­mon with them was that of bird names and bird calls. The sheer size and scale of the glob­al bird­ing com­mu­ni­ty was a wel­come sur­prise to him.

“Birds are uni­ver­sal crea­tures,” Stryck­er says. “Birds are so uni­ver­sal that they break down our human bor­ders … it doesn’t mat­ter who you are or where you’re from, birds are around you. They con­nect peo­ple more than oth­er things [in nature] … any­one can watch them.”

Strycker’s not one to sit still for long – hav­ing just wrapped up a mul­ti-state book tour for Bird­ing With­out Bor­ders, he’s now off to work in Antarc­ti­ca as the res­i­dent bird expert for Quark Expe­di­tions, which leads sight­see­ing tours of both polar regions. When he’s not on a Quark voy­age, he works as the asso­ciate edi­tor of Bird­ing.

Out­side of that, Stryck­er says he prefers to focus on one project at a time. In this case, that’s his next book: an upcom­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with Nation­al Geo­graph­ic called Birds of the Pho­to Ark, slat­ed for April 2018.

And, of course, his upcom­ing TED talk. The sub­ject: how birds con­nect the world.

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.

Marie Greene: Bringing the Maker movement to center stage

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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.