TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

through the looking glass

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.

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.

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.

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.

Kaydee Kreitlow: Sanctuary amidst skyscrapers

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“Sanc­tu­ary is a state of mind,” says Kaydee Kre­it­low from behind a lat­te dur­ing a Sun­day after­noon rush at Archive Cof­fee & Bar.

“But the built envi­ron­ment can either encour­age or dis­cour­age that.”

Amid the bus­tle and noise of bused tables, the 34-year-old Salem res­i­dent and licensed archi­tect recalls a moment dur­ing her trav­els in Europe when she says she found her sanc­tu­ary, at an urban renew­al project in the Nether­lands called Silo­dam.

A for­mer run-down dam and silo in an indus­tri­al area, the site had been repur­posed and restored as for­ward-think­ing liv­ing spaces ris­ing direct­ly above the waters of the Ams­ter­dam har­bor. It was not a typ­i­cal place to find seren­i­ty, she says, but sit­ting alone there on a deck and tak­ing in the sights, some­thing moved her.

“I had this moment of pure joy and hap­pi­ness for being there in this spot,” she says. “There was nobody around, it was just me and the build­ing and the water.”

Knowl­edge of archi­tec­ture can help dis­cov­er sanc­tu­ary in non-tra­di­tion­al places in the built envi­ron­ment, accord­ing to Kre­it­low, and cre­ate it our­selves in our own sur­round­ings.

For Kre­it­low, who grad­u­at­ed from Pratt Insti­tute in 2006, archi­tec­ture has always been a pas­sion. Hav­ing grown up in a geo­des­ic dome in Beaver­ton, she has always had an eye for what’s pos­si­ble with cre­ative lay­out and design, she says. She jokes that when she trav­els, all her pho­tos are of build­ings.

“The way that I look at the world is dif­fer­ent from most peo­ple,” she says. “When I’m in a space, I appre­ci­ate the lay­out of the space, think­ing of how some­thing could have been done dif­fer­ent­ly.”

Accord­ing to Kre­it­low, archi­tec­ture has a unique abil­i­ty to influ­ence our sense of peace.

Dur­ing her trav­els, Kre­it­low spent a few months in Rome where she would wan­der the streets of the ancient city, using a famous Giambat­tista Nol­li engraved map from 1748 as a guide.

“Rome is a city of 500 church­es,” she says. “Almost from any street you’re in, you’re going to see anoth­er church.”

It was a pro­found expe­ri­ence, she says, sens­ing the seren­i­ty radi­at­ing out­ward from the foun­tains and ancient edi­fices.

From the streets of the Eter­nal City to a Salem alley­way, even to a sin­gle bath­room stall, says Kre­it­low, sanc­tu­ary can be made any­where.

“It’s going to be dif­fer­ent for every­one,” she says, but there are a few spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics all sanc­tu­ar­ies pos­sess.“Sanc­tu­ary is a time and a moment where you’re very much in the present.”

“You can get that in any city.”

Speak­er: Kaydee Kre­it­low

Pro­fes­sion: Licensed archi­tect

Pet: How­land, Ger­man Shep­herd / Retriev­er mix

Hob­bies: Draw­ing, sewing, DIY

Favorite Movie: Robin Hood: Men in Tights — “If you’re watch­ing it and you’re not pay­ing atten­tion, you miss some of the humor. I like that.” Also Rata­touille.

Favorite Music: Alter­na­tive, tech­no and ambi­ent music, includ­ing the music of Eman­ci­pa­tor – “I’m the kind of per­son who needs back­ground music all the time. It helps me focus.”

Favorite Book: The Foun­tain­head, by Ayn Rand — “It reminds me to always do my best… I can sep­a­rate the ide­al­ism of Howard Roarke (the book’s pro­tag­o­nist) from the one-per­cent phi­los­o­phy.”

Favorite Meal: The roast­ed Whiskey Riv­er salmon and gar­lic mashed pota­toes at the Best Lit­tle Road­house in Salem

Favorite Drink: The moji­to by Giles at the Hos­tel Tevere in Ver­mont

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.

Get your early bird ticket to TEDxSalem V

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Ear­ly bird tick­ets for TEDxSalem V, “Through the Look­ing Glass,” go on sale on Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 1.

A lim­it­ed sup­ply of ear­ly bird tick­ets will be avail­able start­ing at 9 a.m., through the rest of the month. 

With an ear­ly bird tick­et, you’ll get every­thing you’d get with a stan­dard tick­et (admis­sion to the full day of talks by our speak­ers, enter­tain­ment, par­tic­i­pa­tion in recess breaks, hands-on activ­i­ties between ses­sions, plus food through­out the day, a gift bag and a few oth­er good­ies) but with a $10 dis­count.

Ear­ly bird tick­ets are avail­able in a lim­it­ed quan­ti­ty for a lim­it­ed time. Sales end on Sep­tem­ber 30 or when sold out.

Reg­u­lar tick­et sales begin Octo­ber 1.

Have you heard? Our theme this year is “Through the Look­ing Glass.” Learn about the design for our new logo.

Have you met our onstage host, Kei­th Seck­el? Check out his 2015 host­ing expe­ri­ence.

Have you seen our speak­er line­up? Check them out here.

So what are you wait­ing for? See you at TEDxSalem on Jan­u­ary 6, 2018, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

Tick­ets are avail­able online at tedxsalem.eventbrite.com.

Ear­ly bird tick­ets are $45 and avail­able until Sept. 30. Stan­dard advance tick­ets are $55. Stu­dent advance tick­ets are $45.

Ques­tions? Feel free to email us at info@tedxsalem.us.