As an old show biz baby, I know that two of the most exciting and terrifying words are “sold out.” Today I experienced both emotions as I watched some of the most compelling students, educators, technologists, startups, artists and entertainers perform the talk of their lives at TEDx Navesink.
For the past five months, I’ve been collaborating on the “Makers” conference,” helping to nurture and support some extraordinary individuals who spoke on the topic of creating.
Among them are super talented, Emmy-award winner Chris Dudick, and speech therapist/ expert on autism Bernadette Mullen, who have created a remarkable program to help children who are on the autism spectrum learn social skills — using avatars.
Garry Kvistad, a Grammy award-winning percussionist who’s performed at global concert halls with the world’s great symphonies and founder of Woodstock Chimes, creates the most astonishing sounds with his beautiful instruments.
A remarkable tie-in with Small Factory’s talk is the Woodstock Chimes story about Tyler, a young boy with autism who loves chimes:
http://www.chimes.com/t-autism.aspx
Akin Shoyoye, a young entrepreneur in the autonomous vehicle space, flew in to NJ from his new gig in Silicon Valley to talk about how he became enamored of the “self-driving car” revolution.
http://tedxnavesink.com/02/2016/can-self-driving-cars-change-the-world-a…
Gary Mottola, who practically single-handedly led the revitalization of the mythic Asbury Park, has a compelling talk about how he and his team purposefully and strategically drew AP out of the depths of urban privation into the most exciting city on the East coast shoreline - dubbed “the Brooklyn of the Jersey Shore.
The phenomenal Rinde Eckert played ukulele and accordion and spoke marvelously about embracing creativity with the challenge of the blank page. He says, “I think I do my best work in an atmosphere of joy and critical thought, in that order. There is such a thing as soul, and good theatre elevates it.”
Ken Carbone, artist extraordinaire, spoke about overcoming his creativity block by committing to a discipline — of creating an apple a day for 365 days.
The conference featured talks about the essence of creation by 30 makers from NJ, NY and around the globe. We make things up — to make art, music, novels, movies. We’re in a revolution of making so vast we don’t notice it.
I’m so lucky to have been asked to work with these remarkable artists, designers and creators. Every one of them inspired me so much today and I am beyond proud of them all.
Life is what you make it. Make your mark.
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