Ling Chun | Ember

For our November theme of CHANCE, we’ve going to have an incredible talk from Hillel Cooperman. 

Hillel worked for Microsoft from mid-1997 to late 2006 as a program manager, a product unit manager, and all the positions in between. Now Hillel is the co-founder with Jenny Lam of Jackson Fish Market, a premier user experience and branding consultancy in Seattle, WA as well as makers of Slide Bureau and A Story Before Bed.

Tickets will be available November 3rd.

CMSEA: How do you define creativity and apply it in your career?
HC: I’m not really sure what this means. I guess if you forced me, I would say that creativity is the purpose of life. And I try to apply it to everything I do.
CMSEA: Where do you find your best creative inspiration?
HC: From people who underestimate me.
CMSEA: What’s the one creative advice or tip you wish you’d known as a young person?
HC: Yes, it’s true that you need to surround yourself with people who are better than you (I knew this already, but this next part I didn’t know) but that doesn’t mean you don’t have something amazing to contribute yourself.
CMSEA: Who would you like to hear speak at CreativeMornings?
HC: Neal Stephenson
CMSEA: What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?
HC: I turned off the Citgo sign that sits above Fenway Park.
CMSEA: Where was the last place you travelled?
HC: Shelburne Vermont. The inn was like the hotel in The Shining.

CMSEA: Thanks, Hillel! We’ll see you on the 3rd!

Hopefully you’ve had a chance to check out the video of Jay Neitz’s talk from our September event. If you’re interested in seeing the slides from his talk, you can download them here.

In honor of this month’s theme, Color, we’ve compiled a quick list of fun apps for exploring the world of color!

• SixColors Arcade - Addictive colorful puzzle game [iOS]
• Color Run - Color picker game - how fast can you go? [Web]
• Colors of Motion - Visualize the colors of movies. [Web]
• Color Spectrum - A better color picker for Mac. [Mac]
• The Colour Clock - What time of day - and color - is it right now? [Web]
• ROY G BIV - Color Synth that turns color into music! [iOS]
• har•mo•ny - Addictive puzzler game for rearranging colors to create harmon [iOS]
• Interaction of Color by Josef Albers - Interactive version of the definitive guide to color but Josef Albers.

We’re pleased to bring the brave entrepreneur Marc Barros to speak on our theme of FAILURE. Waitlist tickets are still available right here for his talk on August 8th.

CMSEA: How do you define creativity and apply it in your career?
MB: Being an entrepreneur is about creating the rules. When you start a new brand it has zero legacy, so you can approach a problem in an entirely new way. In order to be successful in creating companies you have to create a foundation that doesn’t exist today (purpose, values, brand, etc) and then find creative ways to stand out from the noise. The entire exercise requires creativity, from idea to a sustainable company. 

CMSEA: Where do you find your best creative inspiration?
MB: People + Traveling.

Watching people to learn behaviors so we can build better products. Traveling with my wife to discover new places together. There is something powerful about being in a new place and learning to survive with the person you love.

CMSEA: What’s the one creative advice or tip you wish you’d known as a young person?
MB: Learn to have an opinion.

I find for most people it takes a while to really know what they want, like, believe, etc. No different than how your food pallet develops over time as you try new foods, I find that life experiences help you to shape your own perspective on the world. Once you understand your values and really start to understand your own perspective, it gets much easier to be confident in your creative endeavors. Confidence is a really important aspect of being creative. 

CMSEA: Who would you like to hear speak at CreativeMornings?
MB: Vince Lombardi

CMSEA: What fact about you would surprise people?
MB: I’m an introvert.

CMSEA: What are you proudest of in your life?
MB: My family. 

For our HERITAGE theme, we’re pleased to bring you local artist, Andrew Morrison. You’ll recognize some of his beautiful mural work all over Seattle, including the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center. We hope you’ll join us on July 11 to hear his incredible story of his journey as a graffiti artist to nationally acclaimed artist. Free tickets are available here. 

CMSEA: How do you define creativity and apply it in your career?
AM: Creativity to me, is always being free in the most rudimentary sense of the word. Free to speak, free to love, free to sleep, free to laugh, free to walk, free to think, free to refrain, free to sit, free to run, free to eat, free to see, free to hear, free to dance, free to work, free to dream, free to feel, and free to break through any rudimentary man-made prohibitions that bear directly down upon the human spirit.

CMSEA: Where do you find your best creative inspiration?
AM: In the midst of a single breath, where perversity can not be held, this is where I find my greatest creative inspiration!

CMSEA: What’s the one creative advice or tip you wish you’d known as a young person?
AM: I wish it had been made crystal clear to me by a living human being, that man, the living creature is perplexed by Mother Nature’s simplicity. Her simplest signs show us that anything is possible and any mountain can be climbed, any wall can be shattered, any amount of success could easily be achieved, any wound will heal, any dream will manifest, any thought can move continents, any road can be traveled, any conflict can be avoided, any war can cease, any picture can be painted, any gallery can be built, any team can win, any tide can turn, any fortune can be obtained, any family can last, and any height of heaven can be reached.

CMSEA: Who would you like to hear speak at CreativeMornings?
AM: Russel Wilson

CMSEA: If you had a magic wand, where would you be in five years?
AM: Italy

CMSEA: What music are you listening to these days?
AM: Schoolboy Q

An Interview with June’s MINIMAL Speaker: Lee LeFever

Lee LeFever is the founder of Common Craft and author of The Art of Explanation. Lee and Common Craft are known for explaining complex ideas in short, animated videos. Since 2007 Common Craft’s videos have been viewed over 30 million times and and today his mission is to help professionals become better explainers. We had him answer a few questions to get us amped up for his talk on June 13!

CMSEA: How do you define creativity and apply it in your career?

LL: To me creativity is defined by the idea of choice. We all have more choices than we realize and a big part of being creative is being intentional about the choices we make, whether it’s making art or building a career. At Common Craft, we try not to do things because we’re supposed-to or because of someone else’s expectations. Instead, we do them because we’ve made a conscious and personal choice. In the end, our own version of creativity comes down to these choices, large and small. 

CMSEA: Where do you find your best creative inspiration?

LL: Outside. Dog walks have produced many of our best ideas. Getting away from the screens and desks seems to get the juices flowing like nothing else. 

CMSEA: What’s the one creative advice or tip you wish you’d known as a young person?

LL: I would tell a young me that creativity isn’t a specific thing, but a way of thinking, of approaching the world. As a young person, I saw creativity as something that happened in art class. You went in, got creative, and left. Today I see that creativity is embedded in every part of life and can be the secret sauce that makes nearly everything better.  I would tell a young me that creativity is lens through which you view problems, opportunities, steps and more. 

CMSEA: Who would you like to hear speak at CreativeMornings?

LL: Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal.

CMSEA: Us, too, Lee. Us, too.

CMSEA: What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?

LL: Probably getting blackout drunk with a Russian gangster on the trans-siberian railway in 2006. You can see him at the end of this video. 

CMSEA: What’s the most recent thing you learned (big or small)?

LL: Over the holidays I sat my parents down in front of a camera and did oral history interviews with them. Despite being known for video production, I had never done live action interviews in that way. I learned about lighting and sound, editing with Final Cut and how to piece together a couple of hours of footage into a story that captures their lives. I showed my whole family a rough cut last weekend and they loved it. This project was incredibly rewarding and I learned a ton about video, but also the history of my family.

Thanks again for joining us, Lee! There’s still room for you to join us for his talk, “Optimizing Happiness by ‘No’” and you can grab your tickets (or hop on the wait list) right here.

An Interview with Hollis Wong-Wear

We are so excited to have Grammy-nominated Hollis join us at CreativeMornings! She’ll be speaking on May’s theme of FREEDOM and if her speaker Q&A is any indication, it’s going to amazing. We’re still taking names our wait list for the event, so don’t let that stop you from joining us! More info here.

CMSEA: How do you define creativity and apply it in your career?

HWW: I define creativity as equal parts imagination and ambition. I think to really explore and apply one’s creativity, it takes that leap of faith to imagine something anew, and a *lot* of work, tenacity and drive to take abstract ideas into real-life. Experimentation, and then dedication. I really try to understand all facets of my career as creative forays - whether I’m shaping and honing my life show as a vocalist and performer with The Flavr Blue, collaborating with someone else on a track, or hustling as a hands-on music video producer. It takes dream and sweat. 

CMSEA: Where do you find your best creative inspiration?

HWW: Growing up, my absolutely favorite thing to do was read. I still love to read novels - they can be so triumphant, creating vivid new realities with simple text and paper. When I delve into novels, I often emerge sparkly and inspired. 

CMSEA: What’s the one creative advice or tip you wish you’d known as a young person?

HWW: I recently reconnected with journaling - the three-page-a-day Artist’s Way thing - while on a retreat at Hedgebrook on Whidbey Island. I journaled a lot when I was younger and my habit trailed off because I was “too busy,” or probably just avoiding that introspection. I think in the current landscape of social media it’s so tempting to have our personal documentation be spiffed up and broadcasted for the world to see and affirm, but it’s really important to keep that private documentation going, to face the page. I feel the first half of my twenties would have been much improved by doing so. 

CMSEA: Who would you like to hear speak at CreativeMornings?

HWW: Neko Case!

CMSEA: What practices, rituals or habits contribute to your creative work?

HWW: Even in the digital era, I make sure to write all of my lyrics and ideas by hand. I’ve gone down to LA a couple of times to do writing sessions with different producers and artists and it charms them to see I’m still pen-to-paper. For me it’s important to have a kinetic element to my cerebral writing process, and serves as a great point of reference to what I’m thinking and the key phrases and images going on in my mind. I never seem to open up word documents, but can instantly flip through to what I was thinking and writing the day before. 

CMSEA: What was the best surprise you’ve experienced so far in life?

HWW: Not to be too cliche, but being nominated for a Grammy was a huge surprise. Working on The Heist with Macklemore and Ryan Lewis was an immersive and rewarding process in its own right, and to see how such a Seattle-based, organic collective process could achieve recognition in the most mainstream platform of the music industry was a shock - especially because my name was right there! I had no idea it’d be a possibility but it was definitely a rewarding feeling.

Coming This Friday!

AM: There’s still room on the wait list for Hollis Wong Wear’s talk on FREEDOM. Sign up here!

PM: We’re gathering drinks and good conversation at Tommy Gun. We’d love to have you join us. More info on that here.

We’ve invited Sophia Iannicelli, the Festival Director of the Seattle Erotic Art Festival to bring us her talk on April 11, “Erotic Energy as a Creative Force”. Sophia has centered her life around the arts as a creator, muse, collaborator, curator and event producer for the last 14 years and is sure to bring us a fresh and unexpected talk to CreativeMornings/Seattle. 

CMSEA: How do you define creativity and apply it in your career?
SI: I put my creativity into two camps: reactive and generative. The Generative Creative is the person who says, “Hey, I have an idea!” A Reactive Creative is the person who hears an idea and says “And then we could to tweak it and turn it into this other completely different thing!” It helps me to be more productive when I can focus on my energies toward one end of the spectrum or the other. As the Director of the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, I have to come up with an overarching feel and theme of the event and then I need to help other people make their ideas a reality. It takes a lot of creativity to take someone’s fantasy and implement the core essence of it in reality.

CMSEA: Where do you find your best creative inspiration?
SI: In order: Interacting with other people. Visual Art. Music.

CMSEA: What’s the one creative advice or tip you wish you’d known as a young person?
SI: Making art isn’t magic and it isn’t reserved for the blessed few with innate brilliant skill. Everyone makes bad art and when you are first starting out, more of it is bad than good. Get over it. Learn from it. Make the next thing.

CMSEA: Who would you like to hear speak at CreativeMornings?
SI: Painter Crystal Barbre (NSFW). I heard her speak once on the mechanics of her choosing her topic and the actual painting. I would love to hear more about idea generation and her creative process.

CMSEA: What books made a difference in your life and why?
SI: Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. The idea that gods and goddesses can only live so long as people believe in them was mind blowing.

—-

Get your tickets for CM/SEA right here.

For this month’s theme of HIDDEN, we’re pleased to bring you Annie Han and Daniel Mihaylo, the partners at Lead Pencil Studios. Specializing in installation art at the architectural scale, they’ve exhibited all over the world. Their work is the kind that immediately strikes you as different—it’s clear they think about things differently, they operate on a different scale. We knew they are a wonderful fit for this month’s theme because their work says as much by what it leaves out as what it includes.

Tickets for their March 14th talk at the EMP is available right here!

—-

CMSEA: How do you define creativity and apply it in your career?

LP: Having a vision, applying every faculty, stopping for nothing until it is finished and released into the world.  

CMSEA: Where do you find your best creative inspiration?
LP: Between big projects and in the middle of a good book.  

CMSEA: Love it! What books are you reading right now?
LP: We’re currently re-reading some favorites. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, Black Zodiac by Charles Wright, Species of Spaces by Georges Perec

CMSEA: What’s the one creative advice or tip you wish you’d known as a young person?
LP: Get the best education you are capable of,  regardless of cost & location.

CMSEA: Who would you like to hear speak at Creative Mornings?
LP: Tim Keck - Publisher of The Stranger
 
CMSEA: What was the best advice you were ever given?
LP: “If you’re not doing now what you always wanted to do today, you probably won’t be doing it tomorrow.”

CMSEA: What books made a difference in your life and why?
LP: The Collected Writings by Robert Smithson. A book of short writing that challenges and expands what it means to be creative in this era. Also, Art of Hunger by Paul Auster. A book of essay about life, art and observation that introduced writers, philosophers and artists I didn’t know and reminded me that the most meaningful discoveries and thoughts happen in solitude.

CMSEA: What is the one movie or book every creative must see/read?
LP: Sculpting in Time by Andrie Tarkovsky.