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TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

Micayla Lally

Rebecca Shapiro sets the stage for TEDxSalem

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Rebec­ca Shapiro’s art runs the gamut from post­card-sized cre­ations to 40-foot wide instal­la­tions using every­thing from glue, 24K gold foil and encaus­tic, pig­ments mixed with hot beeswax.

She is a Port­land author and artist adept in paint­ing, draw­ing, pho­tog­ra­phy and more. She is also rec­og­nized as the cre­ator of the inter­na­tion­al TEDx Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram.

We are thrilled that she’s com­ing to TEDxSalem as our Artist in Res­i­dent Jan. 5. She and mem­bers of the Black Uni­corn Col­lec­tive cre­at­ed the stage dis­play that will set the tone and con­vey this year’s theme. 

It’s clear that her theme about trans­for­ma­tion is an under­cur­rent in all of her work, whether as a free­lancer her­self, encour­ag­ing and pro­mot­ing the work of oth­er peo­ple, or striv­ing to express what she and oth­ers feel through the many medi­ums at her fin­ger­tips.

She stud­ied graph­ic design, med­ical illus­tra­tion, pho­tog­ra­phy and print­mak­ing and received a BA in stu­dio art from Smith Col­lege. Her pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence includes col­lec­tions, domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al com­mis­sions, exhibits and involve­ment with TEDx pro­grams local­ly and in Cana­da.

She has been a pub­lic speak­er for TEDx events around the US and is a cham­pi­on of inde­pen­dent work­ers, pro­mot­ing advo­ca­cy and net­work­ing for free­lance work­ers. As an author, Rebec­ca focus­es on oppor­tu­ni­ties for inde­pen­dent work­ers and max­i­miz­ing rela­tion­ships with oth­ers for mutu­al ben­e­fit.

Much of her fine art is abstract and metaphor­i­cal, striv­ing for rela­tion­ships and con­nec­tion. Her pieces have been dis­played in Whistler, CA, Northamp­ton MA, and New Zealand as well as at the Port­land Inter­na­tion­al Air­port. 

She will share more of her inspir­ing expe­ri­ences with her own work as the back­drop on Jan. 5.

Rebec­ca Shapiro

Home­town: Port­land, OR, born at OHSU

Fam­i­ly: daugh­ter Anie, son Tobi­ahs, dog­go Bear, hedge­hog Kiko, and mouse Gre­go­ry Rod­er­ick Rem­ing­ton

Hob­bies: hunt­ing for mush­rooms, pho­tog­ra­phy, invent­ing and mak­ing stuff, trav­el, talk­ing to strangers

Music: jazz, Appalachi­an & folk music

Favorite author: JRR Tolkien & Diana Gabal­don

Favorite food: dark choco­late & whisky

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. 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.

Popular healthstyle blogger Darya Rose comes to TEDxSalem

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Darya Rose is a neu­ro­sci­en­tist, author and pop­u­lar blog­ger who has trained her sights and tal­ents on solv­ing the age-old prob­lem of eat­ing healthy and los­ing weight.

Her holis­tic approach to food and health is a breath of fresh air com­pared to the stuffy super­mar­ket shelves of diet shakes and appetite sup­pres­sants.

After receiv­ing her BA in Mol­e­c­u­lar and Cell Biol­o­gy from UC Berke­ley, Rose received her PhD from UC San Fran­cis­co and writes about food, health and weight loss. Her web­site ‘Sum­mer Toma­to’ was one of TIME’s top 50 web­sites in 2011 and if social media is any indi­ca­tor, her mes­sage that “life should be awe­some” is reach­ing far and wide.

Rose describes her­self as a “food­ist”, which is a term for some­one who has aban­doned diet­ing to enjoy life using real food and also the name of her book – Food­ist: Using Real Food and Real Sci­ence to Lose Weight With­out Diet­ing. After going through the mul­ti­verse of diet­ing from a young age, Rose has first-hand knowl­edge of why diets don’t work and the things peo­ple do to make them­selves an excep­tion to that rule.

Almost 10,000 peo­ple have joined Rose for one of her ongo­ing Mind­ful Meal Chal­lenges, and the feed­back speaks for itself.

“The feed­back I get from read­ers and stu­dents is by far the most reward­ing part of what I do. Hear­ing that some­one has end­ed their life­long strug­gle with diet­ing or their kids have learned to love cau­li­flower fills me with pride and joy.”

TEDx Salem VI is your oppor­tu­ni­ty to join Darya Rose as she dis­cuss­es how psy­chol­o­gy impacts our abil­i­ty to cre­ate healthy eat­ing habits. In the mean­time, we offer you a Q and A with Rose.

What is your top food indul­gence and how often do you eat it?

Peo­ple are often sur­prised to learn that I love burg­ers. I’m picky about where the ingre­di­ents come from (espe­cial­ly the meat), of course. But it is some­thing I indulge in about once a month.

Has preg­nan­cy changed your rela­tion­ship with food or your phi­los­o­phy and under­stand­ing of a healthy diet?

Preg­nan­cy has giv­en me much more of an appre­ci­a­tion for the influ­ences of hor­mones and phys­i­cal require­ments on hunger and crav­ings. I’ve learned there real­ly isn’t a lot you can do about how hun­gry you are or what you need to eat while preg­nant, not to men­tion while still nurs­ing. So I’ve been extra care­ful to try and make as many healthy choic­es as I can and stay active.

What is the Mind­ful Meal Chal­lenge and how is it dif­fer­ent than a diet?

The Mind­ful Meal Chal­lenge is designed to help some­one begin a mind­ful eat­ing prac­tice, which is a lot eas­i­er said than done. It’s only 5 days, focus­es on one meal a day, and does­n’t resem­ble a diet at all.

Does your approach work for every­one? Are there mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors includ­ing genes, health his­to­ry and life-long strug­gles with sig­nif­i­cant weight swings? 

I believe my approach does work for every­one in the sense that any­one can make improve­ments in their habits for the health­i­er and keep them. In terms of weight loss, every­one’s jour­ney is dif­fer­ent and there are a lot of fac­tors that can impact how dif­fi­cult or easy it is, includ­ing bio­log­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions and per­son­al cir­cum­stances. What’s impor­tant is that you main­tain a mind­set that this isn’t a sin­gle prob­lem with a sin­gle solu­tion, and you need to be will­ing to exper­i­ment. Good health is made up of many small, dai­ly habits, but not all those habits need to look the same for every­one. Be curi­ous about your­self, be will­ing to try many things, and most of all have patience. Healthy lifestyles aren’t built overnight.

Any­thing else that read­ers should know?

I’ve taught myself to like dozens of foods I used to despise, includ­ing cilantro (I have the gene!), beets, spinach, fen­nel, egg­plant, brus­sels sprouts, cucum­bers, lamb, liv­er, olives, oily fish, sea urchin, and prob­a­bly a bunch of stuff I’ve for­got­ten. I still strug­gle a bit with nat­to and car­doons, but I’ll eat them.

Darya Rose

Home­town: Orange, CA

Fam­i­ly: Hus­band Kevin, daugh­ter Zel­da, mini labradoo­dle Toast­er + new baby on the way (we’ve play­ful­ly nick­named her Smelda––Smelda Rose LOL)

Hob­bies: read­ing, hik­ing, cook­ing, eat­ing

Favorite Music: The Bea­t­les

Favorite author or book: “Foun­da­tion” by Isaac Asi­mov

How did you name your dog and baby? We named our dog Toast­er, because we were obsessed with Bat­tlestar Galac­ti­ca when we got him and we’re pret­ty sure he’s a Cylon.

We named our daugh­ter Zel­da, because I played over 200 hours of the lat­est game Breath of the Wild on Nin­ten­do Switch.

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. 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.

Melissa Michaux builds pathways to restorative justice

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Melis­sa Michaux’s work is life chang­ing.

The Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Pol­i­tics at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty start­ed the Restora­tive Jus­tice pro­gram at the school, which works with inmates at the Ore­gon State Pen­i­ten­tiary.  It pro­vides an insight­ful expe­ri­ence for stu­dents about the prison sys­tem and those with­in.

The pro­gram inspires com­pas­sion and gives mean­ing to the par­tic­i­pants through their involve­ment on both sides of the prison walls.

“I hope the Willamette stu­dents have an increased under­stand­ing of the stakes involved in pub­lic pol­i­cy, specif­i­cal­ly crim­i­nal jus­tice pol­i­cy, by meet­ing peo­ple who are affect­ed by the sys­tem we have in place ” she said.

The pro­gram also pro­vides a space for learn­ing and growth that allows inmates to devel­op their own ideas and under­stand­ing about why they are in prison and to devel­op a sense of effi­ca­cy for pos­i­tive­ly affect­ing the world around them, she said.

Michaux is the incom­ing Chair of the new Pol­i­tics, Pol­i­cy, Law and Ethics depart­ment at Willamette. She is a cham­pi­on of com­pas­sion­ate approach­es to pris­on­ers – both dur­ing their incar­cer­a­tion and on paths to rein­te­gra­tion into soci­ety.

“Restora­tive Jus­tice in prison is nec­es­sary,” she said, “to trans­form pris­on­ers for safer com­mu­ni­ties.”

Michaux received her PhD from Bran­deis Uni­ver­si­ty and her BA with Hon­ors from Boston Col­lege. She has exten­sive­ly dis­cussed health­care pol­i­cy and wel­fare reform and Amer­i­can Pol­i­tics, as well as the pol­i­tics of moth­er­hood. There is a com­mon thread through these sub­jects and that thread is mean­ing­ful lives, for all.

Hear more from Pro­fes­sor Michaux at TEDxSalem Jan­u­ary 5.

Home­town: Bal­ti­more
Fam­i­ly: hus­band Rick and three daugh­ters Sophie (25), Emma (16) and Clara (13)
Hob­bies: ten­nis and read­ing mem­oirs
Favorite Music: favorite band is Pink Mar­ti­ni
Favorite Author: Mar­garet Atwood
Favorite Food: blue crabs
Favorite TV Show of All Time: “Buffy the Vam­pire Slay­er” (Our dog is named after Buffy’s sec­ond boyfriend Riley Finn.)

TEDxSalem VI

TEDxSalem VI is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. It runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 5 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Tick­ets are on sale now for $55, $45 for stu­dents. 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.