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TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

2017 TEDxSalem

Rebecca Maitland Courtney: The Arta-Potty “movement”

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Rebecca Maitland CourtneyRebec­ca Mait­land Court­ney is a big believ­er in the heal­ing pow­er of paint­ing.

“Paint­ings come from pain,” said Court­ney, 56, Cre­ative Direc­tor of Roger Yost Gal­leries and Prop­er­ty Man­ag­er of the Reed Opera House in Salem. Paint­ing “makes life a lit­tle more bear­able.”

It’s what has helped her cope with prob­lems through­out her life both large and small. So when Court­ney saw a prob­lem plagu­ing the his­toric down­town shop­ping venue, the prob­lem of human waste being left in the streets by the home­less, she turned to the solu­tion she knows best.

“It’s a time where the cre­ative com­mu­ni­ty can be a bless­ing to the over­all com­mu­ni­ty,” she said.

And thus the Arta-Pot­ty was born.

For her TED talk, Court­ney will talk about how she helped cre­ate this ele­gant fit­ting of form and func­tion, this uniron­ic pair­ing of paint­ing with poop — in essence a Por­ta-Pot­ty with vibrant local art­work dis­played on their sur­faces — that is meet­ing a press­ing need while help­ing to revi­tal­ize Salem’s down­town with artis­tic panache.

The Arta-Pot­ty is a phe­nom­e­non that has tran­scend­ed its orig­i­nal use to become a “hap­pen­ing.” Enough of a hap­pen­ing to mer­it its own Face­book page; enough of a draw to host art exhi­bi­tions and music per­for­mances; enough of an inno­va­tion to elic­it inquiries from oth­er munic­i­pal­i­ties far and wide.

And it came from a sim­ple epiphany.

Toward the end of 2014 Court­ney noticed what she said was a sig­nif­i­cant increase in home­less peo­ple in the down­town busi­ness area sur­round­ing the Reed Opera House. With the influx of home­less, relat­ed prob­lems also rose, includ­ing what she said was an increase in human waste in the alley­ways and park­ing lots as well as an increase in inci­dents of pub­lic inde­cen­cy and prop­er­ty crimes.

 

The Arta PottyTra­di­tion­al approach­es to the prob­lem seemed both non­sen­si­cal and coun­ter­pro­duc­tive. Accord­ing to Court­ney, police would peri­od­i­cal­ly roust home­less camps in near­by Minto-Brown park, result­ing in the dis­placed home­less sim­ply migrat­ing down­town in search of shel­ter before being roust­ed once again. It made no sense to Court­ney, watch­ing the events unfold from her office.

“Until the big­ger sub­ject [of solv­ing home­less­ness] is dis­cussed, they will con­tin­ue to send home­less on pil­grim­ages,” she said.

Col­lab­o­rat­ing on a solu­tion with social wel­fare lead­ers like Ver­e­na Wes­sel of the Salem Home­less Coali­tion, and Pamel­la Phillips Wat­son, Janet Park­er and Emi­ly Goodall from the area reli­gious com­mu­ni­ty, the group soon real­ized that a large part of the prob­lem stemmed from peo­ple sim­ply hav­ing nowhere to go to the bath­room. The human waste, the pub­lic inde­cen­cy, the feel­ing of being unsafe – home­less men and women with no oth­er options were forced to expose and relieve them­selves in the street. Accord­ing to Court­ney it was also sti­fling the busi­ness envi­ron­ment, as passers­by became increas­ing­ly skit­tish about shop­ping or eat­ing in an area with such prob­lems, and the area increas­ing­ly looked run-down and dilap­i­dat­ed.

Today, thanks to vol­un­teer and local busi­ness efforts mar­shalled by the so-called “Arta-Pot­ty Five,” there are five Arta-Pot­ties with­in a sev­en-block area of high-den­si­ty pedes­tri­an traf­fic, with plans to expand even more. Accord­ing to Court­ney at least one occa­sion­al­ly plays host to an art exhib­it in which home­less men and women are invit­ed to min­gle with the greater com­mu­ni­ty.

The Arta-Pot­ty cause came around at the right time for Court­ney, a self-described “emp­ty nester.”

“At this point in my life, you’re not afraid to make a mis­take,” she said. “It’s kind of free­ing in a way.”

But it has also served to bring a deep­er sense of con­nec­tion to her com­mu­ni­ty, Court­ney said.

“Zero-degrees of sep­a­ra­tion,” she said. “It made me real­ize how close we actu­al­ly are to the highs and lows of soci­ety, the world of the fall­en and the world of incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty.”

The leaders spearheading the Arta-Potty movement. From left to right: Pamella Phillips Watson, Janet Parker, Emily Goodall, Verena Wessel, and Courtney.
The lead­ers spear­head­ing the Arta-Pot­ty move­ment. From left to right: Pamel­la Phillips Wat­son, Janet Park­er, Emi­ly Goodall, Ver­e­na Wes­sel, and Court­ney.

 

 

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for a stu­dent. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. 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.us.

 

An ode to the annual event t‑shirt

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If you’ve been with TEDxSalem since the begin­ning, you’ve prob­a­bly noticed some­thing that occurred to me the oth­er day:

I’m build­ing up an impres­sive col­lec­tion of t‑shirts.

Not just reg­u­lar t‑shirts, obvi­ous­ly, but TEDxSalem offi­cial swag t‑shirts.

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We accu­mu­late t‑shirts all our lives. High school clubs, col­lege mas­cots, sum­mer camp uni­forms, fundrais­ers, fam­i­ly reunions, home­com­ing theme days, some­times even Hal­loween cos­tumes.

Some peo­ple purge these extra­ne­ous pieces of cloth­ing with clock-like reg­u­lar­i­ty. Oth­ers have decades of his­to­ry buried deep in their clos­et, unearthed in a wash of nos­tal­gia dur­ing a move or rig­or­ous spring clean­ing. I’ve known cer­tain crafty folks to stitch their shirt col­lec­tions into quilts; the ulti­mate trib­ute to mem­o­ry.

When I grad­u­at­ed from col­lege, I had enough spir­it­ed appar­el for at least two weeks of out­fits. I kept only a pair of sweat­pants and, of course, a cou­ple t‑shirts.

We’re now four years deep into the grow­ing TEDxSalem tra­di­tion, and we’re grow­ing the t‑shirt col­lec­tion that goes along with it.

There’s some kind of mag­ic with these shirts. Each event had its own swag out­side the shirt: Cof­fee mugs, bags, pens. But there’s a per­ma­nence to the sym­bol and the sto­ry you lit­er­al­ly wear on your back.

Maybe you wear them to oth­er TED events, to proud­ly rep­re­sent from where you came. Maybe you wear it to the gym or to sleep in.

With­out them, would you remem­ber the themes and logos of pri­or years? Would you still be able to trace the nar­ra­tive of an evolv­ing TEDxSalem, from new­born Illu­mi­na­tion to sopho­moric Mox­ie and swag­ger­ing Fear­less?

If last year’s Fear­less was our junior year, grow­ing in con­fi­dence but not quite estab­lished yet, then we come into senior year, tri­umphant, with Rev­o­lu­tions. Our vic­to­ry lap. Only, we aren’t fin­ished yet. Next year we’ll have anoth­er TEDxSalem, with anoth­er theme and anoth­er logo.

And anoth­er t‑shirt.

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem 2017

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for stu­dents. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. 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.us.

How TEDxSalem ended up with a majority woman speaker roster

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The most impor­tant task for the orga­niz­ers of TEDxSalem is curat­ing inter­est­ing, chal­leng­ing and fun talks — the essence of a good TEDx con­fer­ence. And tru­ly awe­some talks are insep­a­ra­ble from the speak­ers’ iden­ti­ty.

Rep­re­sent­ing diverse abil­i­ties, cul­tur­al back­grounds and gen­der iden­ti­fi­ca­tion is key to putting on a well-round­ed event. Some of these goals came eas­i­er and more nat­u­ral­ly than oth­ers.

“Since we start­ed TEDxSalem, we have always strived for more diver­si­ty in our speak­er line-up. We want TEDxSalem to rep­re­sent a spec­trum of races, thoughts and ideas and we dreamed that one day we might have an event that was half male and half female,” co-cura­tor Bri­an Hart said. “Some years find­ing women proved very dif­fi­cult, not many were apply­ing and our efforts to reach out to some of the amaz­ing women in our area were not pan­ning out. Rather than get­ting frus­trat­ed, it was a chal­lenge that we took on with Mox­ie, we knew we could do bet­ter.”

This year, the seeds we have been plant­i­ng over the past three years, reach­ing out to women that we admire and want to show­case, seem to final­ly be sprout­ing. Out of 13 speak­ers, 11 of them are women.

“What was once a dream of hav­ing a 50/50 ratio has been sur­passed by a woman dom­i­nat­ed line-up,” Hart said. “We could­n’t be more thrilled.”

How did this hap­pen?

Well first, we built rela­tion­ships with poten­tial women speak­ers that did not pan out in pre­vi­ous years, but sev­er­al of whom agreed to speak this year. Sec­ond, we hap­pened to pick most­ly women in our blind (as in no names or bio­graph­i­cal data) selec­tion process from our appli­cant pool. Com­bine the two process­es togeth­er, and we end­ed up with 11 women.

And trust us, these women are doing some amaz­ing work out in the world and they very much need to be heard — not for their sake, but for ours.

Achiev­ing the per­fect bal­ance may not be pos­si­ble, but tak­ing spe­cial care to rep­re­sent the tra­di­tion­al­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed is a goal that is worth the effort. Feel free to keep us account­able, but real­ly, help us expand and deep­en our reach into diverse com­mu­ni­ties.

Do you know of a per­son of an under­rep­re­sent­ed group who would be a great future TEDxSalem speak­er? Please reach out to us at info@tedxsalem.us. Because the rela­tion­ship we build today may lead to a new rev­o­lu­tion.

TEDxSalem-IV-women

 

 

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for stu­dents. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. 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.us.

Tickets to Salem’s revolution on sale

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 Photo by Johan DoornenbalThe rev­o­lu­tion begins now. Do you have your tick­et?

TEDxSalem released its dis­count­ed ear­ly-bird tick­ets this week and will offer them through Sept. 7 or until they’re gone. That’s $10 in sav­ings for a day of mind-bend­ing expe­ri­ences Jan. 7 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

The tick­et price cov­ers talks and per­for­mances on ideas worth spread­ing, refresh­ments, a deli­cious catered buf­fet lunch, recess­es designed to expand your mind and a swag bag of TEDxSalem good­ies.

This year’s TEDxSalem promis­es to be one of the best yet with speak­ers that include an Olympic ath­lete, a prodi­gy, a punk rock chemist, a Bud­dhist teacher and many more. Talks and demon­stra­tions cen­ter on the theme “Rev­o­lu­tions,” which ranges from polit­i­cal upris­ings dur­ing the last days of the Sovi­et Union to the efforts of Don’tShoot Port­land. It also includes fight­ing to main­tain mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ships in a dig­i­tal world.

Join us for a rev­o­lu­tion­ary day. Buy your tick­ets at https://tedxsalem.eventbrite.com

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem 2017

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for stu­dents. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. 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.us.

You say you want a “revolution…?”

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We’re real­ly excit­ed about TEDx Salem IV com­ing up on Jan­u­ary 7. The theme will be “Rev­o­lu­tions,” but what does that actu­al­ly mean? In today’s media, words like “rev­o­lu­tion” can be overused – Think “rev­o­lu­tion­ary” diets, inter­net busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties or dol­lar-shav­ing-kits by mail.

In the Mer­ri­am-Web­ster uni­verse, the word refers to the act of revolv­ing, or turn­ing on an axis. It also means polit­i­cal upheaval, like a change in gov­ern­ment, or “activ­i­ty or move­ment designed to effect fun­da­men­tal changes in the socioe­co­nom­ic con­di­tion.” On a per­son­al lev­el, it can also mean a “a sud­den, extreme or com­plete change in the way peo­ple live, work.”

Well, we believe this year’s speak­ers are going to turn some heads!

We’re going to learn about polit­i­cal rev­o­lu­tions, from resist­ing oppres­sion in Latvia dur­ing the last days of the Sovi­et Union, to the activism of Don’t Shoot Port­land.

We’re also going to chal­lenge our per­cep­tion of the world. How do we main­tain per­son­al, mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ships in a dig­i­tal world that pro­motes “likes” and “shares” over phys­i­cal inter­ac­tions? How do we fix the clin­i­cal tri­al process in order to get life-sav­ing drugs to the patients who are will­ing to try them?

Have you ever eat­en a crick­et? Would you, could you, with a friend, if it might mean a solu­tion to hunger?

And we’re going to see what it feels like to change a par­a­digm. We’ll meet a local artist and busi­ness own­er who didn’t accept area home­less­ness as a fact of life and in the process turned a Por­ta-Pot­ty into a “hap­pen­ing;” and a fresh­man in high school who wouldn’t accept that sit­ting at a desk is always going to be uncom­fort­able.

It’s all in keep­ing with the mis­sion of TED, accord­ing to TEDx Salem co-cura­tors Car­lee Wright and Bri­an Hart.

“We want­ed a [theme] that was famil­iar but dynam­ic,” Bri­an said, “sim­ple and pow­er­ful, a word that would evoke a strong emo­tion but could be inter­pret­ed many dif­fer­ent ways.”

“And with our event being at the begin­ning of Jan­u­ary, we had the idea of play­ing off the con­cept of New Year’s res­o­lu­tions,” said Car­lee.

“What’s your rev­o­lu­tion for the new year?”

“We want our audi­ence to come with an open mind and leave inspired,” Bri­an said, “to be think­ing about what they can do in their com­mu­ni­ty or how they can impact soci­ety.”

“TED is all about the biggest thinkers and doers com­ing togeth­er to spread the most impor­tant ideas to the world,” he said.

“What’s more rev­o­lu­tion­ary than that?”

 

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