One of my dream ideas is launching today! Today!
For maybe the past three years, whenever I sat down to write what my heart really wanted, I found myself writing about a place where adults come to play, using theater, visual art, storytelling, and movement to impact a personal or professional challenge or opportunity. The result of that dream writing now has a name, it is called The Art of Illumination.
Happy New Year! It is a year full of surprises and wondrous moments. Let us throw the doors open and welcome all the great opportunities we have to share, to give, and to collaborate, to exchange joy and love in all it's wondrous forms.
"Each of us has much more hidden inside us than we have had a chance to explore. Unless we create an environment that enables us to discover the limits of our potential, we will never know what we have inside of us." --Muhammad Yunus
Pursuing a Dream
As I began trying to create a new performance this year, every time I sat down to write, I would often reveal the same idea: about a place where individuals could go and tackle real-life personal and professional challenges using arts-based processes like writing, painting, performing, and movement.
This idea has taken more shape. Towards this dream, I have created a new five-piece performance (total time: 75 minutes) called Second Sight, about finding what is common with others amidst the differences. Each piece is being launched in a 5-part event called The Art of Illumination with the City of Olympia from January 17- February 28. After that, both will be scheduled for the public and interested organizations.
To know when and where the shows and events will be, stay connected (see below).
A Luminary in the Discovery DVD series!
This last year I was invited to share my story and advice as a luminary on the Discovery DVD series by LifePathUnlimited.com. The opportunity to share "the screen" with 14 other courageous and open-hearted individuals was a huge gift. Life Path Unlimited has created an amaaaaazing spectrum of products and supporting experiences designed to take people beyond the popular DVD called "The Secret."
To get notices and stories about LifePathUnlimited, stay connected (see below).
An Explosion of New Work and Social Consciousness
As I entered 2007, I personalized an art technique of painting on the floor that I had learned in late 2006. What resulted in the following months was an explosion of paintings. For the first time, my art inspired me. Pursuing that feeling again and again with every canvas has resulted in a body of work ready for galleries, cafes, and a forthcoming book.
As so many social issues wrested with my conscience this year, you can check out the post on my website's home page to find out where the proceeds of Mark's paintings go.
See my paintings by going to the Products and Events page listed on the left side of my website, and stay connected (see below).
Stay Connected
To stay connected to my work and the opportunities it may bring to you for your personal and/or professional life, please consider subscribing: find the title Mailing List in the right column. Click on subscribe and type in your email address. You can unsubscribe anytime you want.
" . . . companies aren't limiting their concerns about design to their products and services; they are also addressing the designs of processes and even entire organizations. The very core of a business -- it's mission, goals, products, and services, as well as its organizational structure and the way it pursues opportunities -- are now open to consideration from a design perspective. Reenginneering, the byword of just yesterday (in 1990), is fundamentally about design--or rather redesign. Also corporations are turning for advice on business strategy to design firms like Larry Keely's Doblin Group in Chicago, and The Understanding Business in San Francisco for advise on how to improve access to complex information. A leader of an organization--or division, or team, or process--is its designer. In an age of creativity, after all, designing will become a larger part, even the whole, of what a leader does."
This is from the book Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity by John Kao.
What inspires me about leaders as designers is the enduring nature of what they have created. It's familiar to us when we see Monet's Water Lilies, hear Beethoven's 9th Symphony, stand in front of the Space Needle, or ride across the San Francisco Bridge. It's something that we can sense without really experiencing it again. We just know that it will last. But, where can we find it at work?
It can be difficult. You have to look real hard, or even stand back a bit. With my work at The Company, I find it when I'm at the airport, when I see families, friends and loved ones reunited. Creators of transportation are leaders and designers. When I see people reunited, I find that moment, that reason why I am motivated to make a contribution within The Company and what it offers to the world.
I don't know how long that feeling will last. But, just to recognize the feeling is enough to know, for now. Even in nature, the beauty of a design can last a moment, and still last a lifetime.
