It's ArtsEd Washington!

As mentioned in a previous post I'm joining a board of directors, and I'm happy to announce it's ArtsEd Washington! I had a meeting this week with the executive director and board president and will be officially voted in next Wednesday. I'm excited to sink my teeth into this topic and learn more about what we need to do to provide comprehensive, sequential and sustainable arts education for all kids in Washington state. I'm most intrigued by the thought that the conversation we're really having is about how and why we're educating our kids, and I gotta say I am jazzed to be joining that conversation. I anticipate there will be lots of thought about this on the blog in the coming months as I work through some ideas about how we can provide leveraged funding for arts nonprofits, go beyond bussing kids to one-off productions as their 'art experience', and work within the current curriculum to promote creativity.

Beyond that however, I think I'll also be exploring education itself. One of my favorite thinkers, Peter Senge, has said that 'secondary education is a more purely industrial age institution than any business', and yet we cannot shake it. It no longer successfully serves its purpose and we're attempting to cobble together piecemeal solutions to get different outcomes. Kids are struggling, dropping out or worse, making it through the system only to come out the other end without much intellect. I had the opportunity to see Senge speak a couple of years ago and his talk centered around how we must change our educational system. It inspired me to think deeply about what an education is, how it's different today than it was when I was a kid, and what we want our kids to learn in order to be leaders and thoughtful citizens in the future. Our environment and our culture depends on it.

Anyhow ... passionate, yes. Excited by this opportunity at ArtsEd, yes.

Simplicity

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks:
I want to host simplicity retreats, particularly focused on women and girls finding the space they need to truly create the lives they want. Not just for themselves, but the lives they want for everyone they love, their communities, this world. So my brain is aswirl today. I had time yesterday, driving while the baby napped, sitting at a coffeeshop while the baby played with Grammy, and all these ideas I've had gelled for a moment and I think ... maybe ... not just another idea but really something? Providing the space for women to take some time out to find their own philosophy of compassionate living, to eat well and laugh, talk about how they will simplify and possibly create some real change in how our culture supports families.

I'm energized by the thought of a retreat in the woods, wine and cheese, silent walking mediations, discussions about saving money, creating an altar, baking bread ... would anyone be interested in doing this with me? I wonder. I was reading Alicia Silverstone's website The Kind Life because I had seen her talking on Oprah about going vegan. Her approach intrigued me (as you may recall, dear reader, which I think is just my husband at this point (hi) I have serious concerns, philosophically, about eating flesh anymore) and on her website she said something that stuck with me this last week: she created the kind diet and the website to create community around it because it was a need that she had and she wanted to fill that need. Somehow the way she phrased it, maybe because it hit along with everything else going on, looking for a house, reading about the anxiety of motherhood, joining a board to promote creativity, stumbling across my m-in-laws book on women's sacred spaces, wanting to find a community that will discuss things like Bucky Fuller's concept that death is just another perspective humans have yet to tap into ... it all just came together.