We Are The Leaders We Have Been Waiting For

portrait by Robert Shetterly

The woman is Grace Lee Boggs and she was born in 1915 and has been a social activist for now 70 years.  She has lived in Detroit since 1953 as a shaker and mover.  We heard Grace speak at the BALLE conference last night for the first time. It was so incredible to hear this woman speak so clearly about the need to completely revision the way we do culture from the ground up.  She is very clear about us to stop looking for top down solutions and allow for the answers to come up from the bottom on a grass roots level.  The answers are local ones that begin small and go on to make large systemic changes.

I have included the video above for you to hear a little for yourself.  There are many videos on line to listen to and written material from the pen of this amazing visionary woman who has only now shown up on the Beerhorst Family radar.

Perspective Lifters

Perspective Lifters is the title of the Beerhorst Family ArtPrize 2012 entry.  I wrote a while back about the idea of seeing problems and frustrations as perspective lifters.  When things don't go your way. rather than get mad, take a moment to consider the current trouble as a redirection towards something better. Every day something will go "wrong" that is just the way life is.  What I am beginning to understand is that sometimes what seems like "going wrong" may actually be going right if I can gather a new working perspective to see my situation in a more positive light.

When you climb a ladder you are up high and things begin to look different.  You can see farther.  You can begin to get a fuller understanding of you present situation.  This is what we need to do in our daily lives.  Take a moment to climb the ladder and see what may really be going on.  Think of it as going into your brains preferences and changing the setting.

Wonder Wagon At The BALLE Conference 2012

The Beerhorst Family will be participating in the BALLE conference which has come to Grand Rapids this week. We will be at the opening night presentation in the ball room of the DeVos Hall at 8:00.  We will be bringing the Wonder Wagon downtown this afternoon leaving our house at 106 Fuller Ave SE.  If you would like to join us we plan on leaving about 1PM this afternoon.  Come and join in the fun.

Push Off And Begin Creating

But what does it mean?

One of the things I have discovered as a working artist is that I often do not understand exactly what I am doing a lot of the time.  I simply push off and begin creating.  I work with images and words putting them together with out too much concern about what everything means.  I actually think that art making is one of the ways our subconscious mind reaches up to the conscious mind to make connection.  Art making is so much about discovery.  You must yield the demand to know what you are doing, forget for awhile knowing where you are going and just go.

Tuba Powered

claudia martinelli

I am pretty excited because I was able to begin teaching myself how to play the tuba yesterday.   I have discovered that what I have is actually a sousaphone and is different from the tuba.  The sousaphone is designed to be played standing up in a marching band as the instrument actually wraps around you, and the tuba is more compacted and is generally played sitting down.

My instrument was made in the 1920s in Elkhart Indiana by the Blessing Instrument Co.  When I got it is was in pretty rough shape until Dave at Marshal Music put it  back together for me.  It was missing some key parts here and there and the valves where stuck.  I had a lot of fun yesterday learning to make sounds and trying to play along with my favorite DeVotchKa songs.