The Magic at Mainframe

The third stop of the Des Moines Partnership’s Summer Startup Tour merged the tech world with the art world and was a good reminder we all share the same world.

My past career called them pirates and disruptors but in this life they’re referred to as entrepreneurs: those creators who believe so deeply in what they’re meant to make that there’s no other option than to bring it to life. As an artist, I know this feeling in my core — proof that we’re made of the same stuff.

Whether it’s an app that scales and the infrastructure required to iterate toward what’s next or it’s the world’s next best composer crafting his score for a new ballet, this is how the magic happens. We get in and out of our comfort zones. We listen to both the voices within and those we’ve never been open to before. We bring in the inputs to make the outputs beautiful, better, smarter. We shuffle and share, find the connective tissue in connecting and every once in a while, we get out of our own bubble and agree to learn about someone else’s.

Alt Summit 2020

Before there was social distancing, there was social gathering.

The Creative Confessional crashed Alt Summit 2020, a community of thousands of women influencers and entrepreneurs in creative fields. These women were brave, beautiful, bold. We shared space and experience on the grounds of The Saguaro over four days. We laughed and we cried. We were together and individual and we were happy to be there and we were ready to be home.

I can’t fully capture the spirit of these women… but for a split second, I tried.

Honored and grateful, as always, to manifest this work with women — both strangers and friends.

We Are What We Feel

Love.

Ambition.

Happiness.

Heartache.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Thanks for laughing (and crying) with me, Tara. You are true blue and the world is a better place with you and your big dreams turned real life in it.

Tara. February 7, 2020.

Matters of the Heart

Synthia sat across from me a stranger, for only a few seconds. Because sharing space with someone quickly makes them your friend. Better yet, crying with someone and realizing you’re made of the same emotions and energy is an even greater bond.

As women, it’s easy to carry a weight on our shoulders that is heavy and exhaustive. But not unbearable. That weight is crushing, but we’re honored to close our eyes and march forward because our children depend on it. It’s also easy, as mothers, to know when something is not right. Instinctually, we become hard-wired to be on alert — who’s crying, who needs me, where do I expend my time, energy and resources.

What should be easy, as mothers, is to be heard. To be listened to. To not be overlooked, by those we love and by those who are trained to care for us. For we, as mothers, are not statistics. We’re not robots, even though it feels that way a lot of the time.

Today is National Heart Day. Previous to meeting Synthia, this is generally just a day in which I may remember I was supposed to send my kids to school wearing red. Meeting Synthia changed that. While her story is not mine to tell — full of literal and figurative scar tissue, I will forever move forward with a pledge to do what I can to ensure I’m an advocate for women being heard. Particularly, when it comes to matters of the heart.

Synthia. February 6, 2020.

Synthia. February 6, 2020.

Know a new mom? Ask if she’s okay. Have a mother you care about? Ask about her heart — not just emotionally, but physically. Are you reading this? Schedule a check-up. As women, as mothers — with our own children or not – perhaps more important than taking care of anyone, is taking care of ourselves for a change.

Thank you for surviving, Synthia. The world has so much more heart in it, because of you.

Learn more about pregnancy induced heart failure here.

Women Who Create - Iowa State University's Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship

I will spend my entire life trying to connect with people, women in particularly, in an effort to better understand myself. I think that’s the beauty of shooting in a bubble. Time suspends. Humanity does not.

The Creative Confessional made its way to Ames, Iowa for the Women Who Create conference, held at Iowa State University’s Pappajohn Center For Entrepreneurship. I was invited by the ever-impressive Diana Wright, who has championed the idea of progressive entrepreneurial ideas as long as I’ve had the pleasure of knowing her. Thank you, Diana.

I sat with 36 women in the eight hours I made the transparent igloo my office, housed inside a conference room in the beautiful building found at the ISU Research Park. With only 15 minute sessions, the connections were brief but fruitful. Themes emerged that I anticipated and themes that I did not. While I never fully share the conversations that take place, I wanted to take a pause to express a few of my takeaways:

  • There is a unique movement when women gather in the name of progress — be it to progress an idea or to better themselves, their community or the world. In a world of sometimes backwards movement, these women are marching forward in all the right ways.

  • Success can be a number of things, but it’s nothing without happiness. And there is nothing selfish about being happy.

  • Family is always number one and women don’t forget where they came from. But it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of where you’re going when family is put first for 18+ years. Fight like hell to find yourself, ladies. You are worth fighting for.

  • I heard stories of wool socks and ice cream. Work out gear and welders. Vintage sales and small business diversity efforts. While we’re all capable of dreaming, we are all capable of doing. It’s time to stop dreaming and start doing, ladies. Start and don’t stop.

I am grateful for the opportunity to be witness to the power of women, not just during a sanctioned Women Who Create week, but each and every damn day of the year. Thank you to each individual that sat in that chair across from me. I believe in you.

Global Insurance Accelerator's InsurTech Week 2019

This week I had the privilege of setting up the Creative Confessional at the Global Insurance Accelerator’s InsurTech Week 2019, held in Des Moines. Home to over 80 insurance companies headquartered in the metro, this city is the city to help set up InsurTech startups for success.

I had three full days of getting to know the individuals that made up the 17 companies invited to Des Moines, as much as one can get to know someone through the lens. I saw first handshakes and witnessed that throat clearing before first introductions. I saw pitch notes and hands raised, business card exchanges and glasses raised. I saw that energetic inertia of selling an idea as hard as you’re selling a product, both exhilarating and exhausting in each breath. I saw glimpses of future success and uncertain glances of potential despair. Which is to say, I saw the humanity in it all.

And this is why it was so important to me to be able to pop up that transparent bubble inside the GIA. Because while I knew these individuals were in #DSMUSA to make that next connection that could potentially bring their entire concept come to life, it’s the human connection that I seek to uncover. 

Behind the founders and salesmen of pitches and products exist men and women that are fathers, partners, sons and daughters. Humans with stories of success and failure, stories of love and loss. Stories of both longing and belonging. Stories that you want to cling to, hold close, celebrate and believe in. I believe in these individuals and have a greater belief in the potential for innovative strides our Capital city can support, if they believe in those stories, too.

While the stories stay inside the Creative Confessional, the portraiture lives on.

Pollinate Women's Weekend

Last weekend the Creative Confessional traveled to Boone, Iowa for the inaugural Pollinate Women’s Weekend — a place in which 100 women gathered to take in nature, meditation, sharing circles and song under the stars.

To the women who shared space with me within the Creative Confessional, thank you. Thank you for your stories and secrets, your openness and your authenticity. Thank you for trusting me with your words. My hope for you is that — as one wise woman put it — you were able to take what you need, leave what you don’t.

You and your stories are powerful and beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with me.

1 MILLION CUPS

Since 2012, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has been fueling the entrepreneurial community through their movement called 1 Million Cups. A volunteer-run effort, 1 Million Cups exists within more than 180 communities across the nation. That’s a lot of coffee. More importantly, that’s a lot of ideas.

While my time with the national organizers was small, what I felt was big. The energy, authenticity and power of connection, all rooted in Mr. Kauffman’s belief that it’s a fundamental right for anyone with a big idea to be able to bring it to life.

With or without coffee, and with or without a pitch or stage or presentation, you gave me the gift of connection through creation. One million cheers to that.

To find the 1 Million Cups organization nearest you, for coffee, connection and community, visit here.

What would you confess?

The Creative Confessional was created with the intention of building a physical space for artists to enter and discuss how to move their creative project forward. I was naive to think that’s all it would be.

The inaugural set-up for the Creative Confessional at Witching Hour 2017 in Iowa City, Iowa.

The inaugural set-up for the Creative Confessional at Witching Hour 2017 in Iowa City, Iowa.

Because what I quickly learned is that it’s not an artist thing. It’s a human thing. Having the ability to share is incredibly powerful. Engaging in a moment where all that’s expected of you is to be honest, is rarer than I thought. And capturing that moment in time is rarer yet.

What would you confess if you knew you had a safe space to share? What would acknowledge in an effort to let it go? What would you share if you knew saying it out loud would be the first step in actualization?

  • I’ve let the perceived judgement of others inhibit me from doing what I knew was right.

  • I’ve let me fear of confrontation paralyze me from realizing my potential. For years.

  • I’ve said no when I desperately wanted to say yes. And vice versa.

  • I know what I’m meant to do with this life. After 39 years, I’m ready to live that life fully.

The Creative Confessional has evolved into a photographic philosophy for how I capture portraits. While sometimes it’s in a clear bubble, like seen above, it’s more so a way of life. I’m not interested in the curated and well-polished portrait (there’s another shoot for that). I’m interested in engaging you in a way that allows for the arc of conversation — moving past the talk of weather, shifting beyond the back-and-forth of your career and moving into that rich territory of real-life stuff. What will you create? What will you let go? What no longer serves you? What does stepping into your purpose really look like? Because in that moment, I see it. And I capture it. And it looks good on you.

Shooting EntreFEST 2017

The intention behind shooting dialogue-driven conference portraiture came about in May of 2017. As then interim-editor of Clay & Milk, I was interested in covering EntreFEST — the two-day conference, “celebrating the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation where professionals at every level can come together, share ideas, and own their success.”

Most conferences ensure coverage encompasses their keynote speaker(s) — as it should, since in most cases, that’s the greatest draw for attendees and probably the largest budget allocation. Most conferences are covered photographically from the back of the room forward, ensuring proper speaker stage presence is captured (and so so many backs of heads). Also: can’t forget the food. So many pictures of the conference food. We get it. A sponsor paid for it. Okay.

I wanted the online tech publication’s coverage to be different. Because EntreFEST is different. While you perhaps go for the speaker, I’m more inclined to say one goes to EntreFEST for the sense of belonging. You go because you're an entrepreneur and sometimes so young of one that you’ve got no where else to go.

Perhaps you go because you just got business cards for the first time and damn if you’re not going to try and give them all away in one day.

Maybe you go because you desperately want to believe your idea has a fighting chance.

You desperately want to believe that you have a fighting chance.

While the shooting philosophy wouldn’t be called the Creative Confessional until many months later when I had a full moon a-ha, EntreFEST was its first inception.

I was tucked into the corner between a window and a record player because I was a late add and there was no where else to put me (best case scenario, in my opinion). In most cases, I had to plead for someone to sit on my barstool. But because of that spirit, they did. One at a time and only a fraction of the EntreFEST attendees in 2017, but they did. And they played along, providing earnest answers to my questions — part required for publication coverage, part necessary so I could understand who they actually were behind that lanyard. Because it’s not until you dismantle the LinkedIn Professional into the like-minded soul that you really capture who they are.

The Creative Confessional

The Creative Confessional, presented in partnership with the Iowa City Downtown District and Witching Hour, was a free public portrait booth and exercise in creative intimacy.

I had originally intended to share the parting thoughts I'd asked participants to write before leaving the booth. But they were too personal. Too thoughtful. Too honest and open and intimate. I hold space for those thoughts just as I held space for those beautiful souls brave enough to sit across from me and open up to a stranger. To each and every one of you, thank you for sharing that space with me.

I believe in you and your light. Portraits can be found here.