Start Your Day with CreativeMornings CLE @cm_cle @MOCACleveland

cle2

Fri 1/16 @ 8:30 – 10am

Thomas Fox has been working within Cleveland creative community space for about five years. Previously, he ran a recording studio for a number of years bringing artists from all over the country to record tracks in Cleveland. He’s produced a music video series and is the former co-chair and creative leader behind the popular Brite Winter Festival for the past four-and-a-half-years. Working with the creative community on one level or another is something that he enjoys doing and has no signs of slowing down.

Rewind a couple years back…Thomas walked into a collaborative workspace, Studiomates, in Brooklyn (owned by Tina Roth Eisenberg) and began to learn about the breakfast lecture series for the creative community called CreativeMornings, thinking maybe he would bring the series to Cleveland. (Sidenote: Tina Roth Eisenberg is the woman that started CreativeMornings in Brooklyn 6 years ago.)

“I just sat on it and thought about starting a chapter here in Cleveland for a while,” says Fox. Then, this past summer, CreativeMornings ran a competition for the best application video on the August theme “heritage.” The best three videos would win $3,000 to kickstart their new chapter.

The competition was a good incentive to finally apply…. I did not win the prize money, but I was awarded a chapter license in October,” Thomas shares. 

Here’s a brief history of how CreativeMornings got started:

“Tina began doing these get-togethers that were totally free in the morning because she didn’t want to go to a big creative conference and sit all day and spend a bunch of money…ya know as creative professionals doing and making…we still want opportunities to connect as a community and to work. This is the idea,” says Thomas.

This caught on and people wanted to start chapters in their local regions. Slowly, it started building around the world. There are now 104 chapters in just over 40 countries.

“It winds up being this on-going creative conference with really creative people from all over the world talking…the concept is this one global theme per month, or relating to the the theme or having the person talk about this theme and the conversation is ongoing, regional and global,” continues Fox.

The 3rd Friday of every month in Cleveland is going to be CreativeMornings, starting at 8:30AM and ending at 10AM. This breakfast lecture series will be held at different venues around NEO. Following each event, there will be a short Q&A following the lecture, all captured on video and shared through creativemornings.com

There will be a monthly theme to the series. January’s theme is: UGLY. NEO-based and nationally recognized typography authority Nikki Villagomez will be the inaugural guest speaker. Nikki is a South Carolina native and NEO resident and an educator having taught Graphic Design and Typography at the University of South Carolina and the University of Akron. She also has an interesting blog, nikkivillagomez.wordpress.com about how culture affects typography.

“The goal is to bring as much of our creative communities together as we can. We’ll have some coffee and breakfast, listen to a presenter for about 20 minutes who has something really inspiring to say, ask questions and then go off to work by 10 o’clock. Everything that we’re doing is just about bringing together community and sharing whatever ideas that are interesting, people that are here with us in Cleveland. Anybody that is working to make something or create something…there’s a massive amount of disciplines that this can go across. Creatives could be authors, illustrators, entrepreneurs, photographers, web developers, CEOs, videographers, business owners….people that are actively making, that’s creating and that’s creative,” Thomas explains.

“It’s called CreativeMornings. I’m not putting any restraints on people. The more people want to take the platform and make it their own as a speaker, the more interesting that’s going to be to me, and I think everyone else. You never who you’re going to meet [at a CreativeMorning event]….which is awesome, because I don’t want to know…I want it to be a surprise! There will be a lot of different things to expect.”

In order to attend the event, you must register. Registration opens the Monday prior to the Friday event and is FREE to attend. At least for the next few months, breakfast and coffee will be provided at no cost, courtesy of CreativeMornings’ sponsors. (The kick off sponsors are Phoenix Coffee and TownHall.) If you can’t go one month, that’s fine — there’s this cycle of always being connected and you can go the next month.

To nominate a speaker for an upcoming Cleveland CreativeMorning talk, email cleveland@creativemornings.com. They are looking to feature people doing really cool things, where their story hasn’t been told. An ideal candidate would be someone who is unique and doing something in a way that is not expected, but in a good way, somehow creating change.

 

 

CreativeMornings Cleveland

 

Cleveland, OH 44106

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post categories:

Leave a Reply

[fbcomments]