Today’s Brooklyn has become an “intoxicating blend of energy, international dynamism, influence and street culture,” so it’s no surprise that it was the place that gave us CreativeMornings, a monthly (free) breakfast series where creatives can listen to a short talk and celebrate language as “the lifeblood of perception.”
As its website explains, by conversing with each other, “… we wipe the debris off of our perception with language that reframes our situation and inspires us to show up, to embrace a new narrative.”
CreativeMornings began in 2008. Since then, it has expanded to independently run chapters in more than 180 cities. Now, it has come to Brooklyn’s emerging rival: Oklahoma City!
Desmond Mason headlined OKC’s first event
An overflow crowd attended the first get-together at local law firm Dunlap Codding on Film Row to listen to artist and former NBA player Desmond Mason (see video above). The standing-room-only event brought together mostly young, cosmopolitan professionals who are now revitalizing Oklahoma City.
Mason began his talk with a video of his artwork. He then placed his multi-faceted career in the context of:
- a childhood spent in Texas;
- recovering from a severe burn injury that supposedly would keep him from running;
- the lessons he and his father learned due to his dad’s incarceration (and his own time on the streets during the drug and gang years of the late 1980s and early 1990s);
- and the way his family recovered.
Mason remembered the inspiration that came from abstract artist Jackson Pollock. He recalled mentoring by Coach Eddie Sutton, his favorite coach of all time; school, art and sports in Oklahoma City and Oklahoma State University; and his careers in the NBA and afterward. Mason recounted the time at OSU when his grades dropped below a 3.00 grade point average — his father came up to Stillwater and confiscated his car.
Free CreativeMornings event Friday at 21c
CreativeMornings’ events happen on the third Friday of every month. The January breakfast will be from 8:30 to 10 a.m. Friday at 21c Museum Hotel. The theme will be Anxiety, which can be a form of self-sabotage or a part of the creative process. It is being illustrated by Evelin Bundur, a graduate of Graphic Design University in Bucharest. Her anxiety has been both “a black hole of panic and despair” and an adrenaline shot, according to a release about the event. Merideth VanSant of 405 Yoga will speak.
