Aladrian Goods on Ember

Our brand new series of random questions that dig a little deeper into the minds of the people holding the mic.

This month we’re talking MAGIC with scott b. davis (@scott_b_davis) scott is a fine artist and entrepreneur from San Diego. His work has been featured in the @nytimes,@newyorkermag, and @latimes. scott has been intimately involved in San Diego’s arts & culture scene for over a decade.

What is your favorite virtue?

Gratitude. The wisest people I know are also the most grateful, and I believe gratitude is central to shaping good character.

Favorite guilty pleasure?

Driving. I love being behind the wheel and traveling long distances. It kills me to know I’m contributing to the world as a more polluted place.

Best meal you’ve ever eaten on your travels?

A root vegetable dish in Jodhpur, India. It was a Rajasthani special that’s impossible to find outside of India.

What’s your favorite book?

I’d put Blue Desert by Charles Bowden high on that list.

What do you find magical?

The spirit you see in people’s eyes. Not just a soul, I’m talking that ineffable quality that pierces you in about 1 out of every 1000 people you meet. I’ve felt it with people whose language I don’t speak, so I believe there’s something to it.

Who or what inspires you?

People who pursue something they believe in regardless of the financial outcome, notoriety, or logic. Werner Herzog is a good example of this (albeit a famous one). Charlie Russell is a not-so-famous example (though eastjesus.org has put him into the limelight since his passing in 2011).

Biggest pet peeve?

Ear splitting mufflers on cars and motorcycles.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

Go west, young man.

Most memorable uncomfortable experience?

Insulting republicans who I didn’t know were republican.

People of CMSD : #010

We love our community and we love highlighting individuals doing awesome things! Every CMSD event, we find unique individuals and bombard them with questions. You might be next! 
–

Alan Nakkash
San Diego based photographer, CreativeMornings Lifer

“What are you looking forward to this weekend?”

“Getting away from the computer for a little bit. I stare at the computer all day, and that’s just me going through photos, then you gotta work the website, do a little blogging, etc. So it’s nice to join the real world.”

Follow Alan on Instagram at @micspecial

Quick Fire Questions w/ Beck Bamberger

Our brand new series of random questions that dig a little deeper into the minds of the people holding the mic.

What is your favorite virtue?
One of my favorites recently is: life by design, not by default. 


Favorite guilty pleasure?
A massive cheese plate. I could eat cheese and bread for dinner every day (I don’t).

Best meal you’ve ever eaten on your travels?
Sushi at about 7am in Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish Market Tuna Auction in this six seat little shack right in the center of the whole scene. 


What’s your favorite book?
Man, I read 3 or 4 books a month - there are so many I haven’t even touched yet. The answer depends on my mood. Right now, I’m going with Find A Way by Diana Nyad, the 60-something year old who made four attempts to swim from Cuba to Florida. She made it on the 4th try, which was the first time anyone did it without a cage, and she survived sharks, lethal jellyfish, no sleep for 3 days, and a whole array of ridiculous barriers. The feat itself is impressive, but the fact that she’s about to get Social Security is uncanny.

What does being weird mean to you?
“Weird” no longer has a negative connotation and seems to now be considered a desirable label. Weird means something is an outlier, against the grain, and in most cases, doesn’t give a f*ck about being on the fringes. The most talented people on the planet, from Olympic medalists to self-made billionaires, are all weirdos.

Who or what inspires you?
When I get to witness someone being the very best at something and loving it whether anyone is watching or not, damn, that’s inspiring. I recently saw Flyin Bach, the global breakdancer group. You can’t fathom how those guys move, and they’d be perfecting those moves whether on the street or on a huge stage.

Biggest pet peeve?
Uptalk. I want to slap people.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
“Nothing is personal,” from The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz. We take things personally when we are being self-important.

Most memorable uncomfortable experience?
Each experience has its own particular moments which are probably burned into my brain for life. I’ll go with the Zen Buddhist retreat, which was over the course of four days. No eye contact, no speaking. That was unusual and oddly freeing.

–

Beck’s Bio: When you meet Beck, she’ll tell you she’s obsessed with experience.  She says it’s the only thing we leave the planet with, and this collection of experiences shapes our entire lives. You can buy stuff, you can collect things, but what tells your story and fills your life is a collective of experiences. The companies she’s interested in and has created are all based around having a particular kind of experience. BAM Communications, her PR Firm, makes you feel famous. Bite, San Diego’s top rated and largest food tour company in the county, helps you experience food bliss. Get ready to get weird, as we learn from one of San Diego’s most creative entrepreneurs.

If you haven’t registered yet, there’s still room! Head over to our registration page to join us this Friday to hear Beck talk about ‘Weird’. 

Whether it’s butter in coffee, bacon on donuts, fashion in the 80’s making a return, or the culture of an organization, weirdness reveals that there are no rules or right answers. Weirdness widens the edges of the status quo, and if we allow it, it adds beauty to our lives because it introduces us to a multitude of complexities that we may be ignoring.

This month we’re excited to hear from Beck Bamberger! Beck is a creative entrepreneur and founder of BAM Communications, a tech & startup PR firm located in San Diego. Join us this Friday, August 19th at the SD Public Library in East Village at 8:30AM. See our events page for more details & registration. 

Our brand new series of random questions that dig a little deeper into the minds of the people holding the mic.

Our team had the opportunity to sit down with our July speaker, Scott Lewis, recently to discuss the importance of our creative community and the endless opportunities in San Diego. Scott is the CEO + Editor in Chief at Voice of San Diego. 

What is your favorite virtue? (Throwback to Proust): Resourcefulness

Favorite vice/guilty pleasure? : I shouldn’t say.

What’s your favorite song? : Jigsaw Falling Into Place – Radiohead

What’s your least favorite song? : Everything by The Offspring.

Who or what inspires you? : Stories of entrepreneurship and podcasts like Radiolab.

What phrase do you find yourself repeating too often? : This stumped me. A colleague suggested I use the word “bananas” too often but I believe I should use it more.

Biggest pet peeve? : Unfounded nostalgia – the idea that everything used to be better during some undefined period. Journalism used to be better, I Make America Great Again, etc.

Favorite writer? : Jonathan Franzen

What does love mean to you? : It’s when you ache for something or someone without having decided to.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? : Two: 1) “nobody will ever validate you” and 2) “admit as soon as you can that you made a bad decision and work to fix it.”

If you could be any superhero, who would you be? (Comic Con shout-out) : I’d want my whole family to be the Incredibles.

Huge thanks to Scott for sitting down with us and being brutally honestly about his music choices! This month we’re talking about ‘Love’! Make sure to mark your calendars for July 29th at the Central Library in East Village. Follow us on Instagram & Twitter for more event updates. 

contributor : Kelly Weaver
photos by: Mike Spear

Last month was all about risk — and the circumstances and perspectives that exist in order for us to take one. This month, we’re delving deeper into those circumstances and defining our realities. Reality, on the surface, feels so tangible; so concrete. But (to, perhaps cheaply, use a turn of phrase), in reality, it isn’t quite so simple. Our existence is made of several truths, always shifting under our feet.

We’ll have more event details as we get closer to our event! Stay tuned.

AIGA San Diego’s 21st Annual Y Design Conference
April 1-2, 2016
y-conference.comY21 is AIGA San Diego’s premiere two-day design conference. This year features 20 inspiring Thinkshops and hands-on Workshops, 2 fabulous parties and 10 legendary speakers from all over the country! The Y21 speaker lineup includes a diverse sample of top creatives – from the force behind Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign to a neuroscientist specializing in how memory perception informs design to a hip hop typographer. You’ll also experience intimate lunch sessions with our speakers and local design heroes. The conference theme is “DISTILL / Design with Spirit”, reminiscent of coming of age in the Y’s 21st year. With a world of information at your fingertips, you are challenged to extract quality from quantity and DISTILL that information into a clear vision. Y21 – you won’t get a more spirited and personal view on design anywhere else!Held at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice on the beautiful campus of the University of San Diego, this conference offers a unique collaboration and mashup of the ever-expanding world of design.

Don’t beat yourself up asking “Y” you didn’t register! Registration is open and we look forward to see you there!

Follow AIGA SD on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for all the latest updates @YConferenceSD and @AIGASanDiego.

Adobe CC’s Creative Jam!

We’re excited to welcome Adobe back to San Diego as they host their secondCreative Jam! in the heart of downtown! Adobe is doing amazing things within different communities and one way they are bringing folks together is through these locally curated events.

We are honored to be partnering up with the folks at Adobe & Creative Cloud to bring these events to our community! This event is guaranteed to be awesome and a great opportunity to meet new friends and collaborators. Check out the event details below!

The evening kicks off with presentations highlighting the work of 4 local photographers. At the same time, in the next room, 15 photographers will be competing in the tournament. These select Photographers are notified of the photo assignment in the morning, they go out and shoot it however they envision it and come in that evening to post process their shots.Once the presentations wrap, tournament participants will take the stage to share their images with you.

As part of the audience, you’ll judge each submission and help select the People’s Choice winner.We’re excited to have Volldrauf providing the live mixing and musical selections for the event. He’ll be keeping the #creativejam funky until last call.And a shout out to our caterer A MIHO Experience for bringing all their deliciousness!

Event Details:

Thursday, February 25th
7PM - 9:30PM
319 7th Ave, San Diego, CA

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!

It was about this time last year that we opened the doors of Moniker Warehouse for the first time and welcomed folks to our first ever CreativeMornings San Diego chapter event! 

Here we are, one year later having learned a lot and made many friends throughout the last year. 

We’re kicking off 2016 this month and going straight to the real talk, literally. January’s #CreativeMornings theme is ‘Language’.

Speaker details coming soon!
Venue: San Diego Public Library
Date: January 22, 2016
Time: 8:30AM-10AM
*Inspiration Provided

December will be our last#CreativeMornings event for 2015 and we’re wrapping things up with a bang! We’re brining in 4 speakers from our audiences to have them share their take on this month’s theme with everyone.
There’s still time to register! Head over to our site (link in bio) to grab your free ticket for a seat, some coffee and donuts!

REGISTER HERE!