Awards and Artistic Inspiration May 3, 2009
Posted by Katie Oh in : Such As , trackbackI’ve been so busy as of recent! It’s finals time, coupled with moving-in-a-week time, and I’ve just been going, going, going.
Working long hours for America Reads: Tuesday was Tutor Awards, Thursday I went with my kindergarten class on a field trip to the dentist’s, and Friday was the Spelling Bee, all large events that had me on site at 9 am and working til at least 2.
Tuesday, after following Peggy (the organizer for America Reads) around and keeping her organized, as well as setting up and taking down the table in the lobby no less than four times, I was awarded “Tutor of the Year,” which surprised me since a) it’s my first year and b) I don’t think I’ve done anything above and beyond what my job entails. Apparently I was wrong.
Monday will be my last day with the kindergarteners. I am rather bummed about this. They can be tiring, obnoxious, and far too honest (no, those bumps on my face don’t hurt and no, I am not pregnant, damnit, just fat!) but they are awesome. It’s bizarre to get a feeling of accomplishment from a kid being able to spell “bike” on their own or knowing what a “bouquet” is, but it’s a great feeling.
I have a long to-do list for the summer. I am hoping to connect up with Open Thread, a sort-of writing community in Pittsburgh. I need to re-decorate my room. I need to go through my things and discard as needed. I need to get a new cellphone. Well, maybe not need. Want. Gotta feed the American economy, you know. Save businesses and all that.
Martha Stewart, “lifestyle designer,” came to speak at Pratt, giving a lecture called “Artistic Inspiration as a Basis for Business.” I managed to get a ticket in the standing-room-only Memorial Hall, just a few rows back from the woman herself. She was exceedingly lovely: all glowy and gracious like she appears to be everywhere. She essentially does what I would love to do: turning awesome things into products for people.
Her process is meticulous: when she was creating her paint line for Sherwin Williams, she explained, she and her assistants brushed her cats, pulled the perfect shades from the strands of fur, and then re-created the colors by mixing various tempra paints. They created over 200 colors for the line, and when they turned them over to the Sherwin Williams people, they said “they had a computer that would re-create the colors.” A few weeks later, and they came back. “The computer could only make 5 of the shades properly,” Martha said. “They had to hand-mix the rest.”
Martha has, frankly, taken over the world. I wasn’t even aware of how far her influence spreads: a paint line for Sherwin Williams (best-selling shade: Newman’s Blue, which was picked from a picture of Paul Newman’s eyes), a collection of bedding and bath products for K-Mart, a fine china collection for Wedgewood, a line of craft supplies for Wal-Mart, higher-end bed and bath products for Macy’s, a furniture line, several television shows, numerous books, and several blogs, one of which is “written” by her two dogs and averages 15,000 hits a day.
And perhaps it just makes sense, how she’s done this. She explained this, which, in today’s market, seems like it’s forgotten:
We just want to make the best stuff we can possibly make with the best designs… I tell my team, “we are all the customer…” I am the customer.
The best part, though, may have been the Q & A at the end. A girl got up and, after explaining how interesting she thought Martha’s business was and how much she appreciated hearing how Martha thinks, she asked:
“What’s the biggest distaster that’s happened so far?”
And Martha, in the moment that made me admire her more than anything else, chuckled and said, simply:
“I think we all know what that is.”
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