Blog Archives

Chic Geek presents the Speak Geek Series

2/28/2014

I've always worked as an artist, but it's been a pretty solitary endeavour. You don't meet a lot of people sitting up all in night painting in your silent studio. I couldn't resist posting this drawing from an old unpublished volume of the Drawing Book, describing my erstwhile artsy lifestyle. Like I was saying, I didn't meet a lot of people (my appearance may have had something to do with that, to judge by the picture).

So here's one of the best things about working as a graphic recorder: I get to do art, but I also get to meet a lot of people! And even better, I keep finding out about these cool organizations that are doing interesting things. I was lucky enough to get to draw some pictures at one such cool group last week, namely the Chic Geek.

Here's how they describe themselves on their website:

The Chic Geek is a Calgary based organization striving to increase diversity in the hi-tech and startup communities by educating, engaging and empowering women.

The Chic Geek - which just celebrated its first birthday - is already well-known in Calgary for its tech-themed events such as Ladies Learning Code. But last week they launched a new event for 2014: a speaker series called Speak Geek.

Last week's inaugural event was less about tech and more about women telling stories of "Challenging their Comfort Zones." We listened to Janie Fontaine of JanieJewels (and of Dragon's Den fame); Student Energy founder Kali Taylor; Social Venture Partners Executive Connector Karen Whiteman; and Calgary businesswoman and Startup Weekend superstar Anette Ceraficki. All of their stories were inspiring, thoughtful, and funny. But you can find a much better recap of the evening's highlights on the Chic Geek blog (which where I found the excellent photo that I've shamelessly included here).

I also got to meet quite a few chic geeks who I'm pretty sure have inspiring stories of their own, including Chic Geek founder Kylie Toh and Speak Geek mastermind Fazilah Shariff. I think I want to find out more. And there's no question I could always use some "education, engagement and empowerment" when it comes to my own little business. Maybe I could be a chic geek too! You can see I've come a long way from my days (well, nights) as a solitary nocturnal artist!

Anyway, this is about the pictures, so here you go!

Close-up pictures of the four speakers' talks...

And some random close-up images from the poster.

And here are some drawings from four breakout groups holding Q & A's with the evening's four speakers, which took place after their talks.

Happy 1st birthday Chic Geek! And thanks for inviting me to the party. We'll be seeing you!

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The Colours of Calgary Reads

2/23/2014

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I like bright colours!

(This sun is on the front of my house.)

A few weeks ago I had the chance to draw some pictures for Calgary Reads, a local early literacy initiative. (Here's the picture I drew!) A group that encourages reading – what’s not to love about that? But there was something else I really liked, too: the colours. Calgary Reads has used colour to make its work space fun, vibrant, and inviting. And in doing so, it’s branded itself as a fun and colourful organization.

It seems like a no-brainer: bright colours will make things more memorable, more accessible, and more welcoming! But it’s surprising how seldom folks are willing to take a chance and add colour to their scheme. I guess there’s always the danger that the colour you love might rub someone the wrong way. Taste in colour is pretty subjective. But I’d rather take the chance – especially in the space I’m going to inhabit (or work in) myself. Being surrounded by an inspiring space – which definitely includes colour – makes all the difference to my happiness and productivity. Well, and it helps if there’s also a coffee pot.

Calgary Reads front lobby welcomes you in with bright colours that tell you all about what you’ll find inside. Here is a bookshelf’s worth of sponsor names – a great way to recognize them in a permanent way that’ll never get boring.

Everywhere you look, there’s art by local mural artist Dean Stanton. His style is pretty unmistakable. One of his best-known works is the mural on Sunalta School (you can see it from Crowchild Trail. And you can also get a pretty good view of it from Scarboro Avenue – right across the street from the school – which is where I grew up!).

I like how the objects on this wall seem to tell a story – starting small and getting bigger as your eye moves towards the right. You “read” the wall from left to right, just the same way you read the words on the page of a book!

One of my favourite things has to be this wall covered with paintings, many of which feature childrens’ depictions of illustrations from well-loved children’s books. (In case you didn’t know, I’m a fan of YA fiction.) Here’s Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are; Robert Munsch’s The Paper Bag Princess; Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree; and Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson.

You can find out more about Crockett Johnson in Phil Nel's book, Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children's Literature. Phil's book was nominated for an Eisner Award (Best Educational/Academic Work) – pretty cool again. I still have a blog post about that book in the back of my head, but I got distracted from that project by a few things last year (like having a baby). (And yes, I am writing all this in the company of said baby at the really great Telus Spark Science Centre surrounded by a thousand children who can’t play outside because it’s minus twenty-two degrees out.)

And there's Eric Carle's Very Hungry Caterpillar.

I have the feeling Calgary Reads' Steacy Collyer, who was the driving force behind all these colours, would get along fine with the German artist Angela Holtermann-Stumpf. Here's a picture of her house in the city of Witten. I wish my house looked something like this, too!

Colours at my house

When I bought my 1911 Ramsay house in 2004, every single surface in the house was painted white. I loved that – it was like a blank canvas just waiting for me to paint. And I didn’t stop until I had done just that.

I like painting skies and suns on the ceiling. (I’m really claustrophobic, so I think it’s really just about creating the illusion that there’s more space over my head.)

Here’s a sun I painted on the ceiling of an apartment I lived in about fifteen years ago (above). The room was already purple. I never would have chosen that colour, but it kind of grew on me. And here’s my own living room ceiling (below). This picture was taken by Rachel Psutka, a interactive reporter at the Regina Leader-Post, during her internship at the Calgary Herald a couple of years ago.

Here are some pictures of my house back when we renovated it (and I painted everything!). And down here is a little mural I painted on my son’s wall after he was born. Wasn’t I ambitious back then? We’ll be lucky if my second son even gets a mural at this rate!

I'm looking forward to catching up with the colourful Calgary Reads on March 6th, at their Reading Rally at Ramsay School! What is a Reading Rally? Here's what Calgary Reads' website has to say:

Reading Rallies are reading parties at Calgary Reads schools. This is a joyful time of laughter and fun with dozens of volunteers who join with the young readers in very small groups to share the joy of reading and read stories aloud. A celebrity storyteller joins in the fun by reading a book aloud, demonstrating how fun reading really can be. Every child attending the event gets a book bag filled with goodies and several new books, often the first book some of these children have ever owned.

Doesn't that sound like fun? See you there!

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TEDxCalgary: "Wilderness"

2/17/2014

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As I've written elsewhere (here, for example), I used to get out a lot more. I used to go out at night, eat in restaurants, listen to live music, even leave town! Having children has changed a lot of that stuff quite a bit. I shouldn't sayI don't get around much anymore - it's just that I get around to a lot more playgrounds than night clubs. And I've loved the new places being a mostly-stay-at-home mom has taken me. I've seen a side of this city that I never saw before I was a parent.

One of the only things I miss is the chance to spend more time in Calgary's grown-up "playgrounds." So when theTEDxCalgary team invited me to come and draw some pictures at their event at theCalgary Zoo a couple of weeks ago, of course I jumped at the chance.

What is TED? I think the first time I heard about it was when I watched Naheed Nenshi's popular TEDxCalgary talk online in 2010 (back before he was Calgary's Mayor). TED describes itself on its website thus: "TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. ...TED conferences bring together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes or less)."

So what is "TEDx"? The TEDx website says: "The TEDx program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level. TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis."

So there you have it. Check out the amazing independent planners and coordinators on the TEDxCalgary volunteer team. And now take a look at my notes about what they cooked up for a handful of lucky Calgarians in January 2014!

See? It was really sunny at the Calgary Zoo's Karsten Discovery Centre! (By the way, I have stolen most of the photos in this post from the TEDxCalgary facebook page).

The TEDx team of volunteers had set up some blackboards around the lobby, and participants were invited to write on them, finishing some open-ended statements such as, "Wilderness to me means...."

("A Hole is To Dig" was my contribution, by the way. As I've mentioned elsewhere (here, for example), I usually don't read grown-up books!)

Anyway, I went around and talked with people about how they'd finish those sentences, and here are some of the things they said:

I can't tell you how pleased I was to run into John (depicted above). He was a childhood friend of my brother's, and a long time ago he helped me to paint a mural on an enormous Calgary wall! You can read a comic strip about our swashbuckling mural-painting adventures here.

Seeing John - whom I don't run into on a regular basis - reinforced for me how TEDx really draws in all sorts of people, from all parts of town, of all ages, of all walks of life!

This participant (above) was actually named Ted!

Glenda MacQueen is the Vice Dean at the University of Calgary's Faculty of Medicine. And Rahim Sajan (above) is TEDxCalgary's Curator!

Well, all of that was before the talks even started! We settled in for a day of engaging, challenging, provoking words and images, all of which was introduced by an impassioned spoken word piece performed by 13-year-old local poet Fatima Bata.

I took notes during the talks just for fun.

I loved listening to Canadian legend Robert Bateman speak, not just about how he paints the wilderness, but about important it is to let children interact with the wild world out there, rather than bring them up surrounded by screens. On that note - a total aside, I confess - here's something with a screen that was recently voted the worst toy of the year. You tell 'em, Mr. Bateman!

Next, Barbara Coloroso's very affecting talk about how something as common as schoolyard bullying can set the stage for bigger problems. Ms. Coloroso spoke about her work at schools in Rwanda helping to nurture a new society in the wake of that country's1994 genocide. The "1, 2, 3" points that I recorded in the image below (if I remember correctly) are the conditions she listed as necessary for a society to get itself into something as terrible as genocide.

Somewhere in there we were also treated to a video put together by TEDx team member Chris Hsiung. Here it is: "Meet the Human Race." (I'm not sure why my screen shows an image that's a few minutes into the video, but if you click on "play," it should start at the beginning.) The images in this video were beautiful and powerful! But even better, I loved the music!

Meet the Human Race

Here's an aside. TEDx curator Rahim Sajan impressed upon participants the idea that they weren't just there to soak up the information in the talks; rather, the TEDx material was meant to get participants interacting, asking questions, starting conversations, and coming away with some new opportunities for friendship, collaboration, and learning. I think Chris Hsiung's video was the "trailhead" that set me off into a particular wilderness adventure just now:

When I went to Chris's website to put up the link to his video, I took a look at a few of the other projects that his company, Hidden Story Productions, has worked on. One thing I noticed was that Chris put together the video for the song written and performed by Amy Thiessen during Mayor Nenshi's first campaign. That's a video many Calgarians (including myself) watched. Then I noticed that there was a project called "Soul of the City Neighbour Grant Proposal." (By the way, these grants are still available, and if your neighbourhood group would like to apply for one, you should - check out the information here!) Looks like Chris is proposing to document the stories of the grant recipients. (And, from what I can see, it looks like he'd do an awesome job!).

But what I also realized was that I'd met Chris before, one year ago, when I did some graphic recording for Calgary Economic Development's "Soul of the City" series. It was really early in the morning and I hadn't had any coffee - I think that must be why I didn't instantly recognize Chris at TEDx (that, and the fact that he was busy taking pictures and I was busy drawing and there wasn't really any time to talk). It turns out Chris is the person who made the sped-up video of me graphically recording the Soul of the City talks. I have pointed so many people to this video, and I never knew who made it! Hooray for TEDx solving this mystery for me. I will have to send Chris a note. But first I have to finish this blog!

WILDERNESS to me means...

Above: something I drew while listening to the TEDx talks. (Yes. I can listen and draw at the same time!)

Then it was time for lunch, and here are some of the pictures I drew while listening to folks around the table (click on them to enlarge).

Having never been to one of these before, I wondered a bit about how unique this particular TEDx event was, compared to so many worldwide TEDx's. Then I saw this little light was designed by Fred Maynard of the TEDx volunteer team - now how cool (and unique) is that?

I couldn't stay for the afternoon's talks, but before I left, I put all the pictures I drew up on a blackboard for everyone to see when they came out of the auditorium!

Here's Kevin Franco of event sponsor Francomedia (very cool Inglewood-based firm)

Yes, indeed - thanks, TEDx, for doing what you do!

And now one more note. I really love drawing pictures amidst crowds of engaged, smart, motivated people - it's so inspiring. But sometimes when I come home to a house full of diapers and train tracks, it is a bit hard to switch gears (as depicted at the end of this post from last year's Mayor's Lunch for Arts Champions). In this case, though, my 5-yr-old son helped me through the transition by welcoming me home with this message:

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February 2014 strip

2/6/2014

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2013 was a challenging year around here - to put it mildly. So I was really looking forward to closing the door on it, and enjoying a fresh new start in 2014. But what happened instead: on January 5th I was in the hospital being told that I needed to have my appendix removed! Well, that's another story (actually, I wrote a little blog about my surprisingly great experience at the Peter Lougheed Centre, but haven't had time to ink it yet - stay tuned). Anyway, I wasn't really out and about in the neighbourhood much, so here's my brother supplying the story for this month's Ramsay Newsletter comic strip. He just got back from doing a Master's in Conflict Resolution at the University of Bradford in Bradford, England. Wow!!! (And what is he going to do next???)

And by the way - 2014's already looking a bit rosier, after the rocky start.

You can read all my Ramsay comics here on my website!

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sam hester

I am a graphic recorder based in Calgary. I like local stories. I write comics when I have free time. And I leave eraser shavings everywhere I go.

Looking for a
graphic recorder?
Look here!

contact me

sam@the23rdstory.com

my website

www.the23rdstory.com started as a blog and now includes some information about my graphic recording practice as well.

I also have an (old) website which features a lot of my (old) work. Look out, it's a bit clunky and there are a lot of links that don't go anywhere, but there are still a few interesting things there:
www.thedrawingbook.com

Chic Geek presents the Speak Geek Series

The Colours of Calgary Reads

Colours at my house

TEDxCalgary: "Wilderness"

Meet the Human Race

WILDERNESS to me means...

February 2014 strip

sam hester

Looking for a
graphic recorder?
Look here!

contact me

my website

Categories

archives

Chic Geek presents the Speak Geek Series

The Colours of Calgary Reads

Colours at my house

TEDxCalgary: "Wilderness"

Meet the Human Race

WILDERNESS to me means...

February 2014 strip

sam hester

Looking for agraphic recorder? Look here!

contact me

my website

Categories

archives

Looking for a
graphic recorder?
Look here!