BrushLive - Peer150

Within eyesight of penguins and seals at the New England Aquarium, the Peer150 HR networking group held their PDXYZ Boston kickoff event! After meeting Ryan and Brad of Peer150 at their Portland event this spring I have been awaiting the opportunity to showcase my art experiences at one of their conferences.

Learning they were hosting a kickoff event in my hometown of Boston the stars aligned.

From a event location standpoint, this was top notch. The weather worked out perfectly and as the sun set over the Boston Seaport I was thrilled as attendees walked up and asked about the BrushLive setup.

The aquarium provided a unique theme for the canvas and I did my best to paint a green/blue/purple marine background. Initially I prompted attendees to paint a marine animal but it was soooooo interesting as the “marine” theme quickly divulged into other aquatic themed additons. Mainly movies.

This included references from Finding Nemo, Big Daddy, and my favorite Titanic. I watched as someone added the heart of the ocean necklace onto the canvas and could not hold back from pointing it out the rest of the night.

As each BrushLive occurs I try and pay attention to comments and reactions from attendees to better understand what value and impact creativity has on them. This time it was overcoming the fear that they “were not artists”. I noticed a bunch of attendees making comments like “well I can’t add to that” or “I would make it worse”. But as the note wore on those same people would come back up and add to the canvas. They had the initial reaction of no but after seeing peers have the confidence to pick up a brush, they did the same. I am very interested in researching this more because I think this could be a very valuable message to emphasize at future events. That creativity provides the outlet to take a risk and accept its consequences. And if one person can overcome that fear of adding to the canvas…what else could they overcome in work or in life?