CreativeMornings/Edmonton

We’re looking for a new host in Edmonton!

In 2008, Tina Roth Eisenberg, also known as Swissmiss, started CreativeMornings out of a desire for an ongoing, accessible event for New York’s creative community. The concept was simple: breakfast and a short talk one Friday morning a month. Every event would be free of charge and open to anyone.

Today, attendees gather in 224 cities around the world to enjoy fresh coffee, friendly people, and an international array of breakfast foods. Volunteer hosts and their team members organize local chapters that not only celebrate a city’s creative talent, but also promote an open space to connect with like-minded individuals. We call ourselves an engine of generosity and live by our manifesto. 

CreativeMornings Edmonton's previous host has since stepped down so we are now looking for a replacement. Could this be you?

If you are:

- passionate about your local creative community in Edmonton - psyched to lead a small volunteer team to put your own spin on CreativeMornings - excited to participate in the global conversation among our chapters - one to use the words humble, driven, resourceful, generous and connected to describe yourself

We’d love to hear from you! If interested, complete our standard New Chapter Application and we’ll be in touch.

There will be follow up interviews for the top candidates.

We look forward to receiving your application!

CreativeMornings

We’ve been quiet on our blog, perhaps due to the pivot of the world as of late. Our community has gone [VIRTUAL] for the past two events and we are continuing full-speed digital. Won’t you join us?

Big thanks to our ever loving partner, Edmonton’s NextGen, who have kept our chapter up and operating, even in the era of social cocooning and home-front offices. We are also thankful to continue our partnership with Rogue Wave Coffee, by giving gift cards to 20 lucky attendees each month to support a local business we believe in.

Spring is blooming around our city and we are thinking about the nature of things. Beyond green spaces, we could interpret our May theme, Nature, as what we do by nature. What is in your nature to create? How do you construct something out of nothing? Given that many of us are entering a different way of relating to our world, professionally and socially, what have you adapted to? What have you created in order to keep your world somewhat “natural”?

We think that Jonathan Luckhurst may have something to say about our theme. As our May speaker, Luckhurst is going to draw from his creative urges, largely influenced by the natural world, and bring forth insight that each attendee can nurture. This time of year is ripe for planting with a distant harvest to look forward to. What thoughts can we plant now? What actions can be sowed?

Whatever you may wonder, show up to our [VIRTUAL] event on Friday, May 29 at 8:30AM. Make sure to register for our event, starting on May 25th, as only registered attendees will be given our event link and password. We look forward to discussing our theme with you.

Follow the event link for more information on our speaker!

February has us talking about “invest.” Having a local entrepreneur to address the month’s theme seems appropriate, however, our team is most impressed and enthusiastic with the relational direction Linda Ha has indicated in our one-on-one preliminary chats. 

You may know Linda Ha as a successful businesswoman who entered a gendered space and became a leader in how organizations function as effective community hubs, but it takes an ethos of relationship development, or investment to secure that familial energy.

If you’ve ever contemplated how investment interacts with tangible an intangible elements, you’ll want to secure tickets to our February 28th event at CKUA’s performance space in the heart of Edmonton’s downtown.

More about Linda Ha

For the last 18 years, Linda has honed her craft as a hairstylist and barber, establishing a sharp sense of personal style and a dedicated customer following. In 2011, she opened her business, Barber Ha, a fledgling two-person operation in southeast Edmonton. Since then, Barber Ha has expanded to an eight-chair shop in Edmonton's renowned Old Strathcona neighbourhood with over (9) employees -- growth which is attributable to Linda's dedication towards quality service, thorough employee mentorship and education, and positive client relationships.

Linda has been a guest speaker for Edmonton International Women's week, TedX Edmonton, and Capital Ideas Edmonton, where she was featured as one of Edmonton's most promising young entrepreneurs and educators. Linda is also an ardent supporter of Edmonton's art and music scene, having hosted and sponsored a variety of events and shows.

Bio: Barbering Success

‎We are super excited to announce that مصطفى رفيق (Mustafa Rafiq) will kick off our 2020 series. How better to start a decade then by contemplating January’s theme of “Roots.” 

For those well versed in the local Edmonton music scene, Mustafa may be known as the lead promoter behind Sweaty Palms, an organization that curates eclectic lineups throughout the city’s communities by creating memorable experiences. You may also know them (pronoun) through their solo music project, Family Injera, a sonic exploration that combines electronic ambient sounds with Arabic heritage. 

No matter how you know them, or what you will know of them, one thing is for sure: Mustafa is the creative result of an intercultural bridge that reflects what it means to grow up in a city that is emerging in its multifaceted cultural identity. 

We hoped you’d fall in love with the Ortona Armoury. We hoped you’d fall deep into our month’s theme of PRESERVE. Patrick Arès-Pilon was a perfect instigator to the busied conversations you all had after his talk.

We watched you wander the building. We saw you see how special spots like these are for the identity of our community, our city.

Big love to Edmonton Heritage Council for buying us breakfast this past Friday morning. Big love to Leroy Schulz (@leroyschulz) for continuing to capture the vibe of each unique event. Thank-you to Mark Wilbert and Janelle Holod for always being in standby mode to make these events a reality and a pleasure to create.

Forever may the ghosts of the Ortona Armoury be among us.

Welcome to January, friends!

Surreal how time flies. 2019, we are here for you! After the haze of the holiday season, we awake into a cold, white month: January. But it’s a time where we can look ahead to a year of creative ventures and begin to dream where we’ll go next.

Join us on Friday, January 18 at Allard Hall (MacEwan Campus), where we will be talking with multi-media artist and cinematographer, aAron Munson. Tickets go live on January 14 at 9:00 AM. Set your Dali clocks and get registered early! Limited spots available.

Waving,

Happy New Years Edmonton! We hope you have some down time during the turn of the years, and that you are hungry for our 2019 events. Our team took a much needed break to recoup and recharge for what will surely be an amazing year. 

We couldn’t be happier with the close of 2018, talking about TRADITION with the inspiring and humble, Marek Tyler. We also had our first Skype in meeting with Tyler’s mother, who opened up our event with her reflection and understandings of gatherings and communal support. Such an honour to feature two generations of ceremony and protocol speakers. Together we honour the land and Treaty 6 by continuing conversation and renewing relationships with the traditional people of this land. Thank-you to everyone who came and supported through their attendance.

Our event was supported by the lovely humans at ATB The Branch and DBA of Edmonton, who prove the validity of community in the downtown core through their shared resources to make this event possible.

We’d like to thank Funmi Omotade-Tan @FO_Photography, for her visual eye, capturing another heartfelt event.

We are back in full force on January 18 at Allard Hall, part of MacEwan’s Fine Arts and Communications building with speaker, aAron Munson. 

Waving,

Sylvia Soo is a master at restart is not afraid to stick to her standards, personally and professionally. Our November event was inspiring, emotional, motivating and celebratory. We also turned six as a chapter, and our biggest gift was being able to talk with Sylvia and have you all together to enjoy the process.

What we are grateful for, as we turn six: generosity of Edmontonians. We are the result of many organizations and individuals who believe in conversation, connection and creativity. We had Yellow Pencil bring us delicious Duchess Bakeshop goodies, dc3 Art Projects lent us their beautiful gallery for the conversation, Wilfred’s + ACE Coffee Roasters supplied up the necessary brew we need on a cold winter morning, Latitude 53 lent us a large carload of chairs and our favourite photo snatcher, Leroy Schulz, brought the event to life long after the conversation has moved on into your workspaces and homes. 

Another amazing event. We were honoured to listen to Craig Martell talk about his life with HONESTY.

The morning of October 19, we sat in the beautifully sunny City Room at Lougheed College, looking over our favourite Edmonton landmark, the river valley. We feasted on Ace Roaster’s coffee and deserts by LEVA Cafe.

Photos by the talented powerhouse, Leroy Schulz.

Thank-you to Craig Martell for giving us an amazing high of energy, for you truly helped create a special morning for everyone who attended. 

Big love to Courtenay Badran at Lougheed Hall for making this event run so smoothly. THANK-YOU for being a boss lady!

What? HONESTLY though, you want to get a ticket to October’s event at Peter Lougheed Leadership College. 

Craig Martell is a story teller at heart. Just take him out for brunch and you’ll understand why. Ultimately, he is a community connector who provides space for creatives to showcase their work through various ventures. From booking talent at Rec Room in South Edmonton to running his record label, Double Lunch Productions, Martell’s presence is felt throughout the city. 

He ran the infamous and late Wunderbar, and brought programming to the Buckingham (who personally took pies in the face for the notorious event series, Rockin’ for Dollars).

Make sure you have an alarm set for October 15 for 9 AM when our tickets will be released, free of charge—remember we release a limited quantity! Our summer events sold out in less than 24 hours. BE PREPARED.

Check Craig Martell on Twitter, which explains why we think he’s perfect for this month’s theme of HONESTY (@thecraigiest).

Last month we talked about CHAOS inside Edmonton’s City Hall. This bright expansive space combated the freak snow storm we had (yes, it was still summer). Additionally, we decided that the audience should be taking the photos for our event. We had film camera’s tied to balloons and were passed from audience member to audience member. We loved getting to process the batch!

Our CHAOS speaker, Dr. Gregory Sivakoff (UofA), drew connections between his studies in space and creativity, while confronting notions of adversity. We especially loved when he would emphasize twirling matter while spinning in a circle himself.

We were happy to partner with United Nations Association of Canada, Edmonton’s Chapter, for our event which fell on International Peace Day. It was a great conversation of how conflict often leads to some of the best policies put forth in society, like connection, peace and collaboration. We grow stronger.

“We are in the connection economy” —Seth Godin

Last week CreativeMornings Edmonton traveled to upstate New York to camp with 89 CreativeMornigns chapters from around the world. Some 300 of us were sharing meals, ideas, inspiration, talent, creativity, friendship and a shoulder to lean on. This beautiful experience of global sharing truly showed the power of the connection economy, like our keynote speaker, Seth Godin admitted to in CreativeMornings NYC talk back in 2013.

We’ll be taking the experiences had at camp and weaving them into our events. If we can connect globally, we can connect municipally. Not everyone was a creative. But everyone is welcome to experience creativity, to sit next to it, to learn from it.

We love looking back on our events over this past summer and to see all the curious faces engaging with one another. Face-to-face, with inquiry and smiles.

Our next event is on September 21 at City Hall and with Dr. Gregory Sivakoff. Let’s talk CHAOS. Don’t be scared, be prepared!

Looking over the photo spread from last Friday’s engaging conversation fills us with great joy. Bringing accessible community events that welcome everyone and encourages bravery, honesty and creativity is an honour.

July’s theme was INTENTION. Our speaker was the hypnotic, Ahmed Knowmadic Ali. Our venue was the welcoming DevFacto who in partnership with Alberta Podcast Network, helped feed our morning conversation with coffee and pastries. Always a win-win.

All photos courtesy of the talented and generous, Leroy Schulz (@leroyschulz), who we are forever grateful to.