#ideasuncovered

A Success Story: Rachel Shechtman's Transformative Space

Chris Prior began making snowboards out of his garage in 1990. Prior, a craftsman by nature, is also a person with ideas, dreams, and hopes for the snowy region that inspires his work. Ten years after his first split-board prototype, Prior moved the Snowboards production to Whistler, Canada. No, not just a satellite shop; he moved the entire show: the factory, the staff, and the cup-winning boards to the streets of Whistler Village. He wanted to support the artistic and cultural movement of what he knew to be more than just another ski town.

And did he ever become a part of that culture. Every Prior snowboard can be customized, the makers are just right next door to the shop, and the artists creating the board designs can be found milling about the shop and talking with visitors about inspirations for their next piece. Often, a member of the team, anyone from accounting to design, will present an idea to the artisans in the factory. Prototypes are made, and immediately tested outside on the Mountain. The result at the end of the run could spark a new innovation altogether.

In 2006 art student Steven Peterman was looking for a way to encourage people to interact with his work. He had the idea for a library of art that one could pick and choose to browse and interact with, and with a friend he founded The Sketchbook Project. Today, he and his wife Sara Peterman run a growing library in Brooklyn, NY of digital and physical sketchbooks created by users from around the globe. The idea of engagable (and engaging) art remains the same, and the process is still just as simple: pay $25, receive a small sketchbook, fill it in, then send it back by January 1. Each year, the books made from the year prior are catalogued into The Sketchbook Project library and go on tour to 20+ cities with the Petermans in their mobile library, allowing undiscovered art, untold stories, and captured moments from the past year to be shared with the world.

As a Lincoln Reimagine Project honoree, Steven Peterman will be enhancing the categorizing and tagging system to help people find the sketchbooks that might inspire them most, as well as moving his library system to be accessible by mobile app. The Petermans will be bringing some of their collection to TEDActive this year and plan to inspire the next sketchers, storytellers, and those wanting to document their year.