One cool thing about art is that anyone can create it. You don’t have to be a profession or even have any training. And even if you don’t create, you can still enjoy other people’s art. The only problem is that sometimes the arts community can get a little stuffy and exclusive. It goes against everything that the arts are about, but it happens. That’s why ArtStream was started. They’re a Washington, DC based non-profit “whose mission is to create artistic opportunities for individuals in communities traditionally under-served by the arts.” That includes “persons with disabilities, seniors, people with short or long term illnesses and their families or caregivers, immigrants, veterans, people who are grieving, and students and teachers.”
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When I was a kid I used to get a catalog called Things You Never Knew Existed. I’m not sure how I first ended up on the mailing list, but I would look over the catalog for hours and hours (it was the ultimate bathroom reading material). It was filled with gag gifts, pranks, collectibles, novelties, costumes, and all kind of other silly stuff. If you were preparing to play a good April Fools joke on someone, an order from Things You Never Knew Existed would be a great start. The Johnson Smith Company is based in Bradenton, FL and behind Things You Never Knew Existed as well as The Ligher Side, Betty’s Attic, Clever Gear, Full of Life, and HaloweenOnly.com. They’ve been around for a century now, so they’ve really developed a specialty in selling random junk you don’t need.
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e-commerce,
Florida,
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humor,
Internships
I swear that every kid who grows up in Connecticut goes on a field trip to Old Sturbridge Village at some point. For me it wasn’t until 10th grade (and we were on our way back from a longer trip to Boston and Plimoth Plantation), but I think most kids go earlier in their lives. If you weren’t lucky enough to grow up within a couple hour bus ride of Old Sturbridge Village (which is based in Sturbridge, MA), you should know that it’s the “largest outdoor history museum in the Northeast” and it “depicts a rural New England town of the 1830s.” It’s the perfect place for immature children to try to get the staff to fall out of character.
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Sandy brought Mischief Night a night early, and now a lot of towns and cities on the East Coast are postponing Halloween for a few days, but I’m sure most of you are still celebrating today. I kind of hate adult Halloween–when you take away the trick-or-treating, it loses its allure. And since 28 year olds get the police called on them if they go door to door asking for candy, I haven’t dressed up in years. But I still love seeing what other people dress up as, so I’m hoping you bought something from Rubie’s Costume Co.. They’re a Richmond Hill, NY based company that considers itself “the leading innovator in the Halloween industry.” For the last 60 years they’ve been designing and manufacturing all kinds of awesome costumes. (And if you want to see our past Halloween posts, check out Trick or Vote, Tootsie Roll Industries, and the Children’s Dental Health Project. If you just have candy on your mind, you may want to take a look at these posts: Russell Stover, Mars, The Hershey Company, NECCO, Charles Chocolates, Jelly Belly, Just Born Quality Confections, Vosges, and the Pennsylvania Manufacturing Confectioners’ Association.)
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Even though it will be another year until we celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day again, I don’t think that we’ve had enough pirate talk for the week. Just kidding, no pirate talk today, but we are going to take a look at a non-profit called Story Pirates. They’re based in New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA, and they pair “experienced teachers with talented artists to collaborate with schools and community organizations in creating exciting, dynamic classes covering a broad range of academic topics.” That’s actually a kind of boring way to put it. One of the programs that they’re best known for is taking stories that kids write and acting them out. How could that not be absolutely awesome?
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I have to admit that it gets a bit monotonous writing about non-profit internships every weekend. There’s an endless number of organizations to cover, but so many of them are very similar to ones that I’ve already featured. But today I found one that is about as unique a non-profit as I’ve come across in my nearly four years of doing this. It’s the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, GA. They’re exactly what they sound like, an organization that “is the largest American organization solely dedicated to the art of puppet theater.” I’ll admit that I haven’t been to a puppet show in a while, but when I was a little kid I put on a mean one. Puppetry is an interesting art because it can be as simple as a sock on a hand or as complex as Big Bird. It may not get as much credit as other performing arts, but it’s definitely worthy of having an organization devoted to it.
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I’m starting to get settled in my new place. After living in two moderately new high-rises in downtown Chicago, I’ve moved into a more historic building–it was built in 1921 and served as a Chinese consulate at some point. Now that I’m starting my fourth year living in the city, I feel that it’s only appropriate for me to start learning a little more about the city’s history. That’s why I should probably make a visit to the Chicago History Museum, which is just a mile down the street from me. Ironically, the museum, having been founded in 1856, “is the city’s oldest cultural institution,” though they pretty much had to start over after the Great Fire destroyed their building and most of their collection in 1871. Three years later there was another fire that destroyed most of what remained. Luckily, there haven’t been any more fires, so the Chicago History Museum has had a decent amount of time to build a new collection.
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One of my earliest memories is from Detroit’s Thanksgiving parade. I think that I was about 2 years old at the time, and I saw Oscar the Grouch on some sort of float. I don’t remember much more about the parade, but I remember that. I guess that I’m an experiential marketers dream since I managed to remember that over all of the other cool things that happened when I was two years old (another early memory was getting my head stuck between the bars on a McDonald’s playground—another branded memory). I think that the people at VEE Corporation would be especially happy to hear about my early memory since they’re the company behind Sesame Street Live. They’re a Minneapolis based firm that provides “live entertainment, promotion and event marketing services for America’s most respected brands, properties and agencies.” They’re big on full-body costumes and mascots as well as merging marketing and entertainment.
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