Theater of Inclusion

TOI Blog

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Outgrowing Your Workspace

Everything doesn’t fit onto our screens. The glare and reflections that bounce off the glass and plastic protectors on our phones, tablets, laptops, and flatscreens creates barriers between us and our content. We don’t notice this. As I’m writing this on my computer I can see everything behind me, including myself, in any of the […]

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We Are All Equal – Period.

When we established Theater of Inclusion fifteen years ago we were focused on identifying the skill sets required to open up open dialogue. This meant boot-strap problem-solving. This meant paying close attention to how individuals expressed themselves. We had to back up and back up some more to look carefully at how people exhibited their […]

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One Artist One Hour My Garage

I’ve spent months writing sentences trying to express the daunting act of making something and then standing by it – literally standing by it. The writer Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation) said something like writing is more difficult for writers than for others. He was paraphrasing someone else who no doubt was a writer struggling with writing. […]

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Pause

Rebecca and I have worked in a lot of places. I can’t remember the name of the convention center in Vancouver or the college in Paducah. There was the art center in Mobile and the children’s museum in Lexington. I remember the barricaded school in East Toledo and more than a few stages in northern […]

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Museums in my Mind

When I was a kid and wasn’t feeling well my mom used to recite from memory a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson entitled “The Land of Counterpane”. It begins: “When I was sick and lay a-bed, I had two pillows at my head, And all my toys beside me lay, To keep me happy all […]

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The Artist Teaching Herself

I’m pretty sure the science shows we all have a default setting that we learn by doing and teach by example. We crave direct experience that puts us into meaningful contact with each other and makes us more aware of our own insights. When we learn we teach ourselves. When we are caught in the […]

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Daylight Savings Time as Timelessness

The clock on the wall of my studio tells me that it is 8:12. A week ago at this time it would have been 7:12. This large clock, that also shows temperature and humidity, is run by a little double A battery and its hands, its hours, its minutes and seconds are not connected to […]

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Showing Up

Sitting across from me in the coffee shop is my 95 year old father reciting lyrics from a song that matters to him today. The song was written 65 years ago but for my dad it could have been released an hour ago. He’s been doing this my whole life. Making the moment shamelessly timeless. […]

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Boxed Water and Art

“Can we go to the museum” is the text I receive, without a question mark, from my 12-year old daughter. “Yes” is my reply without period. I know there isn’t much there but the seven word exchange has my attention. By the time I arrive at school to pick her up she jumps into the […]

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Snow

“Despite the sunshine…” is a little phrase buried inside today’s weather alert from the Weather Channel. Outside I’m in my shirt sleeves shoveling snow to create a path between my house and my studio. It is about 150 feet. I had plenty of other stuff to do today. I woke before dawn with my to […]