On a seasonably warm, sunny October morning, musicians Carla Kihlstedt and Matthias Bossi helped the Arts Foundation kick off a day of learning, connection, and creativity by posing a question – what if — in the midst of a three-song set at the beginning of the CX Conference at the Cotuit Center for the Arts.
It’s a powerful question that Carla tied to the possibilities the arts offer to our lives and our world.
Over the course of the conference, nearly 200 individuals from all corners of the Cape explored those possibilities as they participated in interactive workshops and were inspired by discussions that started with a Fireside Chat between Arts Foundation Executive Director Julie Wake and Massachusetts College of Art and Design President Dr. Mary K. Grant.
Dr. Grant spoke about the importance of having artists in the room when addressing important community issues. “They’re using that art and design education in so many different ways to pull apart a problem, to look at things from a different perspective, and to look at it again,” she said. “When you think about how artists approach something — rhey’re looking at it. They’re problem solving, thinking about who else needs to be in this [room]. What might I use to solve this? How do I tease this apart? And then how do I bring other people into the conversation?”
The conference’s keynote speaker, Dr. Tasha Golden, a behavioral scientist whose work focuses on the connection between creativity and well-being, piggybacked on this concept, highlighting the powerful impact the arts wield. “What are the health benefits of creativity and how do we integrate them into our systems?” she asked. “It’s important to clinical care, but also to communities, to connections, to how we advance policy changes and structural changes that make it more possible for more people to thrive.”
She encouraged attendees to think about how they all, “can be agents of change to things that matter to us.”
During her talk, she shared her own story – she was a successful musician who toured the world and wrote songs with her band Ellery that appeared on popular films and TV shows including Charmed, One Tree Hill, and No Strings Attached before falling into a deep depression. “In order to live I had to reimagine completely who I thought I was and what I was doing on this planet,” she said. “In my case it took a crisis to break me out of that story – to question the status quo and imagine something different. …We don’t need a crisis or permission or invitation to get creative about our lives, our industry, our career, our systems, our world.”
At the conclusion of the conference, several panelists shared their takeaways from the day with Molly Demeulenaere, Executive Director of the Cultural Center of Cape Cod, saying, “Art cannot be separated from being a whole, happy, healthy human being.”
“How do we see all of our work — whether it’s as painters, as dancers, as fiber artists, as branding and marketing people, as strategic planners — as a creative endeavor?” Brittney Nichols, founder of Nichols St. Consulting asked.
Joerg Dressler said as an artist it can be easy to isolate himself in his studio, but the conference served as a reminder that it is “important to get out, mingle, and connect with other like-minded human beings.”
The 2024 CX Conference was sponsored by William Raveis Real Estate, Woodruff’s Art Center, The Cooperative Bank of Cape Cod, Cape Cod 5 Foundation, Wequassett Resort and Golf Club, The Cape Cod Foundation, The Donald C. McGraw Foundation, Seamen’s Bank, Eastern Bank, the John K. & Thirza F. Davenport Foundation, the Cape Cod Melody Tent, Red Jacket Resorts, and Blick Art Materials.