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I had a great conversation with a lady in London this week about the power of PR and integrated strategy of valuable storytelling to change the perception around various brands. I am also spending a lot of time, money and effort on going back to my passion for photography and as I look at the recent Dove campaign coming from Latin America/US I cannot help but marvel, shiver, cry even - it's so good! I believe art and other means of storytelling, specially in the new, social, connected world of transmedia, if done well, can have a hugely positive impact. Before you watch this I would like to warn you - do not treat this as yet another ad! I have lived the experience myself - one of my closest friends at the moment is a lady who states that my series of my photos (and amazing work my uni friend did on bringing out her beauty through great make up) changed her, opened her up, made her more confident and happy. I think sometimes we need that one someone who will hold the right type of a mirror in front of us and point out the truth image. How nice to see a leading brand doing the same! Well done, Dove (and Ogilvy)!
What an awful coincidence. I have changed my haircut to the one I had for years at the university, years of listening to this woman's sublime, yet powerful voice. Today I want to cry...or get drunk...or both. Still, listening to her now eternal words. RIP Chavela Vargas, the world is not the same without you!:(
It's almost ironic that I was asked to post it tonight - on the day when I really, really wanted to move away from writing all about myself. Well, I guess if I write down my own experience of Catweazle Club I might attempt to explain its uniqueness.
There is a lot of background information to this story, but to cut it short let me only tell you that about 4 years ago I have separated from someone who actually asked me to come to the UK with him and who is the dad of my son. Now, as a result of the separation I have spent about a year at home with my at the time one year old son spending my evenings on activist blogging and building of my personal blogger brand on-line. I have however put aside most of my artistic activities and I have not moved out apart from few occasions related to work or social media events. I was alone, though not really isolated. Happy to live and work in the quiet little town of Wantage with an amazingly happy little boy. Yet, I felt really, really lots. Let's face it - my entire plan of a happy family, new life in England and new job in social media marketing have failed. I was on my own, not really in position to discover anything, pretty much restricted by my at the time vague job position.
Few of my close friends encouraged me to continue my photo exhibitions and I think it was my only artistic activity at the time, I have to admit though that exhibiting photography can be pretty isolating - people do not even talk to the artist! One of my friends thought a bit more about my feelings at the time and decided to introduce me to Catweazle Club...
I will not tell you what Catweazle is about. It means various things to many people. To me, the first time I went there I felt I was at home: in the place I was trying to establish between my own four walls, failed and re-discovered elsewhere. Why? I am not sure. Sometimes it's the warmth of the place. Sometimes its unpredictability - so close to my own nature. Or maybe the contrast between the fast, noisy and messy life I was living and trying to clear my thoughts and feelings, games we play and lies we tell and this almost hilarious reality of Catweazle Club performances. The truth we forget to speak of:
Today my life is different. Better. Happier. Today I know that what I thought of Catweazle Club at the time really applies to the entire Oxford - openness, variety of life philosophies, painful honesty, art and clear value of relationships. And I go back to Catweazle Club with the same feeling of warmth and almost addictive need to hear, feel, experience more of it - more of people, their stories, their small mistakes and huge achievements, in this ordinary, weekly dosis of Oxford magic.
There, it was supposed to be your story, and yet I hope it still is.
It has been a busy week and I didn't really have a chance to rethink my feelings about the loss of great writer and painter, William Wharton, who died last week. Mainly because I - philosophically speaking - am not in peace with death. I find it a cruel solution and a huge joke that we come to this world for few decades and need to give it all up... the art, the beauty, the loves and friendships mainly is what bothers me - the art, the same art which is the ultimate solution, our big NO to the fact we need to go...
Wharton was my spiritual inspiration since...since highschool and 'Birdy'. I remember Cage playing in the film based on Wharton's novel. I remember Wharton arriving to Poland for the first time - and folling in love with the country - just as I was falling in love with his world (mainly based on his own experience and life philosophy), his actual lifestyle (leaving US, choosing alretnative ways of living, close to the nature, in peace with family and still charishing traditional values of work, family, home, etc). I remember gradually growing into his new novels...I remember the sensuality of 'Late Lovers' (one of the first books I actually enjoyed in Hungarian translation), tradedy of true story behind 'Wrognful Deaths' and the beauty of his paintings published in an album.
I cannot help but cry (yes, I am emotional, I have warned some of you) to see 'other' date at the beginning of his Wikipedia entry. I do not want to believe it. I study the photos of him and wonder - did he ever realise how he affected our lives?!
I could go on like this for ever bringing up all the moments of my life where his words actually mattered, but I'd rather conclude - with his words as well, with one of the wisest bit of dialogue (btw him and his daughter) I have ever read:
Kate: “What is love?”
William Wharton:“As far as I can tell, it is passion, admiration and respect. If you have two, you have enough. If you have all three, you don’t have to die to go to heaven.”
Thursday, April 18, 2013 at 8:33PM ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=6da0ac68-55a1-43be-bf84-5e28dd17c53b)