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Posted by Beau, April 25th, 2012 It’s almost impossible to believe that this time three years ago Courtnee, Jon, and I gathered for a discussion in Jon’s kitchen about what would become Vita Arts. Since that time we put on three shows, conducted a number of workshops, interacted with hundreds of people on behalf of Vita, and really felt like we impacted a number of lives. During that time Jon learned he liked to jump out of planes, Courtnee and I both moved at least once, Courtnee broke her arm in a bicycle accident, and along the way we learned a lot about our strengths and weaknesses, both as individuals as and board members.
If you’d asked me when we started, my job was to facilitate getting Vita off the ground. I’d had board experience before, and while I was excited about the mission, my passion was to help my friends succeed with their own vision more than anything. And I feel that I have done that.
This Spring, Vita is turning a corner, adding new board members, focusing its vision as a company and an entity, and discovering new ways to reach people through the transformative power of art. It’s going to be very exciting, and I can’t wait to see what happens, but I have done my job as a facilitator, cheerleader, and pragmatist. I have new ventures to pursue on my own, and I am confident that Vita can fly very well without me.
Whatever sadness I have at moving on is radically tempered by the success of Vita and the anticipation of what is to come.
Posted by Jon, April 22nd, 2012 After three years of blood, sweat, and tears, the time has come for me to pass the Vita Arts torch on. At the board meeting yesterday, I closed out my term as one of the founding members of Vita Arts, and welcomed in an enthusiastic new set of board members to help Courtnee continue to bring our vision of transformative art to the world. Founding and running a non-profit organization has been an amazing, fun, and rewarding experience, and I’ll remain involved in Vita as it continues to grow beyond the seed we planted three years ago.
Keep an eye out for an announcement shortly introducing the new members of the Vita family, I’m excited to see the things they’re going to be doing!
Posted by courtnee, February 6th, 2012 I just logged our first 2012 donation, and thought it was a good time to write up a little post, since it’s been a while.
We at Vita HQ are busy buzzing along, recreating some core infrastructure and bringing in more Board members to contribute to Vita’s mission. Though quiet in some ways right now, it’s an exhilarating time in Vita’s life, with a lot of energy and possibility being cultivated.
April is looking to be a very exciting month for our Board, and I’m looking forward to sharing details when some of the changes we have brewing are finalized.
I personally am enjoying the process and the focus this foundation building phase has given me. After a few years of dividing that focus between board duties, staff duties, teaching, directing and performing, it’s great to hunker down and be looking at one subset of those things – building the board, and integrating adapted, scaleable policies.
Posted by courtnee, January 8th, 2012 We at Vita Arts would like to extend out most heartfelt gratitude to the people who have supported us during our third year.
In the beginning of this year we put on How Art Saved My Life (HASML), representing two milestones: The emergence of our Integrated Workshop format, and the first show in which Vita was able to pay its performers!
In 2011 we also continued outreach to incarcerated youth in Eugene, taught juggling for the Alley-Up event in Pioneer square, and the Foster Family Carnival. In addition, after two years incorporated, Vita has undergone significant positive internal changes.
This year was slow on the fund-rasing front, yet these people and their generous donations have supported us through transformation and the birth of a new kind of outreach.
Donations over $100
Colby Perry
Donations up to $50
| Jill Leversee |
Sharon Pointer |
Nancy Neyhart |
Robyn McClintock |
Ryan Welsh |
Jonathan Nelson |
Vita Arts Affiliates and Volunteers
Christina Dietrich, Sage Viniconis, Jill Leversee, Nancy Neyhart, Nickolai Pirak, Kerry Cox Lee, Evvie Gamage, David Jones, Sharon Pointer, Thomas Heasley, Sarah Shmidt, Kirsten Lauzon, Sascha, Rickey Gene Powell, Joshua Sacks, Cheri Rae, Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, Nicole Woodruff Miller, Jason Miller, and The Phoenix Program in Eugene.
Directors and Staff
Courtnee Papastathis, Jon McClintock, Beau Prichard
Posted by Beau, July 26th, 2011  Cotton candy + juice box = Happy Frank Thanks to our dear friend Christina Dietrich, we were invited to help entertain at a foster family picnic, hosted by Olive Crest, another non-profit. The picnic had a carnival theme, so along with Chrissy facepainting, there was tiny hat making, games for tickets and prizes, a contortionist, dress-up, and Vita, offering both juggling balls and instruction, and our buddy Sage (remember him from Cheese?) performing as his mummer persona Frank.
Honestly, sometimes arts outreach is SO simple, as when you tell a kid they can keep the balls you helped them make and they are either overwhelmed with gratitude, or not sure that you really mean they can just walk off with shiny new juggling balls. Then there was Marquis, who already knew how to juggle, and who circled back to say thank you again. There were also several girls whose coordination helped them take to juggling two balls almost at once, and who clearly liked being good at something.
Changing lives is a hefty affair, but touching them? It’s not so hard. A kind word, a gentle push, an affecting gift, and you create a memory, or one of those diverging time streams that science fiction likes to talk so much about. Is it as simple as juggling balls = healthy life versus no juggling balls = life of crime? Probably not. But it’s nice to think so, and it’s even nicer to go home knowing that what you made a difference, however small, that what you did contributed to the quality of life for someone, or someones.
Our great thanks to folks like Carey and Jennifer, who helped us get there, and to everyone else who was involved in the shenanigans, including the folks who helped provide outstandingly delicious food. Thanks to Sage for being willing to help us out on short notice and for going above and beyond his skills as a performer, clown, and sleight of hand artist. He not only delighted kids with his work, but also helped me make balls and teach juggling. Jon showed up at just the right time to show off his juggling skills, eat some cake, and give me a much-needed break.
We are already potentially invited back for next year, and an event such as this, which even with rain brought in a very impressive number of foster parents and kids of all ages, we’ll definitely make time. We look forward to it!
Posted by Beau, July 16th, 2011 Thanks to our dear friend Christina Dietrich, we came to the attention of Olive Crest, a foster family association that works with at-risk and neglected kids and their families. Olive Crest is hosting a foster family picnic on Monday, July 25th, and they asked Vita to help with the entertainment! Other than being obviously flattered that someone sought us out specifically, the theme of the picnic is a carnival, so that was right up our alley. They already have staples like fair food, face painting and a bouncy house, and Vita is bringing the circus, with our trademark juggling balls and our friend Just Sage doing his outstanding clowning and magic!
I have done some work with at-risk kids before, and it’s always very rewarding. Getting another opportunity to see shiny faces experiencing joy, and helping to bring a bit of that joy? Yes please!
Posted by courtnee, July 11th, 2011 Hello friends and fans of Vita!
I bring some exciting news from the backend of what makes Vita tick.
As many of you know, earlier this year, I chose to take a leave of absence for an undetermined amount of time. This included cancelling the remount of HASML that I was slated to direct in May. Life had taken its toll, and it simply didn’t make sense for me to continue to head a non-profit while I was struggling in so many other facets, including my health.
The time off did what it was supposed to do and things improved quickly. During that time, I realized that some things needed to be a bit different in order for Vita to be sustainable as a project of mine in the future.
At our last board meeting we came up with a few simple adjustments that make it possible for our founding members to harness the power of Vita Arts as a non-profit community organization to fulfill the mission of the company, as well as enable us to remove the financial commitments previously required of our board members.
In addition, we are now poised to offer support to our pool of trusted, board-approved artists who are interested in producing their own events that perpetuate Vita’s mission to transform lives through the power of artistic expression.
Future Vita projects will be fund-raised for on a case my case basis by their leads, with 10% of the funds feeding back into the corporation to cover overhead. For instance, Beau lead a workshop in Eugene last weekend that he was in charge of funding, and I am planning to put on a show which I will fund later in the year. Through these projects, Vita gains the life-blood it formerly got via financial board commitments, which now translate into time rather than a dollar amount.
This is a very exciting time for Vita and those who have supported us through our infancy and beyond. All the money that has been raised thus far, including the money from the HASML remount fundraiser, is in the can to support the corporate structure and keep the company running.
With these changes, Vita remains a cohesive entity. A Vita project is a Vita project, whether it be headed by myself, Beau, Jon, or a guest project that the board has voted to support. I’m very excited to see how this new structure will help us reach more people, offer more forms of art, and reach more audiences.
I’m still working out the nitty gritty details and documents, but if you have any questions feel free to field them to courtnee.papastathis@vita-arts.org. As always, the goal with Vita is transparency. At the same time, I don’t wanna bore you guys with too much info. 
Woohoo!
Posted by Beau, July 11th, 2011  The Phoenix pod has some decor, but otherwise looks just like this. Reaching someone is an incredible feeling. My friend Jason Miller, one of our hosts in Eugene, asked me after our first day teaching, “Did you change any lives today?” and I told him I was pretty sure we did. After the second day, I could unequivocally answer yes. Admittedly, this isn’t the same work as finding a foster kid a home, or getting them off the street, but when your day to day life is entirely out of your control and someone offers you a chance to learn how to express yourself? That makes a difference. For some of the kids, it makes a massive one.
Jon McClintock and I were guests of the Phoenix Program, a youth program in Eugene that is based out of the John Serbu Youth Facility, and it’s kind of halfway between “detention”, which is straight up prison for juveniles, and parole. The kids can earn privileges and eventually get to go home on weekends and so forth.
I taught creative writing here last year and had an excellent response, but this year it was even stronger. I don’t know if it was the students or the fact that Jon and I were a team, I suspect it was a perfect storm of chemistry and acceptance and other things out of our control, but they were happy to have us, and when we were finished teaching on the second day, Nicole Miller, our other host and a counselor at the Phoenix Program, gave the kids a chance to give us “props” for what we’d done.
Some thought it was amazing that we came all the way from Seattle! Some called us talented, brilliant, and all sorts of other really flattering compliments. Mostly it was very clear that they had enjoyed having us around as much as we had enjoyed teaching them.
The first day I taught Creative Writing and the students who participated were very active and engaged, which is always exciting. I read the prologue from the book Shooting at Midnight by Greg Rucka, for my traditional opening critical thinking exercise, and I wound up leaving the book for the students to share, they responded to it so much. Then, instead of doing a hands-on exercise, I wound up walking the students through some basic narrative writing skills, and we spent the last half hour talking about developing the skills for writing rap rhymes.
I enjoyed giving them the option to talk about what they were interested in, and it really paid off. The first day is always a bit of a trial, the students are more open the second day, word has got around that you’re acceptable, perhaps kind or respectful, so the second day more kids are interested and the level of engagement is deeper. I hope to return before the end of the year and spend a whole week teaching writing skills and maybe even some basic theater stuff.
The second day, Friday, was Jon’s circus clinic, and the coolest thing was we left the kids with a sampler of basic circus skills, including tumbling, acrobalance, and juggling, leaving a pile of our signature Vita Arts juggling balls behind. As always seems to be the case, a couple of kids always either have some basic juggling skills or take to them instantly. Two guys were consistently juggling three balls by the end of the half-hour lesson, and several more were on their way. One particular guy not only got the hang of juggling, but had excellent form in tumbling as well, clearly a guy who was gifted by being very in touch with his body, with excellent reflexes, responses, etc. You’d like to think that discovering or reinforcing such a thing might have really positive repercussions for him in the long term.
I have more to write about, including my experience working with one particular girl and some of our plans for the future, but I’ll call it good for now and do another update soon. I’ll leave you with this: I’m always struck when we work with youth how much they respond to being treated like adults. I don’t try to dumb down my language, and the kids are brave enough to ask me what I mean if they don’t understand. In case you were wondering, though, if teenagers in Eugene are impressed with what you, say, when you do a nifty acro demonstration, you can expect them to say “That’s what’s up” (which sounds like “thas whassup”), or “that is legit!”
Posted by Beau, July 5th, 2011 I am returning to Eugene again this summer, this very weekend, and this time Jon’s coming with me! I will again teach creative writing to teens in the Phoenix program, a structured juvenile system that is kind of half way between incarceration and parole. Jon will be teaching more physical stuff, including some juggling and tumbling, as we have access to a full gym and so we have plenty of space to play.
Unlike most teen audiences, these kids are a bit more open to doing things outside of their comfort zone because their opportunities for doing new things are pretty limited under their circumstances. They also really respond to learning how to express themselves. Last time was very rewarding, and now that there’s two of us and we can offer more art training, I’m even more excited.
Also: Road trip!
Posted by Beau, January 18th, 2011  Saturday, January 15th will be an important day for Vita in the future. It will signify a day that marks a turning point where we stopped paying dues and really got to start seeing results from our work. That day was when we held our most recent event, How Art Saved My Life, where audience members cried, workshop attendees cried, performers cried, and we heard over and over again what a powerful significance the work we were doing had to people. I can’t begin to say how much that makes everything worthwhile.
Vita is coming up on a second anniversary. Soon we will have been a 501(c)(3) for a whole year. We’ve put on three shows, now, come in contact with dozens of people via outreach, and taught art forms like writing, juggling, aerial arts, performance, and dance.
Traffic and weather kept away quite a few of the women we were hoping would attend the HASML workshop, but the attendees we did have were responsive and moved with many lovely things to say. Attendance of the HASML evening show was not robust, but let me tell you, there is something in the air with 40 people in the audience who really want to be there and who are really engaged. We made lots of new friends, both with audience members and with new performers like Nancy Neyhart, Jill Leversee, and David Jones, as well as our cuddly and indispensable stage manager, Joshua Sacks. The strength of our pool of friends was most strongly demonstrated in the fact that with more than 10 performance pieces, everyone responded differently, everyone had a different favorite piece, everyone found a different personal reason to celebrate attending.
 Then, in the aftermath, admit celebrating, eating, inventing new slang, and basking in the buzz of a successful show, several more important things to the future of Vita fell into place. Some of these things were logistical, some of these things were emotional, some of these things were simply Courtnee’s vision for the company continuing to coalesce and come into focus. We’ll have lots more exciting things to share with you soon. For those of you who attended, bless you and you have our eternal gratitude. For those of you who want to know what’s next, we’ll let you know soon. For those of you who missed out and feel bad, we’ll have another show for you sooner rather than later, so keep your eyes and calendar open!
More pictures of How Art Saved My Life are on our Facebook Page. Spread the love, and ‘Like’ us!
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