Toni Reece: Hi there. This is Toni Reece, and welcome to Berks County Living’s Get Inspired! Project. Today I have Karen Haver with me. Hi, Karen.
Karen Haver: Hi, Toni.
Toni: How are you today?
Karen: I am doing fantastic. How are you?
Toni: I am great. So, Karen, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Karen: I am the Executive Director of Berks Arts Council here in Reading, Pennsylvania. I am excited about all things artistic that are happening in this community. What else do you want to know?
Toni: I think that’s pretty good to start with. Let’s go into the Project.
Karen: Okay, great.
Toni: What does inspiration mean to you?
Karen: Inspiration I think is the catalyst that makes things happen. It’s the spark. It’s the energy. It’s that final straw that broke the camel’s back, but usually in a much better way. It’s great, because as I said, it’s the catalyst that makes things happen. As you sit there and you’ve got so many things floating, what is that last little bit that makes from unformed ideas to action?
Toni: I love that. Karen, I have done the Get Inspired! Project interviews probably … the first Project was 365 interviews, and then through Berks County Living Magazine I’ve done quite a few – no one has ever said that inspiration is like “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Karen: Normally, that sounds so negative, but it’s not.
Toni: I love that!
Karen: There’s always something that when you take so much energy and matter and ideas that are out there and finally to get them to funnel, there’s always one little thing that – plink – makes it happen.
Toni: Oh my goodness. Is it a feeling when that happens? Is it a sense? What’s the sensory that happens?
Karen: It varies, because I think it’s never the same thing. Sometimes it’s just a very slow going from funnel down to motion happening change of direction. Sometimes it really is a very live spark, a jump, a tingle, any of those things. Sometimes it’s like a dam breaking. Sometimes it’s like a flower growing where you never really see what happened, but bit by bit it’s growing and changing. There’s inspiration in that. Sometimes to me inspiration is immediate. It’s quick. It’s click. It’s happening. Sometimes, it’s just that very slow transition.
Toni: I love that. How do you put all of that – whether it’s the slow transition or the quick – how do you put that into practice here in Berks County?
Karen: That’s a tough one. I think to put it into practice; certainly everybody has their own fashion of turning it. For me, I get a lot of ideas. I talk to so many people, and I talk to so many arts organizations and artists. Helping other people get their project to fruition, which is my favorite one, as we do through our grant program.
One of my favorite things is helping organizations get going and watching as they transition. Some of it is through just conversation where one idea leads to another, but putting it all into practice is just a daily conversation. It’s a daily movement. Certainly there are days, there are weeks that nothing moves forward, and when it finally does, it’s always a great thing.
Toni: So one of the ways that you help move inspiration along is by allowing other people’s inspiration to come to fruition by your grant program.
Karen: I think it’s a great way. We also do things like we have a small group lunch that meets every other month. Just people who are in nonprofit arts. They just get together and talk about what they’re doing, and through those conversations, watching what’s happening. So inspiration happens from people just connecting from moment to moment.
People connecting financially through grant programs is obviously a great inspiration. When you see somebody talk to me about an idea, put it into a grant application, then we have a panel that reviews all of our grant applications, and then the funding goes back, and when you see that moment where that happens, whether it’s a mural, a dance team, a play – anything – it’s just a great feeling of completion that helps with that inspiration to continue the program.
Toni: When was the last time you were inspired?
Karen: I’m inspired all of the time. It’s amazing. Different things inspire me. I have to say, that one that’s going to sound strangest is yesterday when we turned the key and got the diesel running on our boat. It’s inspiring because it means, “Yes, we can do this on our own.” My husband did all the work to get it running from recommission from spring. It’s inspired by that to see, “Where can we go now? Now that we’ve gotten that running, where can we go?” We don’t depend on somebody else for that. It’s normally a sound that we hate, because we’re sailors. We like just the sound of the wind, but when it worked, it was a beautiful thing.
I have an intern that started today, and her excitement for everything she’s doing is just so inspiring, because it’s that open mind that’s, “Okay, what can I learn today? What can I do to help me build my future?” I was inspired by her this morning.
Toni: I love that. Those two examples are very succinct to the way that you describe inspiration and what it means to you, because the one was instantaneous, and that was when you turned the key and it started. The second is an intern who’s coming to you showing promise and excitement, and she’s going to transition and bloom. Those are great examples that you’ve just given as far as what inspiration means to you and how you describe it.
Karen: Thank you.
Toni: You’re welcome.
Karen: It’s amazing that it’s everywhere.
Toni: It is everywhere. Who in Berks County inspires you?
Karen: I’m inspired all the time by so many different people. I love having my office in the Goggleworks, because it’s filled with artists whose ideas and energy is inspiring. My favorite time is when they have the gallery switch, because looking at a new show coming in and going up, there’s inspiration all around. I’m inspired by the projects that you and Jo do with The People Chronicles. It’s amazing to listen to everybody’s stories.
Toni: Thank you.
Karen: Usually I’m more of a reader than a listener, I’ll admit it, but for me, getting to that and listening is just a nice respite. There’s so many people like myself that believe that the City of Reading is such a great place and there’s so much potential, and we really have so many places to go, so it’s great when you look at the Farmer’s Market that starts – as of this taping, it starts Thursday. Every Thursday downtown, fresh vegetables that are growing. What’s going to inspire dinner? I’m inspired by Phoebe’s Pure Foods and her show, her food, and her energy.
I’m inspired by … I could go on and on. I’m inspired by all of the energy that I see of people working towards a more positive future for themselves, their city, or their restaurants. There’s so many great ideas. I live across the street from Sofrito’s, so just walking in and knowing that this is a person who grew up in Reading and built his dream.
Walking over here from the Goggleworks, walking through the little building by CNA and there’s the sculptures there, and somebody has this great image that there was going to be this beautiful courtyard. Inspiration is all around us, and it’s just making sure that we’re seeing what’s there, and trying to think about what started it. Why is it there? It’s not just there to have a piece of rock.
Toni: It’s a discovery process, too, and that’s inspiration in itself when you’re surprised by a piece of sculpture that you didn’t know was going to be there. You turn around and say, “Oh! That’s pretty cool!”
Karen: It’s great. There’s another artist at Goggleworks who I find some of her work extremely filled with that spark where she found an old paint can that had been rusted, run over, and all of that. She put it on some old roller skate wheels, and it’s a sculpture. I admired it and she gave it to me, so it sits on my desk. To see people’s reactions to that, especially when they notice and figure out what it is. It does look like a little sculpture. It does look like something that somebody worked hard to figure out the placement, and yet it’s so simple.
Toni: Wow. Karen, what do you want your legacy to be?
Karen: I want my legacy to be the catalyst for the arts, and not just me. I feel like with me helping people see what the arts mean to this community is a better answer. I want people to see what the arts can do, how the arts can transform. I want the Berks Arts Council, the organization I work for, to continue and to grow and get new ideas and new energies.
Toni: Karen, thank you for living your legacy, and for showing up for the Get Inspired! Project.
Karen: Thanks, Toni.
