Speaker 0 00:00:00 Okay. <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:01:00 And good evening. Thank you for joining disability and progress, where we bring you insights into ideas about and discussions on disability topics. This is Kathy I, 90.3, FM, Minneapolis and kvi.org. Um, my name is Sam. I'm the host of the show and I am doing most of my engineering, but things got a little late today, apparently. Oh, technology anyway. Um, thank you, Annie, for assisting with me and Charlene dolls. My research woman. Thank you, Charlene. Um, everyone. Hello? And so we are, we have much to do tonight, but first, uh, we will, we will have a guest that will be coming in a little later or he's here now, but he's patiently waiting his turn, but first we will have Janet Dickerman and Janet is going to be talking about all things ACB for American council of the blind. Get him in Janet.
Speaker 2 00:01:58 Good evening, Sam. So wait a minute. I'm not a guest.
Speaker 1 00:02:00 You are a guest, but you're just not right in here with me. Oh, I see. Oh, okay. Sorry. Oh, you missed out on the champagne and chocolate. Well, you, you totally should have come in. I'm just kidding. Well, thank you so much for coming in. I appreciate it, Janet. Um, do you have a title with ACB now?
Speaker 2 00:02:23 Yeah, I do. I am the convention coordinator for American council of the blind, so I coordinate our national convention each year and that is coming up starting July 16th. Okay. It will be totally virtual.
Speaker 1 00:02:37 Yep. We'll get to that. Okay. So can you start out by telling us, um, what ACB is?
Speaker 2 00:02:44 Yes. ACV American council of the blind is an advocate as a member-driven organization. We just had our 60th birthday. So we were founded in 1961 by a group of 13 who wanted to go a little different direction with blindness. And one of our claims to fame that we do very well is advocating. Uh, we have nationally, we have staff director of advocacy who will work with anyone in any ad in any field or any issue that they have. One of the things that we have worked really hard at is accessible voting and here in Minnesota,
Speaker 1 00:03:29 Your hands in too many things at once. Um, so how did you get started with ACB?
Speaker 2 00:03:37 You got started in 2007 when the national convention was here, right?
Speaker 1 00:03:42 No, that was a fun time.
Speaker 2 00:03:45 That was a great convention that was under the convention. And really before that, but I was president of ACB of Minnesota and I was on our local host committee that worked with, you know, helping out with convention logistics. And, uh, so I thought, well, all right, I better take time off work to go attend this convention since I'm kind of involved in it and got bitten by the convention bug hopped out at the convention information desk that first year. And then in 2009, the person who had been coordinating the information desk was had to give that up because of family issues of family obligations. So I was asked to do it. So I started doing that. And then in 2011, I was contacted and asked if I would be willing to be the national convention coordinator. Cool. And I got off the phone and I said to my husband, wow. They asked me to be convention coordinator. What an honor. I can't believe that, you know, they have so much confidence in me and he said, well, how much work is it? And I said, I don't know, but you know what, an honor. Wow. And he said, well, how much work is it? So we went back and forth on that conversation. And after the first year I realized, no, it's not an honor. It's a lot of work, but I love doing it.
Speaker 1 00:05:12 And how did they decide where the conventions are going to be?
Speaker 2 00:05:16 We get bids from different cities and we try to have be in a city where everything can be under one roof, if at all possible, because we really don't like we have so many activities. We really don't like having to go from multiple hotels. It just makes it much easier. So, and we also work with cities where we can keep our, our costs down. I've been able to keep the room rates down, um, in the low nineties and have contracts through 2025 in the nineties. And that for hotel rates is really, really pretty excellent. Um, so I worked with the convention visitors bureau and I T we try to vary it a little bit different areas of the country. And one of the big things we do at ACB is a lot of tours because our attendees really love that. So we've tried to go to a different city each year so that we have a lot, we have a wider variety of choices for our attendees, who can try to find cities that people can fly into as easily as possible,
Speaker 1 00:06:28 Who can belong to ACB, anyone sighted,
Speaker 2 00:06:33 Blind, visually impaired. We welcome any attendees.
Speaker 1 00:06:37 And do you have any that are out of the country?
Speaker 2 00:06:41 We do. We have, we have members from out of the country. We have people who attend our national convention. Of course, last year when we were virtual, we even had more people from out of the country, but we've had people from, well, of course, several from Canada. We've had people from Australia and New Zealand and South Africa and south and central America. So yes, we've we have.
Speaker 1 00:07:03 So if somebody from out of the country, it says, I want to be an ACB member. Let's not talk, um, financial like amounts please, but what do they get out of that? Why would they want to be a member of somebody from the, you know, a place from the U S
Speaker 2 00:07:21 What they get out of that is all of our information. They get our monthly magazine, the ACB, braille forum, they would have access to any services that ACB offers. So if they needed some kind of advocacy in their country, if we weren't able to do it ourselves, we would help them find resources. We're very good at putting people and resources together. So that would be certainly one aspect of being a member, no matter where you were, you lived great. And we have a lot of email lists that you don't necessarily have to for a CB members that connect people.
Speaker 1 00:08:09 Hmm. Gotcha. Can you talk about some of the different pro programs that ACB has? I know they have different, like you talked about the braille forum, that magazine, um, talk to me about some of the other things that they do.
Speaker 2 00:08:27 One thing that we started, and it was kind of started around the pandemic, but we started doing community calls. And at first it was just a couple of calls a week, and it has grown now to about 70 calls a week that would have, what does community calls me? Our community calls are we have groups who will talk about anything from crafts to cooking, to, to, um, religion. We have, we have game nights that people can participate in via zoom. And, um, they're all open to anyone who subscribes to our community list. You can get these zoom links and attend all of these CA any of these calls that you would like to. We have calls. Um, we have, um, a lot of our special interest affiliates. Our braille revival league has a call every month called the braille buzz that you can attend and all about braille, our library users group as, um, a couple of calls a month.
Speaker 2 00:09:32 Um, our citizens low vision international have calls you blind information technology specialists. These are all, some of our, some of our special interest affiliates that ACB has, and they all do calls, but we also have a lot of just fun calls. We have calls for people. We have a group for widows and widowers who we'll get together and just chat. We have cancer support groups, you name it, we have a group for it, and we have a community call for it. And many of these calls ACB also has our ACB radio. Now just recently rebranded as ACB media, and we have 10 different AC 10 different streams that at any given time, we'll have programming that you can access on your lady, a device or on your computer or on your iPhone or on your Victor stream. And you can listen to all of this programming, and this is all free, that ACB offers.
Speaker 1 00:10:37 And so how do you know what, um, what programs that you, if you want to see what different programs are on ACP rate,
Speaker 2 00:10:47 It's all listed on our website. You can go to our website, you can subscribe to our community list, and that will show all the calls. You'll get a weekly summary of the co of all the calls, and then a daily email with the calls that are going to be on that day. ACB radio has a schedule on their website, on our website. You can also, if you're not com necessarily feel comfortable going on on your computer, we have a telephone number that you can call and listen to any of these 10 ACB radio channels. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:11:21 What is your website?
Speaker 2 00:11:24 Acb.org. All right. And our convention website is ACB convention.org. And that will give you all the information about our convention. And we are during the eight days of our convention, we have, uh, leave. The current figure is 155 different sessions throughout those. So at almost any given time, we have five or six sessions that are going on simultaneously, which of course you can't be in five or six different zoom rooms and say,
Speaker 1 00:12:03 No, I can't, you, you
Speaker 2 00:12:05 Can try, you know, and you can listen on a CB radio to one and go to a zoom room on another and have, but if you don't want to do that, almost all of our sessions will be available after the convention as podcasts. Excellent. So there is a lot of listening opportunity. And in addition to all of our sessions, we have our exhibit hall and we have 41 exhibitors, and they have all submitted, um, recorded segments that are going to be played on a loop throughout the convention. And we will have a schedule and you can determine when your favorite exhibitors going to be on, so you can listen to them. But we have also suggested to our exhibitors and of the 41, uh, think last count was 34 of our 41 exhibitors have also are having zoom rooms available. And we have a, we will put all that information out for convention attendees and on our website. So you can go in at the times that the vendor will be available and have personal interaction with them.
Speaker 1 00:13:16 So ACB, convention.org, O R G. Yes. Um, so I want to talk, cause this has been a, such an interesting time in our lives. Let last year, everything just went virtual and I'm sure people are so sick of hearing about that. But, but I wondering how that worked for you guys as far as attendance and things, were there more people?
Speaker 2 00:13:44 Yes, there, there were, because we had a lot of people who came in and said, normally I don't feel comfortable traveling. I don't have the money to travel. I'm caring for family members and I can't travel. It's too hard for me to get the time off work and travel. So yes, our attendance was higher than, than normal. And we learned last year. And of course, last year we had didn't have quite as much time to plan. We decided this year, early on that the way things were going with COVID, we just did not feel comfortable trying to do an in-person convention. And we felt like for our members and for the hotels and just for planning purposes, we needed to make a decision earlier than later last year, of course, we didn't make the decision till the end of March this year, we made it last fall because we felt we really needed to let our attendees know what was going to what was going on. But we have learned that going forward, we definitely are going to have to do a hybrid convention. Um, so there will be, we will have, all of our sessions will be available for in-person and also via zoom and on ACB radio for people to attend our convention going forward.
Speaker 1 00:15:08 Ah, yes, I was. I was wondering, I, it would seem, do you think that they'll go back to doing most of it live, but just have various things on, um, zoom or do you think they'll keep a,
Speaker 2 00:15:21 I think we're going to try to do everything, bolt everything in-person and virtual that's a lot of work. It is, but that's, you know, that's what people want and we know how popular it was from this year and I'm sure. Or from last year, and I'm sure we'll be again this year, so yes, it's going to be a whole changing from, I, you know, I never thought we can change from in-person to virtual. So, you know, I was proven wrong on that one. So now I'm going to have to, you know, change from virtual to hybrid and you know, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, this is going to, but of course we'll, we'll do it. I have a great group of people that assist me and ACB radio and our, we have, you know, our zoom hosts and our ACB radio broadcasters and my committee. So yes, it's, it takes a village to, you know,
Speaker 1 00:16:14 So how does this work for the vendors? Was there if they have their own zoom rooms, they're going to have to not this year, obviously, because it's all, you know, but next year though,
Speaker 2 00:16:28 How that's going to work now they'll have
Speaker 1 00:16:30 To manage a computer and the live. And I don't know if there's listeners out there that have not been to one of these conventions. It's like any convention, you go to an exhibit hall, it's wild and there's a lot of people. And you will have, like when you're walking around the booze, there'll be lines at some of these boosts. So me, I have been a vendor at your convention before. I cannot imagine trying to function with a laptop plus having to deal with, you know, live people. Um, it, you almost need two people in the booth at all times. I'm not
Speaker 2 00:17:09 Sure how that, that's the one aspect we really haven't, you know, come to any conclusion about, we do know what we want to do. You know, that we're going to all of our sessions will be, um, highbred what we're going to do in the exhibit hall. I'm, you know, maybe we'll let them, um, you know, some of the larger companies, it may be easier for them to do it because they can have somebody at the booth and then somebody Manning their zoom room off site. So I'm not really sure yet that's one thing that's going to be worth half. That's going to be up for discussion. But as I tell everybody, don't talk to me about year until July 24th.
Speaker 1 00:17:53 Um, and if, of course it does have it doing this zoo. Um, virtual does cut down your, your costs in general.
Speaker 2 00:18:02 It does. And one thing that we have found is our convention attendees because of the CA you know, don't have the travel costs. So they're, you know, more apt to be a convention sponsor at different levels, more apt to buy. We have a lot of convention merchandise that we sell. We always have a convention t-shirt we have a commemorative pin and we have all kinds of things with our, our logo, our theme this year is ACB better together, wherever we are. And, um, yes, I had, we had a contest and I did that last year too. Usually, you know, we try to have our convention theme, something that fits with the city that the convention is, is in. But when we went virtual last year, I thought, oh, what are we going to do? So I had a contest. So I decided to do that again this year and all winter gets an Amazon gift certificate. So, um, our theme this year is better together wherever we are. So we have a lot of branded merchandise with that on, we have our, we have water bottles, we have mugs, we have, um,
Speaker 1 00:19:12 And I'm sure people can
Speaker 2 00:19:15 All the other fun stuff. So, and, and that people can purchase all of that on our convention registration form. So we found that that really sells for people who, because they aren't paying travel expenses.
Speaker 1 00:19:26 Did you have more vendors attend as well?
Speaker 2 00:19:31 This year we have 41, which is about some thought average. Okay. So as far as vendors, I would say we have pretty much the same vendors that we have in person that are joining us virtually. Um, and oh, go
Speaker 1 00:19:52 Ahead. Um, core differences. Do you think that sets American council of the blind apart from other, you know, organizations of, you know, blind or, you know, other blind organizations?
Speaker 2 00:20:07 I like to think that ACB and I know ACB is very inclusive. We try to keep, we welcome everyone, you know, regardless of how they, what their, what their comfort level is. You know, we ha we have people who have use canes. We have people who use guide dogs. We have people who prefer to go cite a guide with someone, then it's fine. You know, whatever, whatever people, whatever people want, if you're a braille reader or a large, you know, use your computer screen or don't know braille at all, and just, you know, just, you know, we're whatever, we're very, we try to be very welcoming and that's something that I've heard from a lot of people, oh, I didn't know how I'd feel coming to this convention, whether it's in-person or virtual. And everybody made me feel like I was, they were happy to have me so inclusive there. Yes. That's the one word that I like to
Speaker 1 00:21:11 Use when I'm describing Janet, I'm wondering, how does ACB kind of assist people and visually blind people and visually impaired people to advocate for appropriate programs and services?
Speaker 2 00:21:28 Well, as I said, we have a director, we actually have two people in our office in Alexandria who are our advocate, our director of advocacy and associate director. And they will work with anyone with any issues that they have. They will, as I think I said earlier, they will give you resources. And then once a year, we have our mid-year legislative forum in, um, Alexandria, we meet and we have a day and a half long session on different issues and how to advocate. And then we all, um, people who are interested go to Capitol hill and actually meet with senators, usually it's staffers from senators and the congressional offices of your, of your state. And we will give you tips and tricks on how, what to say, basically what to ask, you know, what the ask is, and we'll give you, um, handouts to provide to the office staffers so that they know the issues.
Speaker 2 00:22:34 And we found that, you know, going in person really is helpful, but we also work with a lot of organizations, um, democracy live for accessible voting. We work very closely with them and, and other organizations that we're working to get accessible voting and accessible machines and accessible absentee voting, um, which we were able to get here in Minnesota, um, for the 2020 election, which was wonderful. And we certainly hope that going forward, we're able to continue that. And, um, with the air carrier act and, uh, service animals, um, and flight, we've been working very hard on that and just, just a Marriott of, of things and also low vision aids, um, Medicare coverage for low vision aids. Uh, so there's a, there's a myriad of things that we are involved with on the advocacy front. And we have a podcast that comes out every week on advocacy and different aspects of what's going on. And what's important. We share any information on, um, via email to individuals. We have a phone system called the Washington connection where people can call and get recorded information. So we try to get, you know, as much information out to our grassroots members so that they have all the information that they need.
Speaker 1 00:24:15 You have not only a, you know, big national convention that is coming up, but you also do each state, I think, does its own convention during the year. Did you guys do that during COVID?
Speaker 2 00:24:30 We did. We did it virtually and in Minnesota, a lot of our state affiliates have their conventions in the fall or in the spring. Well, in Minnesota, we Hardy Minnesotans. We have it in January, and normally we have it in person at a hotel. And it's a weekend event this year. We did it via zoom. So we had a day and a half of programming followed by an auction. And, uh, that was very interesting because we got the, the ability to have, um, to do things via zoom enabled a lot of people from other states who wouldn't normally come to our house.
Speaker 1 00:25:12 They were kind of convention hopping. Yes,
Speaker 2 00:25:15 We, yes. And I've gone to many different state conventions since COVID.
Speaker 1 00:25:21 And do you think that you'll continue to do the local ones LA um, zoom, or do you think, I mean, will you try to double do it? We will try
Speaker 2 00:25:30 To double do it also because people, as much as we love the, the zoom, we, you know, I think I can speak for everyone. We miss people. We miss getting together and sitting down for that cup of coffee and talking with someone you miss being in a room and, you know, just being able to dialogue zoom is a wonderful thing, but nothing's going to replace in nothing replaces in-person
Speaker 1 00:25:57 Right. Um, and,
Speaker 2 00:26:00 Uh, we found that, you know, nationally also, and as I mentioned, we have a lot of tours that we have during our national conventions. And of course we couldn't do that via zoom, but we came up with the next best thing, which we did last year. And we're also doing again this year, we have our audio described tore channel. So we got a number of tours from the national parks district, our national park service, I'm sorry. And some other tours that our audio description project had described. So we have things like a tour of the white house. We have, um, the Wright brothers, we have the making of Mount Rushmore. We have, um, a, um, national or not national geographic. Um, we have the elephant dire Rameh from, uh, the, um, I'm blanking. What's the, uh, museum in Washington, DC.
Speaker 1 00:27:04 Oh, um, uh, you know what I'm talking about? Somebody else will say, don't, you know that yes, thank you. I couldn't,
Speaker 2 00:27:14 My mind was blank. I couldn't take them Smithsonian. Thank you. And we have, our chores are also going to be on a loop every six hours. And we have a schedule. We have a schedule that we have posted, so you can, uh, determine when you want to listen to a tour and we have them going 24 hours. So, you know, if you wake up in the middle of the night, you can flip on one of our ACB audio described tours and they will also be in podcasts. Cool.
Speaker 1 00:27:47 Um, do you want to give one more time the information on the, where people can go and the website for the convention and when it is and all that good stuff.
Speaker 2 00:27:56 All right. Our convention is July 16th through July 23rd, for people who register for the convention and there is a registration fee, but if you register for the convention each evening, you will receive an email with all the sessions for the next day and all the zoom links for them. So you can go into the zoom rooms and actually participate in our sessions and ask questions, but you don't have to register. You can listen on ACV radio and to get all the information about the convention. It is ACB convention.org. Our general email, our general website for ACB is acb.org. If you'd like to get on our convention email list, you can send a blank email to ACB convention, the plus sign subscribe at ACB lists, L I S T s.org. So it's ACB convention plus
[email protected]. My phone number and email are all over the ACB convention website. So you can always get that information and reach out to me directly her often. Um, and I do people call me at all kinds of weird times, but that's okay.
Speaker 1 00:29:27 Do you, is there anything else you'd like to add?
Speaker 2 00:29:31 We'd love to have you come and join us. Anyone is welcome. You can, as I said, you can register for the convention or you can just listen on radio and, uh, you know, come and come and check us out.
Speaker 1 00:29:45 Janet. We really appreciate you being on. This was great. Thank
Speaker 2 00:29:49 You for giving me this opportunity. I really I'm so glad I was able to chat
Speaker 1 00:29:52 With you. I hope to maybe catch some virtual steps this year. I didn't catch any last year, but was any luck. Did you know that I helped cohost the friends at art showcase? I muzzle promote that since I don't usually do that. So there's a friends in art showcase that gets played at Friday evening, and I was helped co-host it this year with, I didn't know that now, you know, and how did that happen? That I was asked. That's wonderful. Yeah. So, um, people who ask
Speaker 2 00:30:28 That will be on ACB radio, um, ACB media one, and that will be Friday, July 16th. And that will be at 8:00 PM central time.
Speaker 1 00:30:40 And do you have to pay to hear that? Or can you go
Speaker 2 00:30:44 Anything on ACB? Radio is open to everyone.
Speaker 1 00:30:48 Excellent. Thank you again, Janet. Really appreciate
Speaker 2 00:30:51 It. Welcome. Thank you for having me goodnight.
Speaker 1 00:30:54 Goodnight. There's caffeine in 2.3, FM Minneapolis and kfa.org. This is disability and progress. We have an email, um, email her, if you'd like to come on, you can email, or if you'd like to suggest a topic, you can email us about anything that pertains to disabilities and that email would be disability and
[email protected]. Tonight, we are switching gears here with Michael Dayton. Uh, good evening, Michael. Hi, how's it going? Thank you so much for coming on last minute. Indeed. He's a diehard. He came in well, zoom is great because we get a lot of people we wouldn't get. Um, but it is nice to start seeing people in the studio again. Um, so Michael, we're going to talk about the virtual art festival, but who are you and how are you affiliated with this?
Speaker 3 00:31:50 Yeah, so my name is Michael Dayton. Um, I am here on behalf of the St. Paul neighborhood network. I'm located in St. Paul, and then more specifically, um, I am a part of their community technology empowerment project. Um, so that project consists of about 35 of us spread out throughout the twin cities assisting with bridging what we call the digital divide, which is, um, known as in general, um, the variety of inequities that come up with access to technology, access to the internet and access to learning how to use technology and skills to use and navigate online spaces as well.
Speaker 1 00:32:44 Okay. So this spiritual art festival, tell me about how it got its start and what, what is it exactly?
Speaker 3 00:32:55 Totally. Um, so a part of this project, um, requires us to gather in teams and, um, come up with civic engagement projects and something we noticed at the start of our service years. Um, last fall was this lack of engagement at our service sites with communities with disabilities in the twin cities area. So in December we started thinking, how do we engage, um, with these communities and how do we center it around access to technology, um, and online spaces and came up with the idea of hosting a virtual festival. Um, and then once we came up with that idea, we started searching for partners and got in touch with the Minnesota council on disability and started a partnership with them. And since December have been planning with them, um, looking for artists, looking for, um, potential organizations to help out with the project. And here we are. So
Speaker 1 00:34:02 When is the con, when is the art festival?
Speaker 3 00:34:04 The art festival is next week. It is July 16th, which is next Friday, um, through July 18th.
Speaker 1 00:34:13 Well, that's the day after my birthday, so everyone can like email me on Thursday. And, um, so how many people do you currently have? Did you get a lot of people that are kind of joining?
Speaker 3 00:34:27 Yeah, so they're starting to trickle in more. Um, but we have had a few submissions as well as a few registrant's, uh, we're still working on promoting the event, getting it out there. That's why I'm here today, um, to really spread the word for it. But we also have as a part of the festival for, um, artists that will be, um, hosting workshops and panels, um, throughout the weekend. So those four for sure will be there. There'll be talking about, um, their art. They'll be talking about the politics of disabilities, um, and so on, who will be hosting these, do you know <inaudible>? Yeah. So our MC for all the events is to be so Rowan, which some of you may be familiar with. It seems like everyone I run into, um, who inquires about the festival seems to know it to be, so he seems to be very popular in St Paul, but, um, he will be our emcee for the events.
Speaker 3 00:35:27 He is a Yogi, um, as well as a, uh, performing artists and musician. And then we have Alison Berglund, Gould, Hashi. Awesome. Yeah, she's an amazing artist. She's been great to work with and we're really excited to have her, um, provide a storytelling workshop, um, on the 16th. And then we are also, um, we also have Gabriel Roderick who goes by the stage named freak. Amazing. Um, yeah, he will be giving a songwriting workshop that following Saturday, and then, um, one of our cohort members actually in see tap, uh, his name's Pierre young will be providing a workshop on, um, painting, I believe on that Sunday. And then they will all be kind of in conversation with each other throughout the workshops. Um, Saturday on Sunday, there are two panels which will be hosted one with Gabriel, um, and to be so, uh, kind of centered around music. And then the second one on Sunday with Alison and Pierre, um, which will be centered around collaboration and what that looked like for them in the past year. And I believe David from the Minnesota council on disability will be a part of those conversations as well. Um, and to be, so we'll also be there talking and, um, facilitating to some degree the current. So
Speaker 1 00:37:01 Now are people performing and doing art? What kind of artists are you, are you still looking for? Can people still come in as artists?
Speaker 3 00:37:10 Yes, we are still looking for submissions. Um, for
Speaker 1 00:37:15 What kind of artists say you're looking for
Speaker 3 00:37:17 Artists of any kind of any specific medium are welcome? Um, because it is all virtual, we are screening recorded works, um, that artists submit. So the one requirement for artists looking to submit is that they submit in a prerecorded video format.
Speaker 1 00:37:38 What about if there are painters they do painting?
Speaker 3 00:37:42 Yeah. If they're painters, um, we highly recommend sending in a prerecorded video of paintings also with audio description, you know, within that video of the paintings or of the 2d art. Um, so that can be then screened live during one of our exhibition hours. Um, but we are also looking for ways for, um, the exhibition to kind of live on, um, as well. And we have a website which, um, would potentially also host a gallery for submissions, like paintings or drawings. And what is that website? That website
[email protected]. And it was at 80 or the app sign
Speaker 1 00:38:30 At the table. arts.org. Yes. So has this been a big to-do? I mean, how long have you guys, it sounds like you've been doing this since December or so.
Speaker 3 00:38:41 Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's been an ongoing project since December that in the past couple months, especially a few weeks has really picked up. Um, just as we get closer to the deadline, we're working out all the kinks that come with planning, virtual events and also making them as accessible. This
Speaker 1 00:39:02 Was your first year doing this one, right?
Speaker 3 00:39:04 Yeah. This is the first time this specific event, um, is happening. But it also sounds like in the conversations we've been having with other orgs, um, there are a number of other kind of virtual festivals happening in the month of July.
Speaker 1 00:39:22 And are you hoping to keep promoting doing this virtual event each year?
Speaker 3 00:39:26 We hope so. Um, so our service or our contract as CTA members ends in, um, August, and some of us are moving out of Minnesota, um, to do other things
Speaker 1 00:39:41 I know, right. Minnesota
Speaker 3 00:39:43 Is great. Um, and I will no longer be working for the St Paul neighborhood network, but the ideas of these projects is that they do kind of live on after they get started. Um, so yeah, we hope that after this wraps up, I mean, there will be something to follow the events. There will be all the events will be recorded and then we're trying to get money together right now to have them audio described, um, to live on. Um, and then the Minnesota council has also talked about, um, trying to, you know, keep, keep its essence of sorts in some fashion.
Speaker 1 00:40:30 So what do you want people to get from this type of art? Um, the spiritual art thing.
Speaker 3 00:40:39 Yeah, I would say, um, feeling of inclusion, definitely. Um, one of the big themes that comes up in the conversations we have as artists or with the artists is, you know, connection and feeling a loss of connection, especially in the past year when things went virtual and, you know, the internet is always like miss assumed to be this very like open place with zero barriers, but it turns out that it's not actually, um, so connection is a huge thing, um, that we want to see happen in this festival. Um, all the workshops will be interactive. So Alison Gabriel and, um, peers, workshops, um, are all inviting participants to actually, you know, engage with them, ask questions, follow along and stuff like that. And then we also want people to feel visible, you know, so for the artists who are showcasing work and sending work in, you know, we really want them to feel like the work is being seen and their voices are being heard.
Speaker 1 00:41:55 And so tell me again, how people can get involved and how they can both help and submit art.
Speaker 3 00:42:01 Yes. Um, so all of our information is on the website, um, which
[email protected] G. Um, and the app is a T um, and on there is, um, also a link to our email, um, and, uh, submission, um, form for the artists to submit work to also for people to, um, request for attendance at the workshops.
Speaker 1 00:42:33 Okay. Um, and they have to, they have to submit it in video form, right? Yes. Okay. Was there anything else that you'd like to add before we go?
Speaker 3 00:42:45 Yeah. Um, the events are free. Uh, so feel free to, um, you know, come check out the workshops, come check out the, the panel discussions. We will also be screening a film, uh, from fresh eyes, art gallery, um, which is part of MSS. Um, and yeah, um, again, our website
[email protected], and we are really looking forward to this weekend. It's going to be really exciting. Um, everyone's put in a lot of work and the artists I've worked really hard to come up with really engaging discussions and workshops.
Speaker 1 00:43:29 All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate you coming in and sitting through and waiting your turn. It's great. It's really nice to have people in the studio again. And, um, that's been a really nice, so thank you, Michael, and good luck with the art exhibit. Um, I hope, and this is an art exhibit for both people with disabilities and without correct,
Speaker 3 00:43:55 Anyone can, um, come, uh, attend the workshops and panels, but we are hoping to, um, limit the submissions to community members with disabilities. And the workshops are all held by local artists with disabilities.
Speaker 1 00:44:12 All right. Thank you again. Thank you so much. Goodbye.
Speaker 1 00:44:34 This has been cafe 90.3 FM Minneapolis and kpi.org. If you want to be on my email or you can email
[email protected], I've been your engineer help with help from Annie Charlynn dollars. My research woman, we were speaking with Janet, um, tonight, Dickerman and Michael, um, Dayton. Thanks so much for listening.
