Now that I am officially a senior citizen, having achieved the advanced age of 65 last year, I have become suspicious of old people and their resistance to change.
In our small town the mean age is approximately 68 years, and many of our locals like things …just …the …way …they …are. “Keep Bluff, Bluff” is the town’s unofficial motto, and strict fidelity to the past the objective.
Most Bluffoons, as community members are fondly known, are settled in their habits and avoid anything that alters their routine, changes their financial outlook, or upsets their schedule.
As Colonel Hathi from Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book might say about Bluff, “Predictability, predictability’s the thing!”
Fossilized, petrified, and ossified are terms I have heard used to describe our policies, and I worry these adjectives will be applied to me as well as my neighbors.
To delay complete and irrevocable calcification of my own views, I engage with young people whenever possible. Fortunately, the trading post regularly affords me that opportunity.
I ask my young visitors about their educational experiences and opportunities, planning for the future, buying a home, having children, their work, how they view our current political and economic predicament, and anything else I can think of that doesn’t risk offending them or leave them feeling I have intruded too deeply into their private lives.
Surprisingly, they are surprisingly open and engaging. Aside from postponing the inevitable, my goal is to understand their world so I can better organize my own, which lately feels altogether unmanageable.
Last week I spoke with a young Canadian woman about her experience traveling and living in the United States over the past several years, and how recent immigration policy changes have directly affected her and colored her view of America.
The University of Colorado had already awarded her undergraduate degrees in fine art and business and an MBA in finance. She said she intended to pursue a Ph.D., focusing on the intersection of art and business.
This was of great interest to me, since I have long believed that concept precisely captures what we aspire to at Twin Rocks Trading Post. Business, art, intersection, mashup, that is our recipe for an interesting day.
Later that afternoon a young man came trailing in through the Kokopelli doors. He was of average height, thin, and extensively tattooed. His sneakers, baseball cap, t-shirt, and khaki shorts were spattered with a rainbow of paint smudges, and he looked like a mobile art installation.
As we discussed his colorful appearance, he explained he was a muralist who traveled the U.S. in his Sprinter van doing large projects on walls, buildings, complexes, and other paintable surfaces.
As I later learned from visiting his web site, he is extremely well regarded, having done work for corporations, municipalities, and various other organizations.
He said his design strategy is to take images of the client’s work, culture, traditions, history, ethics, guiding principles, and whatever else he can find by researching them and then mashing his findings all together to form an artistic installation.
When I mentioned my conversation with the Canadian woman, he said, “Yes, exactly, a mashup at that intersection; a blending of ideas from business and art, and frankly anything else that interests the client and me.”
People often talk about the process of creating art and how challenging it is to be both artist and entrepreneur. It is rare, however, for them to discuss how art influences their business practices.
Art and artistic culture are seen as separate from commerce, but, as I discovered over many years at the trading post, they are intimately intertwined and inherently interdependent; inextricably tied together.
Over time, Twin Rocks has evolved into a creative, artistic, social, and business experiment where we acknowledge the needs of local people selling their work, while trying to ensure a financially sustainable enterprise.
In an environment where growth, change, and unpredictability are resisted, this can be a genuine challenge. As my young visitors and I discussed, the trading post is indeed at the intersection of art and business; a place where collisions, pileups, and crashes result in intriguing and thought-provoking art.
It takes courage to venture into that space, but this confluence of creativity and commerce is the inspiration for many of our best ideas. Predictability is our enemy and change our constant companion.
As we say at Twin Rocks Trading Post, “If you ain’t progressin’, you’re regressin’.”
Reading the signs at the intersection
