Designing Creativity

Kamau
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
innovator

With his first name rooted in the Kenyan term, “Kikuyu” which means “Quiet Warrior,” Kamau possesses a calm, warrior-like prowess indeed, especially when he is doing what he is most passionate about – photography and event designing.

The latter is what Kamau dedicates his life to for the most part, having designed and produced events for over ten years for private companies and non profit organizations in the arts and culture industries. His major project as of today is to aid the Brooklyn Artists Gym (BAG), an artist studio and gallery facility in Park Slope that aims to provide easy access and a community-based space for a wide range of Artists in Residence. In congruence with BAG’s mission of helping make it possible for artists to further their work and careers at a reasonable cost, Kamau endeavors to use his skill and passion to organize and execute a successful fundraising event for this esteemed organization.

Like the warrior carefully assessing the surroundings from all sides before making the big attack, Kamau has come highly prepared for the initial brainstorming with the director and the creative staff behind BAG. Over a banquet of pizza, salad, and wine, Kamau’s first strategy is getting the BAG team to participate in an Idea Workshop, wherein members of the team personally and collectively pitch in their concerns and suggestions on certain bullet points for the proposed fundraiser. It is not only an exercise in sharing ideas, but mostly it is giving the team, and Kamau most especially, a chance to fully re-orient themselves with what the organizations is truly about and how can they, as a community and as individuals further progress the goals of BAG.

Kamau’s fervor for event designing manifests in his energy as he leads the team in putting out ideas and talking points. Over the course of his career, he has come to realize that a lot of the things that develop human beings and even civilizations revolve around specific events that have been carefully planned out. But what is most gratifying to him is how a lot of unexpected things take place at these events he has helped design, particularly in his hometown of Pittsburgh where he organized this poet/musician gathering called “Midnight Espresso.” In these sessions, random people with common interests have met up, and to Kamau’s amusement, many of them eventually hooked up, got married, or collaborated on more major projects.

That is why Kamau has kept the flame burning with what he does as it has helped him see the meaning of community at a more heightened level of awareness, especially with the core group of people he directly works with in coordinating these events with all these institutions, small-scale and massive alike. At the long, rectangular table at the BAG office, Kamau is pleased to see the influx of ideas and reactions among the team, even when a lot of the concerns raised do seem like the challenge to financing this event might be a lot bigger than they would like to think. But Kamau is not one to get discouraged easily. The quiet warrior within knows that no event fueled with the right amount of passion and perseverance is too impossible to execute. He eyes the team one by one and gives them a friendly reminder that by this gathering alone, they have already accomplished a very big step.

Kamau beams with pride as he explains what event designing truly means to him, “Today’s meeting at the Brooklyn Artists Gym was an event. There wasn’t any ticket price, no music, no DJ, but people were connecting and laughing and joking, and drinking and eating. They were participating and creating this visual that represented the brainstorming session…so even in creating an event I like to think and be purposeful about the events that make the events. So I think that before I get to the events that help me do some good, I make sure that everything along the way in the creative process is also fulfilling.”

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A note from *the storyteller: Kamau’s blog is also a constant source of inspiration. Please check it out: Depth of Field