 by christina britt lewis and tim lewis photography by deborah triplett someone i love has a big decision to make, so she texted me for my thoughts. i texted back the first words that came to mind... do hard and scary things. never be boring. reject the status quo. do the opposite of what everybody else does. do not go gentle into that good night. rage, RAGE against the dying of the light. i am with you. words from my mom. words from dylan thomas. words from TED talks. TED talks are how i procrastinate. i can lose whole afternoons listening to brene brown talk about how if we follow anyone home, whether they live in charlotte or boston, and we sit at their dinner table and talk to them about their mother who has cancer or their child who is struggling in school, and their fears about watching their lives go by...we are all the same. or glennon doyle melton talk about showing up even when we are scared. or kathryn schulz talk about how if we really want to rediscover wonder, we need to step outside of that tiny, terrified space of rightness and look around at each other...look out at the vastness and complexity and mystery of the universe and be able to say wow. i don't know. maybe i'm wrong. or elizabeth gilbert talk about how when we just do our job...when we continue to show up for our piece of it, no matter what that might be...sometimes we get a glimpse of God. candice langston brought TED to charlotte five years ago. i found out too late to apply for a ticket. so i crashed. my friend, karin solomonson, had applied to be a volunteer so i just showed up with her and offered to help. somebody gave me a t-shirt and we got to welcome people to the first TEDxCLT all morning long. nobody was more psyched than we were. i have not missed a TEDxCLT since. they are always brilliant and moving and important and make me proud we picked charlotte to be our home. ours is a warm city full of world changers and status quo antagonists. it is not lost on me that we left boston to live in a place where everybody knows your name. when mike followthisman watson put out a call for TEDxCLT 2014 volunteers, i was probably the first to respond. next thing i know, winn maddrey called and asked us to design the stage. YES! fell out of my mouth before i remembered we had never designed a stage before. it had to be killer. it had to be cheap. and it had to be installed in an hour. i was terrified. so i called tracy grubbs who designs stages for a living. she rethinks, recycles, and redesigns what already exists to create something out of seemingly nothing. she is a kindred spirit. the theme for TEDxCLT 2014 was RENEWAL. this is what we came up with... ...one of the most visual representations of renewal is seen in architecture...stairs reflect the renewing of oneself, others, the situation or environment for the sake of progress. a collection of stairs and ladders represent the different paths we take to renew ourselves and our world. we will also create a seating area for mike watson that further reflects renewal. a classic chair, modern table, and a newly sprouted live plant lit by a vintage bulb hanging from a ladder represent where we come from, where we are going, and how we get there. we agree with bill bryson, “it is always quietly thrilling to find yourself looking at a world you know well but have never seen from such an angle before.” they liked that. but they wanted a sketch. we are the most deliberately undesignerly designers there are. we don't sketch. our proposal literally says this... to redesign is to come to your home and arrange furniture, hang art, and accessorize with your things all in just a day. plan to spend the day of your redesign away from your home for 8-10 hours. it’s best for you to see the rooms as a complete whole rather than piece by piece and it’s best for us to kick off our shoes, turn up the avett brothers, and be free to create in solitude. at the end of the day, you will love coming home. WE DON'T SKETCH! so tim sat down and did the best he could and then we said this about that... attached is a very rough, not to scale, sketch. our art is creating a fabulous stage, not drawing a fabulous stage. we hope it gives you enough of a feel to be as psyched as we are. we hit send and waited to be fired for not being good enough. but you guys, they totally didn't fire us. then this happened...   mike watson, ladies and gentlemen   this really happened  the brilliant and oh so sassy, tracy grubbs  big love and sloppy kisses and deep gratitude to... angela and kelly who run the redesign company while we run around doing hard and scary things jason wishnefsky who is our hero kate kestler who designed and redesigned and built the stairs like a boss steve knight for writing this and everything else nick fry who found the ladders deborah triplett who captured every important moment wendy fishman who manages the heck out of a stage  i tell you this little TED tale so you know...
don't wait until you know what you are doing. for us, that day has never come. don't wait until you feel ready and not terrified. for us, that day has never come. don't wait until you feel good enough. for us, that day has never come. i used to think other people had it all figured out, but now i know we are all the same. do hard and scary things. never be boring. reject the status quo. do the opposite of what everybody else does. do not go gentle into that good night. rage, RAGE against the dying of the light. we are with you, tim and christina Comments are closed.
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