Our Mission
Educate, Inspire & Transform

Insight Conference
Is a low cost, local creative community networking event, featuring speakers that lift up our mission to educate, inspire & transform. This year's conference is being held in the Duesenberg Hall at Valpariso University on September 15th, doors open at 6:30 pm. Directions to Valparaiso University.
Speakers
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2017
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Bridget EarnshawSouth Shore Arts Curator
The Art of Working
My career starting as a lighting designer for a community theater which led to a part-time carpenter for the Theater at the Center, then to being their master electrician and props designer to the full-time marketing director and then on to South Shore Arts. The common thread of not knowing what I was doing in any of these positions but gaining a wealth of knowledge in each job and using that in my daily life, personally and in the workplace.
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Chris CassonPhotographer
Your Biggest Barrier To Being Successful: Yourself
While we typically like to place all blame on outside forces, in truth what ultimately determines whether we achieve success or not is our mindset. Learn a few quick tips on changing your negative mindset and outlook into a positive one.
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Eric ZossoValpo Co-Working space - Owner
Designing a New Form of Homeownership
For many of us entering the working world, buying a home isn't the right choice because there are more student loans then ever before, stagnated wages, and people are likely to move to different places throughout there life. Renting works, but there seems to be growing inequality between renters and owners. And by renting there's a much higher increase in costs each year than owning. So what if there was an option to treat housing more like a co-operative, where the renters themselves receive a portion of equity not in the one property, but in a collection of different properties all owned by the cooperative.
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Gregg HertzliebCurator
Sources of Inspiration
Working in artistic media other than your primary art medium can open up whole worlds of ideas. My experiences taking digital camera pictures in the last ten years, coupled with my recent work in screen printing and relief printmaking, have given me exciting new subjects and points of view for my watercolor and ink drawings. I think experimentation in various media provides new ways of seeing that can be fruitful to explore.
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Leslie Lambert-MasonMulti-disciplined Creative
Keeping your Empire from crumbling
Once you build an Empire of art businesses, how do you manage all of them? Leslie will talk about managing social media, keeping multiple art focuses in line, holding down a full time job AND how to manage keeping your family fed and clean while doing it all!
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2016
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Jenah Pfeiffer
The Vulnerable Creative: Exposed
At times the creative path can be a lonely one. And while we strive for originality and ingenuity in our creative fields, along the way, we meet up with isolation and vulnerability. Learn how to deal with the overwhelm in expository creativity and how inspiration can be the key motivator in the creative process.
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2015
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Chris Mahlmann
Making a Digital Impact with Design
Chris's presentation will be based around the lessons he has learned about how small businesses and individuals can communicate their mission and talents effectively online and via social media in a way that allows their creativity to flow and be apparent to all. He wants to help designers and those in the graphic and visual arts best understand how to utilize online and social media tools to gain a very high impact return on the time put into each outlet. Chris's very straight to the point, high energy strategies work well for him and he is excited to share them with others.
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Julia Huisman
Don't Settle for Status Quo
Northwest Indiana is known for its blue collar industry but it also thrives with creativity and artistry! There is so much talent here waiting to be discovered. I’ll share how to find such talent locally, how to build and nurture a creative team, and the importance of telling the stories of NWI’s creatives.
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Liz Mares
It's Okay To Be A Quiet Artist
In this fast paced world of social media and the constant extroverted urgency to "Get out there and mingle! Push Push Push!" The quieter people tend to get lost in the noise. Learn how to use your quiet nature to be seen and gain recognition with a softer approach.
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Matt Fiocca
Design for Development
There may come a time in your life when that well researched, beautifully crafted website design will be sent off to someone else for development. In this short talk, I will illustrate 5 ways that will help make that hand-off become a creative and technical success.
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WoodenJacket
Justin & Evvie Tillich: The Little Things
People often ignore their small, or what they may see as insignificant talents. With the society of "more" we live in, most people miss them all together. It has been ever present in our lives to hold tight to these "little things" and to nurture them, because there in lies the magic.
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2014
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Corrie Vos
Sleeping with a Designer
Design affects where we shop, the products we buy, the restaurants we eat at, how we decorate our house, from the biggest to the smallest of details. While it can easily become overwhelmingly irritating at times, we're working on how to laugh at each other in the tension and how to find places to restore both his need for creativity and my need to have a voice in the design of our life.
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Melissa Washburn
I Don't Know What I'm Doing: Confidence & the Female Creative
A number of articles and books have come out recently on the differences between men and women when it comes to confidence, taking on new challenges in the workplace, and how we cope with both successes and failures in our work. In this talk I will reflect upon my own experience with "Impostor Syndrome" and talk about some strategies that we can use to build confidence, balance confidence with competence, and start taking the kinds of risks that can result in great work and great careers.
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Ron Delhaye
You're Awesome! (But your art sucks) Take it Personally.
Art is interpretive - some will love it, and others will hate it. Learn how the attention has shifted from the art to the artist, and why having a great personality is imperative. Creative talents aren't enough to speak for you, it's how people perceive you as a person and as a brand.
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