 Hello, hello, hello. Welcome, everybody. My name is Joanne Curvis, and I'm the board chair of Longmont Creates, which is the nonprofit arm of the creative district. And we host the Creative Happy Hours. We do them quarterly. And we want to thank Longmont Public Media and Sound Post Sessions, Longmont Public Media, Sound Post Sessions for hosting here. And they kind of took the lead, and they're going to tell you all about the great things that happen here. So we do these quarterly so that our creatives can get out and meet and mingle and find all the cool things that are going on in Longmont. The creative district is run by the Longmont Downtown Development Authority and has very specific word, god, footprint, thank you. This is going to be a joint project. And so what they can only advertise and fund things within the creative district boundaries. Longmont Creates is a nonprofit. We support everything that's going on in the creative district, but we're open to supporting all of the creatives in Longmont. So that's kind of the benefit of having a nonprofit arm. And also, as we continue to grow, our ultimate goal is to be raising money for the creative district's activities, creatives, all kinds of things. Out on the table, you can find information about us. And if you want to become a member, like if you're jealous, because some people have really cute name charts, then if you join, you'll get to make one as well. We have a Pay It Forward membership. It's $35 a year. And if you participate in five qualifying activities throughout the year, one of which is a creative happy hour, then when you go to renew that next year, your membership is $0 because we want our creatives involved. Sure, we want your money. You can still give us the $35. But we want to see your faces. If you hear, we want to hear from you. We want to know what you guys need. So that's how we do our Pay It Forward. So I'm going to stop talking and turn it over. If you have any questions, I'm here all night. Thanks, Joanne. Hi, everyone. My name's Tim Golds-Root. I'm the executive producer of the Sound Post Sessions, which is a concert series that we host right here at LPM. And also, we do some shows over at the Times Collaborative over on Main Street. I'm really excited to be here tonight to have a little host, a little bit of conversation with some creatives in our community. As I've been involved in the creative district for a little while now, the question has some of our conversations on the advisory committee have been around, well, what is a creative? Is it just an artist? What is being a creative mean? So I thought this might be an interesting opportunity to talk about that and talk about what it means to be creative and the idea that maybe that definition is actually pretty wide and maybe more of us are creatives than we might even think. But also, we want to talk a little bit specifically about Longmont Public Media, the place where we are. I've been a member here myself for almost two years now. And so we want to talk a little bit about that. And there'll be a chance later on to see more about the facility and to around the spaces and whatnot. But we also want to have a chance to have some conversation about how we use the space here to give you an all better idea of that. So tonight, we have three stellar members, stellar creatives from our community here tonight. We have, starting on stage right there, Sarah Morrow, who is a Longmont real estate professional with Cell State Ace Realty. And she's also a singer, a mandolin player, and a songwriter. So I think you're going to realize that multi-talented is sort of a theme for tonight. Next, we have Amanda Maldonado, who's an artist, graphic designer, and teacher known as Koi Ink. And then also Karina Bolch, who's the director of Artistic and Digital Strategy for the Sound Post Sessions. And she's also a freelance writer and musician. So to start us off, Sarah. Hi, Tim. Hi. Tell us a little bit about the sort of creative activities that you're involved in generally. All right. I have been a member of the Longmont Public Media Center here that we're in for coming up on three years. My primary, at least my consistent project is I host a little pun of a show called Proper Tea Time. We talk about property, and we sip proper tea from our little tea set here, my prop. I confess I'm drinking water because I've overdone the tea already today. But that's something I do monthly. I'm also a singer, songwriter, actor. I'm involved in a lot of musical theater and even some opera and some gigs around town. But those are projects that are kind of short term. And I'm a realtor full time and kind of longer term. And I really just love LPM because I've produced my show here. I just finished my 23rd episode last week in terms of content production. And when I first came here three years ago, I didn't even know what Adobe Premiere meant. So I've come a long way with regard to hosting a show. What does Adobe Premiere mean? Sorry, Adobe Premiere is just a piece of software with which I have made my videos, yes. But I do a little teaser, teaser. And then I do my little episode about property with various talking, like it's an interview show. It's just like a 20 minute discussion about sort of what helps people buy and sell properties, some anecdotal things in my show. So anyways, that's a long answer for a short session, sorry. But I am a, yeah, I'm a video editor here and a video content producer. Well, one of the things that I think is so interesting about that project you have is the interface to your professional activities, which I'm going to come back to in a minute. I wait with Bated Brother. Karina, let's move over to you. Tell us a little bit about the sort of creative activities that you are involved in. Creative activities that I'm involved in. Well, I have been a professional musician, singer, also a singer-songwriter for, I guess, coming on 17 years now. I have a degree in jazz studies. And I started a record label a few years back. And during the pandemic, I started writing prose for such publications as Dallas Observer. There's a music blog out of New York called The Wild Honey Pie that I started writing for. And more recently, I was an intern with 5280 Magazine. And I'm still working with them. And then more recently than that, I started writing for Travel Boulder. So I'm also a music, arts, culture, service journalism writer, and also the director of Artistic and Digital Strategies with the Sound Post Sessions for. She does a great job doing that, Bob. For, I guess, over a year now, coming on a year and a half. And with the Sound Post Sessions, I help plan and produce some of our shows. We launched a jazz series last year called Jazz at the Times at the Times Collaborative. And also become kind of the de facto house singer for that series. So I've been back singing jazz after the pandemic, after a break, so that has felt really good. And I also write and edit the Sound Post, which is our monthly newsletter, which talks about the artists that play at our shows and also the music industry at large. And is that it? Is that all? I am an amateur watercolor painter. And although I'm not a visual artist by any stretch, I'm very interested in visual, artistic things. And so sometimes I take Amanda's classes. Definitely a plug there for the Sound Post, which is the blog she writes for us in the Sound Post Sessions. If you haven't had a chance to check that out, you can find that on our website. But Amanda, let's jump to you. Tell us a little bit about the many things that you do. A lot. I'm Coy Inc. This is my logo. It's an owl. So a lot of people who recognize me in Longmont but don't know me know me from my owl logo or my blue hair, which is kind of hard to see in the bun. So I do a lot of things. I teach art classes. I teach a business class for artists at the firehouse every month. I'm doing four free art lessons this year to make it more open to people who don't have expendable income like I do not right now. And just trying to nurture creativity and help people feel good about being creative, because it can be a very painful process getting back to where it feels good again. And I try to do it in very subtle, gentle ways. They don't know you're like, oh, this is actually fun. So I do watercolor and pen and ink. I'm also a creative and community liaison. I try to bring everybody together. I was just telling someone earlier that I brought the chamber to the firehouse. And I'm like, we're all going to be friends because we're all really dorky and love what we do. So yeah, just make art, have fun, go on art dates. I'm very inspired by the creative community here and by how much this feels like home to me and how much of a family it's become and how much people are like, you want to do that? Let's do it. That sounds great. Go have fun. Go make things happen. So yeah, I'm just very inspired by Long Mott and the creatives and how much energy and passion we have. And I love inspiring that in people and encouraging them to feel good and have fun. One of the other things that I've really admired and seen you do recently is I saw you had a ribbon cutting for your business, Coy Inc. You're the best attendant I've ever seen a ribbon cutting be. We had a head count of 67 people, which I was very, and this was July 12th when no one wants to leave their house. They're like, what is existing? January 12th. January, thank you. Jays. Yeah, everyone's on vacation on July 12th. Anyway. Well, but I think this connection to business and our professional lives is another thing that I want to talk about a little bit. I know for me, there's a lot of overlap between the consulting work that I do professionally and audio engineering work that I do. And I really enjoy having a place like this where I can exercise some of the more creative aspects of being a sound engineer, how to make things sound good. How do I EQ this guitar or something to get it sounding just right. But also, I think the creative district is a really great platform for us to not just be creatives or working in a bubble, but actually using these creative, developing these creative skills in ways that help us professionally and help us make money, right? So, Sarah, I want to come back to you. How does being a creative kind of influence you professionally? So I'm not in this organization and I'm not a creative, so I just want to put that out there right now because I'm kind of got a little imposter syndrome going on. But now that I know you exist, $35 a year sounds pretty good and doable. Sorry, what was the question? Really? Well, I know that your property time is definitely connected to your real estate activities, right? So I'm just kind of curious how that, how did you come about to, how did you have the idea to make that start that series? What kind of inspired that? That's a good question. So first of all, I love puns and I love talking to people and I, you know, all these sales gurus are like content, content, video, video, future of marketing. And really as a realtor, you got to be good at marketing, you know, and I didn't want to just, you know, bombard people with Facebook ads and I didn't want to just, I don't know, be a singer and be like, hey, I'm also a realtor, like don't you want to buy or sell a house because everyone I was meeting in the music scene, you know, they don't buy houses. But I don't know how it happened. I learned about Long Mountain Public Media. I think I just Googled video. I wanted to learn how to create short videos for like my insta reel, to be honest. I just wanted to find a way to get good with video. I was an audio engineer for a little while. You know, I learned Pro Tools, I can do what Tim does, not quite nearly as well as Tim, but I kind of knew about audio and music editing. But suddenly everyone's like, you got to produce video content if you want to be a good realtor. And so I was like, all right, let me learn how to do this. And I just needed support. So I found LPM, sort of from a marketing, you know, wanting to do local marketing in Long Mountain. So I really lucked into this place. And then once I started it, you know, once you generate an idea and you're willing to put in the time, which I was, people kind of helped me out of total necessity. I was like, can you just get my lighting better? And can you just show me this? And it's been, you know, over the course of three years I finally figured a lot of things out and I got good, if you will. But in the beginning it was just kind of like you said, it was like this idea. And all I wanted was to have a monthly something in my YouTube channel, basically. So it's just sort of unfolded. And I thought it would be easier than it was. But now I do, I have a monthly thing on my YouTube channel and there was a lot of learning that had to happen. But I love talking to people. I love producing content. I love LPM and I stick with it because it's all my favorite stuff. Being in front of a camera, you know, being in front of people, talking about property, geeking out about certain topics like title and escrow and inspections. And I just, I enjoy it. You know, I stuck with it because I enjoy it. Well, I would, for one, would say you're definitely creative. Thank you. And I admire your ability to use your creative skills, you know, in a way that really reinforces and helps your business. You know, I think that's great. Karina, let's jump back over to you. How do you feel like being a creative influence as you professionally? Well, being a creative is really my whole life. I have always been into performing and singing since I was a kid. And then that's why I went on to get a music degree. And before the pandemic, I was working a corporate job at the fashion company Fossil. And it was a cool job and it was fun to work in fashion for a while. But after a while, I just didn't feel creatively fulfilled and made the decision to step away from that job to pursue my full-time creative career. And then the pandemic happened and kind of screwed that all up. So that kind of forced me to readdress, you know, like what are my skills? What can I do professionally? And that's how I got into writing. And I guess I'm still trying to figure out the answer to that question. What do I do next? I'm freelancing like crazy, but I need to find a home. I need to find a place where I can use all my creative skills and also make an income and hopefully buy a house someday. You know how to find me? I know, I knew a good real estate agent. Amanda, I mean, I've always really admired your kind of marrying of the creative industries if we call that and kind of your professional life. Tell us a little bit more about how it works for you. Yeah, they're so interconnected. I started off as a graphic designer. I went to college to study art and with a termination to figure out how am I going to make a living doing something creative. And when I succeeded at that, I, after moving to Longmont, fell in love with the city and felt really called to the community and the connection that I felt here and wanting to contribute and give more of myself in my time to that, which is why I started Koyank Studio, which is the business name for what I do full-time self-employed work. But yeah, I guess it's always stemmed from a love of giving back, teaching, being around community and the reason why I wanted to do, I'm not doing them now, but the marketing classes was just wanting to elevate and uplift some of the really cool businesses in Longmont, giving artists and businesses the opportunities and advantages that I have as a creative graphic designer and knowing the marketing field. So So these are the marketing classes that you offer around town, right? I haven't taken them on myself. I think maybe you did, Karina, right? Tell us a little bit more about those marketing classes you're doing. I'm not doing them anymore. Okay. Yeah, I'm taking a break. You can still. I was just gonna sign up. Tell us about the ones that you did. So basically trying to help businesses with how to use social media in a way that is rewarding and not draining. So there are some businesses in town that I am in love with and they don't respond to me when I post things on Instagram and it makes me really sad. And it's- I hope I respond to those things. Yeah, you and Karina both respond. But like I'll go to a coffee shop or I'll go to a business and I'll do an illustration and take a photo of the illustration that I made while I was hanging out there and they may not see it because they're not checking their social media as much. And what I was hoping to cultivate is helping remind businesses why they started this in the first place, why they became self-employed and did something super exhausting and a huge uphill battle and that there are people who really connect and engage with them and want to feel that human connection with that business through your social media is an easy way to see behind the scenes what they're getting up to and feel like there's someone behind this and you can be like, I love you, you're amazing. I wanna support you, I wanna tell other people about you but you're not on Instagram and I can't. I took photos and I just put the location on there but no one's gonna click on that. So yeah, just trying to show businesses that it can be something that feels good if you stop worrying about what you have to do and do what might be kind of fun. How can you hang out with the people that you started this for in the first place? Well, let us know when you decide to strike these back up again. I feel like this is really useful and valuable information. Yeah, thank you. Well, let's change gears for a little bit and talk a little bit more about this specific place, Longmont Public Media. Sarah, you mentioned coming in and not really knowing a lot about video editing in particular. There's some witnesses to that. Tell us a little bit more about maybe some of the specifics of the video resources you utilize here. Sure, I kind of compare my learning journey here to throwing a toddler into a swimming pool so they can learn how to swim. I definitely bit off a lot more than I can chew. I strolled in here like, yeah, I'm gonna do an episode and I'm gonna have content every week and I realized pretty quick that I was too big for my bridges because there was this guy who was here who was like, I'll do all your editing, I'll do your producing. I was like, fabulous. Did my first episode. He spent three hours editing it. He made me this beautiful intro. He made me these beautiful credits and then a week after it was done and I was like, I wanna hire you. This is beautiful. I wanna just have this template. I want your help. He said he'd teach me stuff. He decided to just completely leave LPM and go become a tattoo artist and follow his passion and I was like, oh my, and he just sent me a couple of stems and was like, here you go. You can work with this and you can see what I did and do it yourself. And I was like, oh my God. Like, I was so freaked out. I was just, he had done some really advanced stuff in After Effects and imported it into Premiere and thought that I could like figure this out. I'm like, I have an opera degree. I wanna be in front of the camera. Like, you were gonna help me do this and so I just, I remember feeling really betrayed at first. I mean, happy for him but I kinda wished it would have been better if I had just created it from scratch myself. But instead I had to figure out what somebody else did which forced me to learn a lot in the editing portion of things, like in a short period of time, so that my second episode, so that I wasn't just doing one episode and then being like, I can't do this. So I just, yeah, it took me a good five or six or seven more episodes to then figure out what he had done and then do it myself but I was determined to do that. So do you do all the editing yourself now? Yes, and I'm to the point, finally, you're welcome you guys and thank you for everything. Like after 20 episodes, I can come in. I even came in on that day that was like 17 below zero when not a soul was here and I not only like did my own lights, my own cameras, my own multi-tracking, my own audio. I can set up this space, I do my episode and then I go in the other room and I completely edit it fully, all of it, audio, color correction, totally alone. And that was a big- One of the nice things about 24-7 member acts last part of the week. Yeah, oh, I'm here sometimes at like one o'clock in the morning, but like I, that was a really big win for me. I know it sounds kind of like, well, yeah, you come and you produce content but you got to understand that like, I had a lot of help from the staff, from some hired guns, from YouTube, from, you know, just so, the resources were here but I was hungry for it. You have to be like, annoying. I'm good at being annoying until I learn what needs to be learned to get to make it happen. Tenacious. Tenacious. My slogan as a realtor is let my tenacity move you. Puns, all puns. But yes, I do kind of pride myself in being tenacious and learning. This is a great place to learn but you do have to kind of, people are like, maybe I'll join LPM so they can produce content for me. I'm like, doesn't work that way. Yeah, you really, it's a great place to learn. It is. It's been my experience as well. If you take the initiative, like any makerspace, all the tools you need are here. Bounce that back to you, Amanda. I mean, what sort of resources have you taken advantage of here at LPM? I've used the iPad for sales at markets. Excellent. There are multiple iPads. It doesn't work with the square anymore. So I love coming in here and teaching classes on Adobe programs so artists and businesses can learn how to do some basic marketing things, how to use Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. And I've also brought in one of my close friends, hired me to teach her how to use Illustrator, Photoshop, and the flatbed scanner to just take her artwork and to turn it into cards. And some of that involves taking some hand lettering that you do separately, the art itself, and then compositing it together into Photoshop for a finished piece, how to take the white of the paper and make it a pure white. So you don't see like the dirty paper grain, which can be really sad, because usually the printer makes it a lot darker than it looks on the screen. And they're like, oh no, it looks gross. And then earlier today, I was here using the podcasting studio with that same close friend. And that her business is called Patchwork Girl Productions. She's really adorable. And Ryan taught us how to use the podcasting studio. And I have to tell you that the switchboard is colorful neon lights, and it just made me feel so happy and glowy on the inside. It is very lovely. I was like, oh, it feels so good. What else have I done? So there's camera equipment. If you wanna photograph your artwork for reproductions, audio equipment. There's like a sound room downstairs if you want to have the club music. Yes, there is, and you can see it later. And then I just love coming here for events. Every Thursday, I could plug almost any creative organization town I can just plug all day. So every Thursday, they have a really cool creative event going on that supports creatives in the community and builds community as well with the makerspace here. So I love coming to those. And Andy Appler does some really weird, funny stuff. And I did karaoke one time. If you ever guys wanna look that up, see me sing. Lots of things are filmed here. This is being filmed for the record. It ends up in the archive. Karina, let's hop back over to you. What kind of resources do you use here at LPM? Well, I'm so glad you asked. Public media is an incredible partner and resource for the Sampo Sessions. We host our monthly listening room concert series right here in this room. And LPM members film it for broadcast on public access TV, which is really an incredible thing for everyone. It's great for LPM. It's great for the Sampo Sessions. It's great for the artist to have that video of their whole show to use as a resource. In fact, one of our artists last year was going to use it for festival and show submissions. So it's a really great thing for the artists and it's just really cool to have that. I think that it really enriches the community to be able to archive our performances that we have here. And then downstairs, Tim, as well as our third Sound Post partner who could not be here. He's also my husband, Zach. He's in LA meeting with music supervisors, so super fancy. He's a big wig. He's sad he couldn't be here, but they have been working on the downstairs recording studio for a while now, several months, maybe a year. And so that is a really great resource for the Sampo Sessions. It's a really great resource for people who want to learn more about music engineering. And the desk down there used to live in my house for many years. Zach actually designed it and had it custom welded. And they've been... Now it lives in the studio downstairs. So you're all invited to go check it out. Now it lives here. And so you're welcome to push some knobs and learn how to pro tools. That's always fun. And you guys have also been building sound treatments. So it's just a... Long-Law Public Media is such a cool space for so many different aspects of media and just a really, really great place to be. Couldn't agree more. All right, just in the few... We have just a couple minutes left here before I'm gonna turn it over to Sergio and the rest of our evening here. One thing from each of you that you want would like all the other creatives here tonight. One thing to know about LPM. Sarah? LPM, I hate saying this because it's kind of ironic, is in my opinion one of the best-kept secrets and the best deals in town. I was kind of hoping it wouldn't get very popular when I was one of the first pioneer members because of all this what's available. So you don't want people to know that LPM... But when it gets crowded here, things get a little more challenging. There's only two computers on which I can edit. There's only one studio in which I can record. But it's, to me, like you mentioned, the 24-hour access is a huge deal. I'm a realtor and sometimes I just need a place to go downtown just to have Wi-Fi and to have a cup of coffee and to even meet with a client and to even produce some content. I can do so much here for a really cheap membership each month. And I just really appreciate the Longmont centricity of this place. I am a Longmont-based realtor. I could find a studio like this in Denver or in Boulder, but not only is that a further drive and more expensive, it's just not putting money back into Longmont. I just really like how the people here are passionate about Longmont and the people I meet want to live and work in Longmont, and so I just really value that piece of things. Quick plug, Sarah Morrow realtor, please subscribe. Amanda, would you like everyone to know about LPM? It's a fantastic resource. I try to bring my artist friends here all the time, chamber people. When I go to Art Walk and they're like, I don't know how to use Adobe products, I don't have it. I don't have computers here. You can do a paid membership for the 24 access or if you can't afford it, you can come in and use the computers during working hours and have full access to the Adobe suites. And as you mentioned, they're extremely helpful and a really eager, passionate team and a very strong group of volunteers who were eager to help too. They meet every week, every Wednesday and they're just so fun, awesome, dorky and very passionate people. I've told them a few times you might regret inviting an artist to the game. A lot of them are more video and audio engineers and I'm like, we're going to get more artists in here, it's going to get weird. So come infiltrate and hang out with us every Wednesday. I love it. Karina, what do you have to say about LPM? So I've done a little bit of digging and I have not been able to find any other place in the state of Colorado that is quite like this place. It's very special. It is a very, like an incredible and unique resource and I'll just say that audio recording equipment and video recording and film equipment. Black magic design cameras. Black magic cameras, those things are very, very expensive. So to have a place where you can go and learn how to use that gear is like, I can't even overstate how important that is for a community with so many creative people and with so many people who want to learn how to do these things. So it's an amazing resource that we have right here in this town, so please take advantage of it. LPM is the best. Stop recording things on your phone. Yeah. Well, thanks to the three of you. Let's have a round of applause for our three...