Pash: Not Your Typical Inspirational Speaker!

I’ve seen a lot of inspirational speakers and I have to say that last night was certainly a unique treat for or those who could come out to Valencia to see Pash talk Inspirability.

His format of flashing stills coupled with video interviews capturing what inspires everyone from drive-through window attendants to famous designers like Milton Glaser was rich with depth of content. No matter who you are or your reason for attending, there was something for each and every person to grasp onto… even if in the end it was just an autographed fuzzy green book containing more that 235+ pages of what inspires forty of the world’s top designers.

Pash summarized a few of the things he took away from his experiences while researching what inspires (also included in the afterword of his book):

• Remember that the solution usually lies in the problem
• Be honest with yourself and other people
• Take breaks, time to reflect
• Listen to and encourage others
• Make something beautiful once in a while
• Keep some kind of notebook
• Stand up for what you believe in
• Don’t panic when the pressure is on – use it
• Fall of a skateboard once in a while (be willing to fail)
• Be conscious of your sub-conscious

Pash also sent us away with a warning from Milton Glaser: Use it or lose it. Being inspired is something you have to allow yourself to be and not allowing yourself to be inspired ultimately leads to being inspired by nothing.

For those of you who earned the honor of having your work accepted and shown in the Annual Student Juried Show opening in the Anita S. Wooten Gallery that was also last night, Pash was impressed with the high quality of the work he saw. A special congratulations to the Graphic and Fine Art students who won awards. Keep up the inspired work!

Thanks to everyone who helped make this event happen including: Pash for flying all the way out here just for us, Valencia’s Visions and Voices for providing the funding, those who organized and supported the student juried show, those who provided awards and came out to support Valencia’s talented fine and graphic artists and also those who just came to be inspired!

For those of you who couldn’t make it to the event you missed a great opportunity to be inspired not only by Pash, but also the great student work accepted in the show. If you’re totally bumming that you couldn’t attend or couldn’t purchase a book, don’t despair, we still have a few fuzzy green books in the East Campus Graphics lab (1-215) for anyone who didn’t have the opportunity to purchase one at the event.

We’ve uploaded some of the photos from the event in flickr.