Last fall, Kate Schmidgall propositioned us. She reached out with news that our friends at the Leadership Foundations had nominated Thrive Collective for a long-form feature produced by her team of creatives. If we were interested, they would dive deeper to determine if we’d be a good fit. Kate is the founder and principal of BitterSweet Creative, an award-winning full service creative agency that specializes in finding and telling great stories. Intrigued, we said yes. A few months later, they embedded a writer and photographer with us for two days. One June 1st, they exceeded every expectation with “Memorials of Possibility.” Read every word and enjoy every image.
Avery Marks, features editor for BitterSweet Monthly, said this about the story:
“Many of us in the BitterSweet creative community would not be here if it weren’t for school art programs—a closet-turned-dark-room where you nervously watched your photo take form beneath the waters of its chemical bath; a chaotic art class full of the mess of medium exploration, smelling of linseed oil, excitement, and (inevitably) turpentine; a writing workshop heavy with adverbs and ego-centric characters. Most of us are here because art programming gave us a safe place to explore: to totter, to fall, and to try again. We are here because artistic mentors called forth something within us we did not yet have the imagination for.
Thrive creates these connection points for a new generation—future artists, athletes, creative citizens, and community leaders. We are grateful for the future possibilities they are creating and the ways in which we all will benefit.
Read more at BitterSweetMonthly.com. Words by Josh Coad. Photos by Kory Powell.
Thank you, BitterSweet, for making magic happen! We are so honored by how carefully and meticulously Josh and Kory captured so many different layers of the story. What a gift to us all.
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