WPI Daily Herd: The Barefoot Spirit

Foisie Series

Nov. 11, 2015 in “Events”

Entrepreneurship speakers to share lessons learned in Foisie Business School series

It all began in the cramped space of a laundry room in a rented California farmhouse.

Like many entrepreneurs, Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey started out with just a little bit of money and a dream.

Thirty years later, their kernel of an idea – tweaked, tinkered with, and fostered over the days and decades – has blossomed into one of the country’s most successful wine labels, Barefoot.

The industrious couple came into the wine market with barely any prior industry experience – so for them, entrepreneurship has been about evolving, giving back, and constantly learning from (often constant) mistakes.

Today, since selling their brand to California-headquartered E&J Gallo Winery, they share their compelling story through speaking engagements, training, and consulting.

This week, they will talk about their entrepreneurial successes and failures at WPI as part of the Robert A. Foisie School of Business’ Entrepreneurship Speaker series.

The events are made possible through an ongoing grant from the Coleman Foundation catering to faculty member entrepreneurship fellows.

The goal is to “just trigger ideas for these faculty members who are not in business, but who recognize that their students are going to go on to become entrepreneurs or innovators,” said Frank Hoy, Paul Beswick professor of entrepreneurship and director of the Collaborative for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. “Innovation and entrepreneurship is one of President Laurie Leshin’s initiatives. This is all part of WPI’s mission.”

Houlihan and Harvey will offer three programs spanning Thursday and Friday that will focus on branding, marketing and innovation, management, and taking a brand global.

According to Hoy, the Coleman Foundation Faculty Entrepreneurship Fellows Program is aimed at faculty members whose main disciplines are outside the business school. Currently there are 14 fellows, he said, whose areas of expertise range from arts and humanities, to chemical engineering, to robotics.

Although the event is prioritized for fellows, the public is welcome to attend, Hoy said.

Previous speakers in the series have included Miroslav Pivoda, innovation consultant from the Czech Republic; Benyamin Lichtenstein of UMass Boston; and German economist Alexander Koeberle-Schmid. Future planned speakers will include Candida Brush, vice provost of Global Entrepreneurial Leadership at Babson College, and Nitin Sanghavi, a professor of retail marketing and strategy at Manchester Business School in England.

This week’s event with Houlihan and Harvey, meanwhile, came about when Hoy met the couple and heard them speak at the annual conference of the United States Association for Small business and Entrepreneurship.

“I was fascinated by their story, I was fascinated by them personally,” Hoy said, describing them as having “great personalities,” and being “really open, wanting to share, wanting to help other people.”

“Their venture from the beginning was designed not just to be a moneymaker, but to have a social impact,” he said.

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey will offer three events this week

–“Branding, Marketing and Innovation,” 6 to 7 p.m., Thursday, Salisbury Laboratories room 411.

–“Going Global,” 10 to 11 a.m., Friday, Salisbury Laboratories room 011.

–“Management: The 3 Core Competencies,” Noon to 1 p.m., Friday, Washburn Shops and Stoddard Laboratories room 229.

Visit their website at http://thebarefootspirit.com.

According to their bio, the couple started the Barefoot label in 1986, nearly going bankrupt in their first few years of business. But by learning to adapt and employ various innovative methods, they worked through obstacles and established new markets for their brand. Along the way, they also emphasized performance-based compensation and what they call “worthy cause marketing,” or supporting nonprofits that represent equal rights and environmental causes.

Since selling their brand to E&J Gallo in 2005, they have spoken across the country, received numerous entrepreneurship awards, and authored the bestselling books, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand, and The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways to Engage and Empower Your People.

“They got into a business and industry that they didn’t know,” said Hoy. “They made every mistake that an entrepreneur could make. But they didn’t make the same mistake twice. They went on, recovered, and persevered.”

Ultimately, he stressed, their story offers numerous examples of how entrepreneurs in all areas can mess up along the way, but in the end “still survive, still succeed, still accomplish goals.”

– BY TARYN PLUMB

November/December Artscope: Naoe Suzuki at UMass Lowell

Water, Water, Everywhere?

Nov/Dec 2015

Naoe Suzuki’s Thirst For Awareness

by Taryn Plumb

Especially in first-world countries, water is a resource that’s very often taken for granted – it comes out of the tap, streams out of the shower, is poured into plastic bottles and driven in by the pallet-full on the back of diesel- belching trucks.

In her latest body of work, Tokyo-born artist Naoe Suzuki strives for viewers to reassess and deeply contemplate their relationship with water – in all its forms. Her works – rendered on equally fragile paper – incorporate tracings of various water bodies alongside symbolic cutouts and whimsical collage.

“Most of us never think about it, because water is always here,” said the Waltham-based artist, who came to the states more than 30 years ago as an exchange student. Quoting the Emily Dickinson poem, “Water, is Taught by Thirst,” she stressed that there is no such thing as “always,” and that water is not free or in the condition that some of us assume it to be. “We only think of things after they’re gone,” she said.

Suzuki’s ruminations on the status of water will be displayed in the exhibit, “In Solidarity” through November 25 at UMass Lowell’s University Gallery. The show features 17 pieces, both paper works and installations, focusing on the themes of water supply and scarcity, contamination and pollution.

To read more, pick up a copy of our latest issue! Click here to find a pick-up location near you or Subscribe Here.

Original story link.

November/December Artscope: Carol Gove at Regis College

Carol Gove at Regis

Nov/Dec 2015

A Continued Dialogue with Paint

by Taryn Plumb

For Carol Gove, it’s all about the dynamism, the fluidity and the lively play between texture, lines and shapes.

“It’s the back and forth between collage and paint, of push and pull, as you’re working,” explained the Peterborough, N.H.-based collage artist, originally trained as a graphic designer. “It’s kind of a continued dialogue, a discussion with the painting as you’re creating it.”

Her charismatic, thought-provoking work will be on display in “Continuum” from November 9 through January 22 at the Carney Gallery at Regis College in Weston. The one-woman show will highlight close to two dozen pieces of mixed- media collage on panel, as well as traditional paper collage, spanning the last four years. Gove, whose artist’s reception will be held on December 6 from noon to 3 p.m., said she particularly sought to emphasize the evolution of her craft over a period of time.

“It will feature different bodies of work, with the unifying theme of mixed- media collage and abstract expression,” she explained. “Viewers will be able to see how the work has changed and grown.”

To read more, pick up a copy of our latest issue!Click here to find a pick-up location near you or Subscribe Here.

Original story link.

From the Archives: Annual Houdini Seance (2011)

In Holyoke, a Halloween seance to rouse Houdini

By Taryn Plumb GLOBE CORRESPONDENT

NOVEMBER 03, 2011

HOLYOKE - The council of 12 clasped hands, closed their eyes, breathed deeply, and waited.

The room became tomb-silent. The air began to chill. And then, the dead spoke.

Note to you skeptics out there: Please suspend your disbelief.)

Ropes, locks, webs of chains, straitjackets: Harry Houdini defied just about every worldly restraint he could while in the air, underwater, upside-down, crammed into milk cans, or tied to pillars.

And, as evidenced by a ritual seance held every Halloween night for more than three-quarters of a century, some believe the escape artist has the ability to spurn his otherworldly confines as well.

Since he died at 52 on Oct. 31, 1926, Houdini’s family, friends, and fans have ceaselessly tried to rouse the legendary showman and magician from the dead. This Halloween, the 85th year, they once again attempted the feat at the Wistariahurst Museum, welcoming, among other guests, the mute magician Teller, and local female escape artist Alexanderia the Great.

“We all want to think anything is possible,’’ said Roger Dreyer, a New York City-based magician who was part of this year’s paranormal tradition on the cold, crescent-mooned Halloween night.

Every year, they gather for the invitation-only, private event - magicians, historians, enthusiasts, and the curious. Officiated by members of what is known as “the inner circle,’’ the Official Houdini Seance (they’re so serious about it they’ve trademarked it) - carries on a tradition begun by Houdini’s widow, Bess. Over the years, it’s been held in cities large and small - Salem, Hollywood, New York, Las Vegas, Toronto, London - each with some sort of connection to Houdini.

Holyoke was the setting for the supernatural ceremony this year in honor of Sidney Radner, who lived in town and earned the nickname “Mr. Houdini’’ thanks to his lifelong dedication to the mystifier. (Houdini actually performed in Holyoke in the 1890s, before he became the man of legend.) A mentor of Houdini’s brother Hardeen - also a sleight-of-hand showman - Radner died in June at 91.

“Houdini brought us all together; that’s part of his magic,’’ said Fred Pittella, a Houdini historian from New York City.

As for encounters with the maestro of metamorphosis? Some who’ve been attending the seances for years described unexplained drafts and shoulders being brushed.

Filmmaker Gene Gamache, who came to Holyoke from Burbank, Calif., recalled how one year his watch stopped.

“It was an antique watch,’’ he said, with a laugh.

Gamache has been to more than a dozen seances, and is so dedicated to Houdini that he directed a mid-1990s documentary in his name.

Dreyer, meanwhile, described hearing “unusual sounds, unusual currents.’’ Still, the co-owner of Fantasma Magic toy shop in New York said with a shrug: “It could be coincidence. Who knows? No one can ever say.’’

And no one’s going to stop trying.

“I’m always going to keep an open mind,’’ said Pittella, who’s been coming to the seances for 15 years and collects handcuffs and memorabilia from both Houdini and his competitors and imitators. “We’re just waiting for it to happen.’’

And this year, something may have - if you believe in this sort of thing.

Late Monday night, after a dangerous underwater cell escape by Alexanderia the Great - an homage that took about 30 seconds - the 12 members of the inner circle gathered at a round table in a marble-columned, Italian Renaissance-style room.

The lights were dimmed. Set in front of the participants were candles, two sets of Houdini’s handcuffs, a bust, and a miniature model of his water torture cell. Silent spectators sat all around.

Medium Kandisa Calhoun led the flirtation with the unknown. Between deep breaths, she asked that the circle members join hands and that the onlookers close their eyes and think “complete, pure thoughts.’’

“I’m calling you Ehrich Weiss [Houdini’s real name],’’ she intoned in the silent room, quietly and tentatively at first, then louder and fiercer. “In the name of everything pure and real, in the name of the angels, I call you.’’

After a few seconds of heavy breathing, opening and closing her eyes, and subtle head movements, Calhoun looked around, seemingly bewildered, allegedly channeling Houdini himself. She went around the table, asking everyone to say a few words about what they wanted with Houdini and why they were there.

“I know some of your souls,’’ she said. “I don’t know you by your faces.’’

Later, when the lights were undimmed and the lines between the dead and the living were no longer blurred, some spectators mused about a subtle flickering of lights during the ceremony, and a spooky feedback noise from hearing aids.

“He wanted to believe,’’ Dreyer said of Houdini. “We all want to believe.’’

For more on the seance and Houdini, visit www.theofficialhoudiniseance.com.

Original story link.