When I was invited to speak at TEDxJohannesburg, I was initially flummoxed. The overall theme of the day is “Sages and Prodigies” and my particular section addresses “Genes and memes”. I had no idea where to begin.
Then, one day, I was inspired by Twitter to paint this:
I posted a link to Twitter. “What about the chicken?” somebody asked.
And there it was: the idea. I own a large wooden chicken, you see, one given to me by my then husband for my 33rd birthday, and since then it has become something of a totem. I use it in the profile picture of my Thought Leader blog:
and it will feature in the talk itself.
Chickens and eggs, genes and memes: my story is one of the power of creativity and chance, and how, even if we do not pass our genes on to others, we can still spread our ideas. I’ll be posting some sneak previews of the slides from my talk as the 15th approaches.
The paintings vary in style and size, but all of them will be for sale, and 50% of the proceeds will go to Lawyers Against Abuse and Home of Hope.