Beautiful Beginnings

A lot goes into starting up a foundation. This is a fact I was aware of when we started this adventure about three months ago, but little did I know just how much work it would be.

"What if there were a way to let Park Avenue grow?"

Those are more or less the words it all started with. Jo and I were having a meeting at the end of our production year and thus far I'd only really worked as a production assistant, taking some of the load off Jo's shoulders.

All was going well, the group was content and yet both of us longed for something more. I suppose we both sensed the potential in our lovely little organization. Inspired by the actor's enthusiasm, we started brainstorming on how to make Park Avenue Theater grow, how to share our love for theater and each other with more people. And thus the idea to make PAT into a foundation, a proper organization was born.

The idea lingered for quite some time due to various factors outside of our grasp. The turning point to action came when I took a course in Management of Creative Organisations, taught by the wonderful Francesco Chiaravalloti, in which we were to make a business plan for an organization of our own choice. Our group chose Park Avenue Theater and after 8 weeks of analyzing, I had a concrete plan, divided into sections in which we would have to take action to grow. More important, perhaps was the enthusiasm of our teacher that convinced me we could do this.

And so, some weeks later, Jo and I sat for hours in her cozy attic workspace as we began fleshing out our dreams.

This is when everything fell into place and what had been a vague idea, a lucid dream for the future became reality.

I vividly remember leaving that meeting with so much energy and creative motivation. My heart and brain were filled to capacity and everything just felt right.

And so I began the daunting task of contracting a website, something I'd never done before. Honestly, I underestimated the workload that would come with it a little and I went through every possible emotion with regards to the design, but god it was satisfying.

The work allowed me to take my mind of the weird (Corona) times that were transpiring and when I was working on it the whole world seemed to disappear. I probably tried every single color on the wheel, went through millions of different fonts and layouts and every time I crossed something off my to-do list, three new things seemed to appear.

But in the end, it was worth it, because trust me on this, there is nothing more satisfying than to scroll through something you've worked so hard on and to feel proud and satisfied. Not because it is perfect, for in this process I learned that there is no such thing as a perfect website, things can always be tweaked and improved but at some point I was able to use that sense of perfectionism to make everything a good as it could possibly be, and make peace with the fact that I'll probably be fixing paragraphs, adding pictures, and improving layouts long after we've published it.

But for now, I'm happy and grateful for this adventure, because we are everything but done.

This is just the beautiful beginning and I can't wait to see how the rest of our story will unravel.

I will keep you posted.

Love,

Solange