About 40 years ago I participated in a charrette that was sponsored by the Marin Arts Council and
I am a retired commercial artist and former blue-water sailor.
facilitated by Ervin Harlacher, Chancellor of the Marin Community College District in Marin County, California. I like to
tell friends that it was the most fun I ever had sitting down in a room full of yelling people I never saw before, but we were all
very sober and it was a very upbeat and positive experience, and I recall making some new business prospects and a couple of new
friends. I suspect that most of the questions were inspired by a grant application. Based on the outcome of this exhausting,
intense but invigorating two-day event, the Marin Arts Council were able to put together a profile, a mission statement and
specific goals and plans for implementing them; and they produced some publications to reinforce and publicize the effort as
well. I recently checked out their website and it appears that they are now a truly world-class operation as Marin Arts.
This website describes a general use of the charrette process. I invite everyone reading it to contribute whatever you feel is missing
because I can see several adaptations of this process for personal, community and global issues. And I think that especially
rewarding would be the opportunity to explore with careful and sensitive consideration, the history, circumstances and character of
our humanity that brings us to this point in our lives, so that in this day of artificial intelligence and nano-technology we can
This website is dedicated to all young people who are currently coming of age.
Ann Read
ask ourselves: "What does it mean to be human?"
Julie Motz
Julie Motz is an internationally known healer and author. She initiated the practice of doing energy
healing in the operating room while patients are undergoing surgery. Her book about this,
Hands Of Life, has been published in five languages. She has taught workshops at Kripalu, the Omega Institute
and Esalen and lectured at Dartmouth, Columbia and Stanford medical schools. She also
writes poetry and the occasional rap song and hosts a radio program covering science and technology and
entertainment in the arts on KWMR, a community public broadcasting station. She has an ongoing interest in the
personal behind the political and how family dynamics play out on a national and international scale.