FOUNDER’S REFLECTIONS 2010

Endearing to Little Bloomsbury, Endearing to the Vision of Uncertainty

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LOGAN, UT – The American people I remember from college 30 years

ago in Hawaii and later in Utah and New York was one marked by self-
assurance. The people I encounter today in America, though as eager as
before to help others succeed and more so than any people I know,
seem to have varied greatly in their ability to deal with uncertainty.
Uncertainty is a strange thing. The more you draw unto it, the more
confidence and hope you gain. It is the case with the entrepreneur. It
had been the case with America as an entrepreneurial nation.

Little Bloomsbury Annual Celebration of Art, Literature, and Music,

which started as a housewarming party in a turn-of-the-century home
below the Logan Temple, gives fellow citizens a reason to step into the
unknown and feel good about themselves for doing so. The unknown
spoken of here is not darkness but light, (not criticism but appreciation),
for light could be just as frightening as darkness if we are not used to it.

In the last four years, Little Bloomsbury has shown work of many a well-
known artist. Alongside such work was that of those who excel not in
repute per se but in manner of expression, and in conceptualization and
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! spirit. The Chinese sum it up as yi jing (!") – the realm art worthily
!!!Stain glass by Grant L. Lund, a thematic icon ! takes you, the senses it nobly awakens in you, and the act on which it
of the 2011 Little Bloomsbury poster contest
and art show on Visions that Help Us Thrive valiantly inspires you. Are these not the qualities of a true friend also?

Indeed, getting to know a piece of art is like getting to know a friend. If we are not careful or too quick in
judging we could be passing up in a hurry on what has the potential to enlighten simply because it does
not fit our stereotypes of “cool” and “great”. At Little Bloomsbury we try to create an environment for
viewers to take their blinders off and their earplugs out. By having the featured artists act as docents, what
visitors get often turns out to be more than what they see at first glance.

Artworks, like people, often come alive and begin to fascinate and empower when we spend time to get to
know them. This is the reason we make it a requirement for schools, churches, and citizen groups that take
on the team-based Annual Little Bloomsbury Poster Contest as a developmental project to team up with
“non-buddies”. For the upcoming poster contest on Visions That Help Us Thrive in Provident Living, a
prelude to the April 22 – 24, 2011 Little Bloomsbury Festival, we also require that the team go beyond
virtual reality to connect in person with a role model previously unknown to all team members. The poster
design team’s mission is to learn, firsthand, of the life story of their chosen role model and to recreate his
or her vision so as to inspire positive action and resolve in provident living through the power of their art.

That is a lot of uncertainty to deal with in one project, one may say. But hopefully a lot of preparation to
get done too by the participants in gearing up for the challenges of a competitive workplace. Through the
project’s required hands-on experience and survival training in networking, storytelling, and co-creation,
we hope the chosen generation will become more prepared to lead and guide through times of uncertainty.

Since the birth of ancient civilizations including Babylon, China, Egypt, Greece, and India, art, literature,
and music have continued to be instrumental in furthering the visions of reformists. At Little Bloomsbury
Foundation we strive to be productive reformists by promoting peace and hope in an uncertain world via
mass media, arts and culture education. In addition to the annual poster contest and art show, our work
includes corporate outreach in strategy consulting, a radio program on diversity and global citizenship to
be launched by Fall 2010, and the completion of feasibility studies by Fall 2011 of a weekly entertainment,
arts, and current affairs magazine for sale exclusively by the homeless and/or mentally challenged. Little
Bloomsbury was named after Bloomsbury of London, a stone’s throw from London School of Economics
(LSE), my alma mater, and notable for the Bloomsbury Group with writers Leonard and Virginia Woolf,
painters Roger Fry and Duncan Grant, psychologist Adrian Stephen, and economist John Maynard Keynes.

DR. B. C. SUN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LITTLE BLOOMSBURY FOUNDATION, 181 N 200 E LOGAN, UT 84321
TEL: (435) 787 1303 EMAIL: brendacsun@gmail.com URL: http://littlebloomsbury.blogspot.com
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