The Gift of Unique Value
Submitted by peter holmes on Mon, 12/05/2005 - 08:42.
Gift giving is the most widespread manifestation of the holiday season. The eternal question: What to give Johnny or Jane? Mass merchandisers work hard at creating push for their products. Tie-ins between movies and products, co-branding sports figures and products are examples of the sometimes creative approaches used. What's too frequently missing from the mix are artisans' works sold through channels that don't promote themselves like mass merchandisers do.
The internet, though, enables artisans to overcome the disadvantages of being small, unique and personal. Celebrating what artists do is a great way of championing regions' creativity. And creativity is increasing an important part of what creates velcro for knowledge workers and prosperity.
So, this Christmas, buy what local artists make and sell through local merchants.
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Local buy local opportunities
This holiday season there are lots of local buy local opportunities - ranging from arts and crafts at Assemble Gallery at 1300 to tickets to performances of local arts organizations, like Elixir of Love at the opera. With so much to buy and do that supports the local economy, and local people, there's no excuse not to support what is unique in NEO.
Treat someone to the opera next weekend!
For those who want to support local performing arts organizations and give a memorable experience to their loved ones tickets to a performance make a great gift. There are still excellent tickets available for Donizetti's Elixir of Love next weekend. Cleveland Opera has so much to offer. The singers are world class, for most of the leads it is their debut with the company. The Cleveland Opera Orchestra is always impressive. The staging and choreography this year has just been outstanding. The sparce set works very well. The Cleveland Opera was to rent a set from the New Orleans Opera company -- the oldest opera company in America -- but after Katrina they decided to donate the rental fee and more and improvise. The Elixir of Love is a romantic comedy in the Belle Canto style -- lots of vocal flourishes. It has feminist appeal too; Adena, the soprano, is a beautiful, intelligent, business owner with two suitors. The ending is happy and perdictable: true love wins out.