We created a global event out of nothing in the middle of nowhere.

This photographer unfortunately unknown.

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It goes without saying that if you have unlimited access to capital, you can make almost anything happen. But when you have no access to capital and rely on ingenuity and creativity to manifest a project, what you make happen is creative and ingenious, and consequently very, very compelling.

Burning Man was a perfect example of this. When my Cacophony friends and I brought the wooden sculpture to the Black Rock Desert in 1990, everyone put in $35 to cover the cost of renting a port-a-potty and a Ryder truck. Some of the Cacophonists maxed out credit cards for materials. I, as a writer, didn’t even have an extra $35, but I had the enormous, 4800 square foot, 2-story. semi- dilapidated mansion flat in the inner city that I filled with artist roommates, where we all met every night to plan the desert event—and I offered to cook for the crew that would be doing the hard labor on the playa.

I wrote one article about the event that was published in a national magazine—and it even paid—but we did no advertising at all. Word of mouth doubled the attendance every year, because we all couldn’t stop talking about it, until there were 70,000 people heading for the largest empty space in North America every Labor Day, and fans in 100 countries around the world created annual versions of it, that mirrored their own cultures.

In less than a decade, Silicon Valley was a ghost town during Burning Man, because they were all on the playa, in their cloistered compounds of luxury RVs, chefs, wait staffs, and party girls. It was the most obvious illustration of the fact that when people have all the ˚money in the world, they want to be where the artists are, and make that place their own. Parties at First Camp, where the organizers were, became Silicon Valley parties. The same thing happened in the city; all the cheap neighborhoods once occupied by communities of people in the arts were gentrified and the artists priced out.

Building Burning Man was an epic example of the art of play. How do we make something fabulous happen with no money? I was able to do it again in the late ’90s, in my still inner city neighborhood, when I opened the restaurant, Caffè Proust, with what was considered “no money” in the business world. But I had artist friends. A party of creatives decoupaged the table tops with themes from Proust and quotes related to each theme. There were the glorious colors of the interior, the rust walls reminiscent of Italy, the olive and gold window frames and columns, and the deep blue of the tall ceiling, like dining under the night sky. We bought old lamps in second hand stores and adorned them with a friend’s hand made faux Victorian shades. There was a zine in the menu. Lots of classical music raised the general vibe, and we hired people because they were genuinely charming. We were written about on four continents.

At the 3-year mark, I applied for an SBA loan. The SBA director asked me how much we spent to open, and how much I wanted to borrow. I said we’d need $100K, and we’d opened for $60K. Her jaw hit the desk. “I am not loaning you $100K,” she said. “I’m loaning you twice that.” Unfortunately, a few days after that interview, 9/11 happened, and we got nothing. There was virtually no business for months and hundreds of restaurants closed. But the invaluable lesson we learned was that the art of play, using imagination and creative energy to make something happen, is as applicable in the business world as it is in art.

The same things that built Caffè Proust and Burning Man—conceiving of something new and imagining how to do it—were the same as in the idealistic beginnings of the tech industry. Perhaps that’s why Silicon Valley, unconsciously, was drawn to the Black Rock Desert. Or perhaps it was just because so many people made phenomenal art there.

I’m currently applying the art of play to manifesting housing for artists, since that huge community that once lived here and made the city so fascinating is almost completely gone. This goal is harder than the ones that came before because San Francisco is now unspeakably expensive and affording it takes more effort. But we can play with tax advantages, and revitalizing depressed commercial corridors, to make housing artists a much more useful option now, as we watch standard business practices fail to undo the economic downturn. It is adult play, and more compelling, because it isn’t just for fun; it’s absolutely for the common good.

#play #imagination #ingenuity #art #business #tech