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Here we are on Lake Michigan, in the woods.

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All these acres of gorgeous property, nature.

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It's an ideal location for artists to find inspiration.

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We've got this beautiful place, and it's conducive to creativity.

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It elicits inspiration.

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It's called Bjork London, also known as the Door County Campus of Appleton's Lawrence University.

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It's usually a sedate retreat center hosting weekend seminars.

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But for one week each year, it's home to an energetic celebration of the arts,

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ironically named Decaf.

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Decaf, what we call it, is the Door Kinetic Arts Festival.

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Kinetic means movement, and Decaf is non-stop.

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For those of us who are in the field of art that is kinetic in some way,

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it's just an extremely inspiring and enriching time.

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It's not just an arts festival, it's a kinetic arts festival.

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What's that mean?

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Kinetic art is moving in space, but mostly it's moving here.

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It's moving intellectually, it's moving emotionally,

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and it's moving because it's in process.

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At Decaf, the process becomes the product,

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as audiences show up to view works in progress.

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We have big dreams.

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We're in the act of creating something new.

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A big part of the process is bringing artists together to learn from each other.

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We try to bring in artists from lots of different disciplines

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so that they can bounce off of each other

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while they're all in the midst of their creative process.

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Petri dish of collaboration, it's just a wonderful opportunity

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where all these different things are being thrown in and germinating

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and making things together, so I love it.

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It's a vision born from festival founder, Eric Simonson's own artistic journey.

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Jumping from one medium to another, it elicits inspiration.

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As an Oscar-winning documentarian,

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Emmy nominee, Broadway playwright,

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actor, theater, and opera director,

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Eric has had a remarkably successful and varied career.

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Eric has done so many things.

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He's just had a marvelous career.

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Decaf is his legacy.

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Eric turned to his brother-in-law, UW Green Bay theater professor Alan Kapishke

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to help make the Door County Festival a reality.

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They have strong family connections to the peninsula.

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It's a beautiful play store county.

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It's got everything.

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We would come up here from the time I can remember.

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So when I got older, that tradition continued

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and I became a writer and a director

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and I found it very conducive to creation.

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And I create a kind of sonic experience

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that is specific to those of us here in Newark.

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I've always wanted the festival to be attractive to just anybody who wanted to come.

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Anybody who's interested in being moved,

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if that is their passion, we are the answer to their question.

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So there's a certain spirit.

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It's a spirit Eric hopes will propel Decaf into the future.

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We have grand visions.

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I think it's important that our serves a purpose and that purpose is

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to find what is common in all of us.

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If we sit in an audience and look at one another and recognize that,

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that's what our aim is here.

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Thank you.