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As I've often mentioned before, this blog is a sort of table of contents for my old Twitter threads. I include links to the threads, as well as quick descriptions of the threads.
From time to time, I like to do a quick blog post thinking over the time frame of the threads I've posted to this blog.
In March and April of 2016, I was involving myself a lot more in the arts scene in Denver, Colorado. I had initiated a few projects in the Denver arts community over the first couple months of the year, and I was interested to see what I might be able to do next.
By April of 2016, it had also been about a year since I had started doing a lot of volunteer work with an art gallery in Denver. The gallery gave me a point of reference within the community. And that made it easier for me to feel confident being a part of the community.
Unfortunately -- whether it was true or just my feelings, I was starting to feel a lot of pushback from Denver's art community regarding my participation. It felt to me like, starting within the gallery I was volunteering with, but also moving out to the rest of the community, people started to push against my becoming more of a part of the art community in Denver.
What hurt the most about this was that the folks I was helping in the gallery didn't really defend me from this. Instead, they seemed to justify what was happening to me by claiming that I really wasn't good enough to deserve to be a functioning and happy part of the community, anyway.
This was combined with my work situation, which wasn't very good, either. I had spent from 2012 to 2015 helping a company get sold. I got paid somewhat well for my work while I was at the company. But when the management teams switched, I didn't really get any benefit from the sale, and I was fired by the new management on December 1, 2015.
I immediately found a new job. But it ended up being a situation that slowly crashed and burned through the first half of 2016. I ended up getting some consultant work on the side. But it was a really stressful time in my work life. I felt like I'd been betrayed by a company I'd helped quite a bit. And I felt like I was being set up for a fall from the very beginning by the company I was working for now. And on top of that, I felt like, just as I seemed to have found a place in Denver's art community, I was being betrayed by that community, as well.
So it was a stressful time. And I think that begins to reflect itself in my Twitter postings. In particular, I moved away from Twitter and onto Instagram, because Instagram was easier to post on, and I just didn't have the emotional or mental energy for my more structured Twitter posts.
However, from March of 2016 forward, I started getting a lot more involved in some other work. I started doing a lot more political volunteer work -- phone banking, canvassing, attending meetings, etc. I also started volunteering my time, essentially as a board member, for a literature festival in Colorado. That was fun, and it all really helped me feel more involved in more of Colorado's community.
Anyway, thank you for checking out this blog. I hope you enjoy the posts.
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