In 1881, Paul Gauguin wrote to Camille Pissarro, “There is a theory I have heard you profess, that to paint it is absolutely necessary to live in Paris, so as to keep up with the ideas.” The artist who ultimately paints his greatest work on an island in the South Pacific, pondering if he needs to be among art masters to become one himself, is beyond ironic. Historically, however, primary markets — both economic and intellectual — were highly centralized. Propinquity allowed critics to argue, enabled artists to see the work of contemporaries, and turned collectors into patrons. Ideas were produced in places like New York or Paris and diffused outward. Is this still true today? Can an artistic community feel isolated in a virtually connected world? Certainly, even a city dweller hiding behind a smart phone can feel as isolated as an artist in the Roaring Fork Valley. It boils down to the phenomenological claim that one does not really exist unless acknowledged by an outside source. In a 2011 New York Times article about the California arts festival, Pacific Standard Time, an art critic and university professor called the festival “corny” in its title, scale, and extended time line, ending with, “it’s the sort of thing that Denver would do.” The general exclusion of the Rocky Mountain region from the national art market discussion does affect more than the psyche of artists in Denver.

Denver may not be as isolated as Tahiti, but the city’s creative contributors are marginalized when one considers who actively participates in the international art world. In Sarah Thornton’s book Seven Days in the Art World, she notes that the art world is not just a place where people work but reside full time, “a ‘symbolic economy’ where people swap thoughts and where cultural worth is debated rather than determined by brute wealth.” As Thornton highlights, “great works do not just arise; they are made.” How an artist moves from a small Denver art gallery to a museum wall is not simple or a matter of luck. That promotion requires the support of dealers, critics, curators, and collectors.

So when only a few Denver art galleries participate in one or two mid-size international art fairs, that is a concern. When many of the top art collectors in America have homes in Aspen, and the world-renowned Aspen Art Museum never shows a Colorado artist, we have a problem. When editors based in New York City, like those at ARTnews, voice concerns on professional panels about disappearing local reporters and papers from periphery art cities, killing the informational pipeline, we should pay attention, because these are the reasons our artists worry. Artists see the growth of Denver and maneuver through the consequences of urban development, but the benefits to our creative community are lagging.

According to economists Uri Gneezy and John List, people support the arts and give to charities for three reasons: the warm-glow of helping others, self-interest (tax benefits or investment), and a motive called follow-the-leader. An example of follow-the-leader is when a potential donor is incentivized to donate due to a charity starting a fundraising campaign with a high seed level. This seed money motivates the next donor for many reasons: presumably the initial donor did the research into the legitimacy of the charity; a donation places the individual in a desirable social circle; and the presence of the seed money appeals to donors who are risk-averse. Despite the recent population growth that places Colorado as one of the top seven fastest growing states and despite the increased wealth that accompanies such growth (have you seen home prices?), artists continue to complain about the lack of funding through typical avenues such as government grants, private foundations, and corporate sponsors. According to the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts, artists are right. Nearly one-fifth of new money coming into the state’s cultural sector last year was in the form of federal grants. Philanthropic giving to the arts increased in 2016, but only enough to put us on pace with national trends. That means in Colorado there is no follow-the-leader impact…yet. How does the cultural sector reach new audiences in a measurable way to grow the purse?

One solution proposed at the Tilt West roundtable on Regional History and Potential was a renewed focus on the work. As the theory goes, when the art has substance and is worth protecting, the money will show up. Tell that to van Gogh. It is a shared principle in the art world that nothing is more important than the art. As author Sarah Thornton points out “some people believe this; others know it’s de rigueur.” What I hear — and agree with — is that we should embrace solutions like developing Aurora as a potential art center and relax the grip on a neighborhood like RiNo that is pricing everyone out. We should also acknowledge that discourse does not occur when we use assumptions as evidence, and better discourse is the necessary foundation for Denver to be a formidable art force. Raise your hand if you want to read on Saturday instead of ski. That is what must happen if Denver wants to take the stage as one of the next great American art cities.

The 2013 book, Art Cities of the Future: 21st-Century Avant-Gardes proposes a broadening definition of an art capital with cities like Bogotá, Johannesburg, and Vancouver demonstrating successful and unconventional infrastructures. The text highlights the tremendous potential for a place like Denver while bypassing the problematic discussion of whether our city will be the next great version of a city that already exists. For example, Redline and Lighthouse Writers Workshop provide professional development and public service that many American cities find enviable. The money raised through the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District tax is one major reason Denver’s creative community quickly recovered after the great recession and continues to add jobs to our cultural institutions. Gallery directors testify that museum curators from the state regularly walk into local galleries to see Colorado artists. Curator Jose Roca in Art Cities of the Future notes that the emerging art capitals had “no outside intervention,” and the local scenes thrived without the pressures of the art market, not in spite of its absence. It is a powerfully persuasive argument that Denver does not have to follow existing urban blueprints; it may still carve an unexpected, yet smart and satisfying route.

In its third roundtable discussion, Tilt West took on a topic that has captivated the world since humans invented mechanical objects — technology and the body. One doesn’t have to look very far to find evidence of this fascination: a quick Google search turns up 410,000,000 results including TED talks, magazine and newspaper articles, academic papers, blogs, textbooks, pop culture icons, and the list goes on.

When discussing technology and the body, one of the first things that comes to mind is the cyborg. The cyborg, a souped-up fictional human with mechanical parts, came on the scene in the mid-nineteenth century (in a short story by Edgar Allan Poe) and has shown considerable staying power since. Cyborgs appear again and again in art, books, television, plays and movies, yet one more indication of the human fascination with technology and the body. But the cyborg has given us more than proof that people are keenly interested in technology and the body; the cyborg has allowed us to think about what it means to be human. Add to that the unendingly complicated question, “Should we enhance humans with technology?” and you have a ready-made debate on your hands. Interestingly, the creators of cyborgs have given them to us many times with a built-in value judgment. In other words, many cyborgs are cast as the bad guy thereby suggesting that mixing humans and machines is dangerous — cyborg villain Darth Vader comes to mind. But is using technology to improve upon nature really such a bad idea?

If the thought of a being who is half-human and half-machine seems disturbing, consider The Six Million Dollar Man, whose cyborg protagonist is a hunky crime-fighting hero. Colonel Steve Austin, a NASA astronaut who was badly injured in an accident and rebuilt by the government with bionic parts, captured the hearts and imagination of TV-viewers across the U.S. in the 1970s, in part, because of his mechanical enhancements. In the 1970s, that premise seemed farfetched. Today the idea of a cyborg doesn’t seem impossible and bionic body parts already exist. In 2013, the U.S. approved Argus II the first bionic eye implant (coincidentally one of Colonel Austin’s bionic parts was his left eye). And Johns Hopkins University has developed a modular prosthetic limb which is the most lifelike arm prosthesis yet.

“When I think of technology and the body, I think of that in multiple instances — my physical body, my mental body and also (kind of) this dissipated online existence.”

A discussion of technology and the body, though, extends far beyond talking about cyborgs and prosthetics. With advances in technology, one can argue that technology and the body have become inextricably intertwined (at least in first world countries) and the distinction between corporeal and mechanical blurs and bends with even the smallest surface scratch. So while cyborgs in the strictest sense are still fictional, human beings’ heavy reliance on technology today could be perceived as a mutated offspring or cousin of the cyborg. Kelly Sears, an experimental animator and University of Colorado professor who prompted Tilt West’s roundtable discussion, described this nuanced blurring of lines between the body and technology in several ways. As she introduced the topic, Ms. Sears told the group, “When I think of technology and the body, I think of that in multiple instances — my physical body, my mental body and also (kind of) this dissipated online existence.” She added, “I’m very interested in how the use of multiple selves overlap and are present and active at the same time.” This juggling of multiple selves is not an entirely modern phenomenon, but modernity and technology raise a multitude of new questions worthy of serious discussion.

During a recent episode of the NPR show “Fresh Air,” author and New York University professor Adam Atler described a survey of young adults in which 46% said that they would rather break a bone than lose their phone. It’s a startling statistic and one that reflects on the very nature of how blurred the line between technology and the body has become, and how attached we as humans have become to our various technology personas. Would a week without Instagram really be as bad as breaking a bone? Are we so attached to our online selves that we would suffer physical pain for them?

In the interview, Mr. Atler shared his ardent interest in the survey participants’ struggle with a seemingly straightforward question. Their responses weren’t always cut and dry — it was a very difficult decision for many. Some of those who ultimately chose a broken bone rather than losing their phone reasoned that at least they would have their phone during recovery. Based on their explanation, it’s easy to believe that these individuals view their phone as a part of their body. In fact, they consider their phone an important part of their body, more important it seems than some of their bones. What are we to make of that?

To give you an idea of how rapidly technology and our use of online personas have become ingrained in the daily habits of individuals, let’s look at some statistics. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2005 only 5% of adults in the U.S. used social media but by 2011 that number was 50%; today it is 69%. And those numbers don’t take into account American youth who have grown up spending more time with technology than in many cases the outdoors. In 2015, the Pew Research Center also reported that 24% of teens admitted to being online “almost constantly” and 92% of teens were online daily. While there are undoubtedly positives and negatives to so much screen time, one thing seems constant — our uncertainty as to whether such heavy reliance upon technology is good for us.

Reflecting upon this uncertainty, a roundtable participant and self-professed technology junkie confessed that his bias had always been in favor of the advantages technology brings. However, after reading several articles to prepare for the discussion, his vantage point had shifted. He wondered as many others did if so much technology was a good or bad thing. This brought up the question: Why do we feel compelled to place a positive or negative value on how technology impacts us?

During the hour and a half round table, participants shared countless concerns and interests in issues beyond online personas. As the discussion around the implications of an increasingly intricate relationship between technology and the body progressed, participants talked about racially segregated marketing, relationships between humans and robots, technology as language, boredom and its opposite busyness, technology-induced anxiety, technology-led meditation, e-waste, and the very definition of body and technology. As well, these topics were examined from different points of view — parent, citizen, teacher, student, significant other, professional, etc. In her prompt, Ms. Sears explained that a large part of her job as a professor is working with students to “interrogate the bodies of representations built into their work deconstructing normative impulses and biases with regard to representations of race, gender, religion and other identities.” And so, this too was reflected in the discussion in many ways such as the notion of a robot as a form of gender identity. One participant had recently polled her students and discovered that the majority approved of a relationship between a human and a robot. From their perspective, one could deconstruct conventional notions of gender and view a robot as a form of gender expression.

Turning the topics over and over while carefully considering the relationship between technology and the body, the group ultimately achieved Ms. Sears’s goal of producing “less utopic/dystopic binaries” and instead offered “navigational guides and strategic detours.” Through thoughtful discussion, participants were pushed to think more deeply and reserve judgment instead seeking information and understanding. Clearly, as Ms. Sears suggested, technology and the body “exists in smaller brush strokes.” Cyborgs, online personas, and the many other ways that technology and the body are interlaced aren’t good or bad; they are as complicated and diverse and humans.

“If you aren’t getting rejected on a daily basis, then your goals aren’t ambitious enough.” —Chris Dixon, Internet Entrepreneur

A couple of years ago, a journalist friend of mine and I started joking on Twitter about which of us receives more rejections — I’m a poet, and felt confident that my writing was rejected more frequently than his. The joke between us eventually turned into “The Jerklife Rejects Club,” which is a small group of writer friends who share our rejection stories and stats, but also includes an element of competition — the writer with the most rejections at the end of the year “wins.” This story was the first thing that came to mind when I received an invitation to participate in Tilt West’s roundtable conversation on Rejection and Denial.

I started submitting my poetry for publication when I was in high school, which was always summarily rejected. One day, a form rejection letter I received included a handwritten note from the editor with her words of encouragement noting the lines that she enjoyed and the double-underlined phrase: Keep Writing!!! I was thrilled to receive this letter; I brought it with me to school the next day to show my Creative Writing teacher, Mrs. Onesty, and we both celebrated my progress. While it was still a rejection, it was accompanied by the hope of future acceptance.

“If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.” —Audre Lorde, Author

Because I am biracial black and from Park Hill in Denver, rejection was a common part of my social existence as a child. While Park Hill was a diverse neighborhood, both racially and socioeconomically, most people fell squarely on one side of the line or another. My classmates and their families were not often prepared for a face or hair like mine, so obviously and decidedly both or neither or in-between. Their confusion about my lack of respect for the boundaries they believed in generally led to curt denial and rejection. Biraciality is a peculiar thing; I often joke that mixed people are the only ones who get to experience racism at their own family reunions. We learn the intricacies of acceptance and rejection from birth, our existence challenging people’s attachments to boxes and lines.

I learned early in life that I had the power to accept people, carefully cultivating a circle of extraordinary friends. By middle school, I decided that my self-acceptance was more important to me than the acceptance of my peers. By the time I reached my teen years, I was hardly able to give weight to anyone else’s denial or rejection. I also learned that I had the same capacity to reject people as anyone else, and became an expert in rejecting ideologies, expectations, and advances that I found oppressive or offensive, or that otherwise didn’t meet my needs.

“I am good at walking away. Rejection teaches you how to reject.” —Jeanette Winterson, Author

Since then, I have often employed these skills of acceptance and rejection as an editor, as a curator, and as a creative. I have rejected brilliant work that I absolutely LOVED when it wasn’t the best fit for a project. Similarly, I have accepted work that I personally disliked when it served the needs of a project. These experiences remind me that rejection doesn’t necessarily mean that my work does not have merit.
I am grateful that my life’s journey has allowed me to see from so many different perspectives, and has anchored me so deeply in my own. As a creative, my experience with rejection allows me to make whatever I need to, irrespective of other people’s boundaries. My voice is always the loudest one in my head, which allows me to create and share my work boldly, even when rejected by some.

“I really wish I was less of a thinking man and more of a fool not afraid of rejection.” —Billy Joel

During the conversation at Tilt West, our prompter and my friend Bobby LeFebre, in discussing the historical weight of rejection, said, “If you were ostracized, if you were castigated or denied or rejected, it usually was a death sentence, you know? We relied on one another to get through things. . . That emotional connection still lives in our bones, it’s still a part of who we are and we can’t really escape that.”

While many aspects of human life have evolved over the millennia, and we are now able to survive with almost no direct interaction with others, our tribal history is still a part of our innate nature. In this age of social media, we are more connected and disconnected than ever before, depending on your perspective, and the rate of rejection and denial we engage in and are subjected to is constantly expanding. We accept or deny friend requests; like, share, follow and unfollow; and find ourselves exposed to the acceptance or rejection of our networks every time we go online.
Coming together to share our thoughts about rejection and denial revealed a broad range of perspectives in our conversation. For some, a tender vulnerability came through, while others displayed a more callused indifference. While rejection was a common experience among all of the participants, it is not often a subject that we discuss because it is associated with so much fear and shame. Ultimately, I think we all agreed that rejection and denial are, like many things in life, best consumed in good company.

In her book, Terra Infirma (2000), Irit Rogoff argues that geography and location are a “source of authority in the fundamental questions of inclusion and exclusion and play a crucial role in the determination of identity and belonging.” Well into our second decade of the 21st century (specifically in a post-Trump world) the concept of regionalism feels both anachronistic and timely. In order to consider matters currently relevant to regionalism and identity, we must also acknowledge the complex and shifting practices of inclusivity, exclusivity, elitism, provincialism, and adaptability. Is geocentricity inherently problematic if humans are nomadic by nature?

Our identities and sense of belonging are tied to things as small as neighborhoods and schools, and as large as states (most recently seen through defining ourselves as either a red or blue state), countries, religions and gender. How are our identities tethered to and around the specific places we choose to occupy or not occupy? How do we define ourselves within those boundaries and constraints, both artificial and real? And are such broad ways of defining ourselves dangerous, beneficial, or both?

From my perspective, some of these changes were for the good of the entire creative community, while some of the changes created barriers and expectations, which stifled the energy that made Los Angeles so magical before this increased visibility.

In the contemporary art world geographical inclusion and exclusion are deeply rooted in, and connected to, notions of success and access to power; inclusivity and exclusivity are valuable currency. This is most evident in the current art world “centers” — Los Angeles and New York—as evidenced through access to collectors (money) and institutions (visibility). I lived in Los Angeles between 2004 and 2014 and worked in galleries at a time when significant shifts were happening and the city was being defined as a critical region for making art, marketing art, and producing exhibitions. Of course, this had been true for many decades, but perhaps most notable was the shift seen during and after the 2011 Getty initiative Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980. This initiative gave 11 million dollars to more than 60 institutions for exhibitions dedicated to examining the birth of the Los Angeles art scene. During this critical time for the city, I witnessed firsthand how both subtle and not-so-subtle boundaries were redrawn by insiders and outsiders as it became a place where what constituted belonging and community shifted quite dramatically. From my perspective, some of these changes were for the good of the entire creative community, while some of the changes created barriers and expectations, which stifled the energy that made Los Angeles so magical before this increased visibility.

When I relocated to Denver in 2014, I quickly became aware of similar growth and rapid change happening in the city due to the massive influx of people, like myself, moving here from other progressive American cities. The shifts here in Denver are not necessarily specific to its art world. But there are significant issues of belonging and authority of ownership over a place, which are palpable and highly specific to this region. One example of this which bewildered me was a curious symbol that some locals use to illustrate how deep their roots run here (specifically if one is born in Colorado) — the “NATIVE” emblem — a bumper sticker, illustrated in white text and all caps, in a classic green-and-white Colorado mountainscape license plate design.

The symbol became ubiquitous in the 1980s, another time when Colorado’s population soared due to an influx of immigrants from other countries and other states, specifically, California. Now the sticker has been resold for a new generation of Coloradans who feel the need to express their ownership and birthright over this region as the population and the demographics change so dramatically. Aside from the problem that “native” is a loaded word that in this context literally should only belong to the indigenous American Indians of the area, this sense of ownership via birthright intrigues me as a very antiquated and nostalgic idea of entitlement over a region—a sense of ownership and belonging longer, deeper, more authentically. This antagonistic pride is seen in many other areas of the United States and can be a powerful tool to express identity politics, for example: “locals only” culture found in certain surf regions, sports teams (and the pride of curses experienced through generations of fans), accents, particular food, enduring unbearable weather, and pride in particular landscapes. However, there is a deep sense of bloodlines here in Colorado that I find unique and its expression through the “native” title is one that we should continue to interrogate in how it may illustrate meaningful pride of place as well as its problematic sense of entitlement.

We have singular and shared pursuits of pride and humility with common purpose that can propel us forward within locations both chosen and not chosen.

We all belong and don’t belong depending on where we stand within a locale and how we interpret that place in relationship to our own bodies and minds. In our current global world, information about how identities are formed and expressed are specific to relation, to place, and to geography. Our conversations around region and identity can only take place in relationship to ‘other’ regions or identities. We have singular and shared pursuits of pride and humility with common purpose that can propel us forward within locations both chosen and not chosen. These shared identities can be a powerful tool during dangerous and uncertain times. How we use such tools must be carefully considered and perhaps, if we can harness our collective sense of pride within each of our places in the world, we can continue to create thriving communities with respect for alternative realities and identities no matter where we find ourselves.