AS220 IMPACT: Brian Jepson

Brian Jepson
Publishing Director, Raspberry Pi
Former AS220 Board Member, longtime participant and community member

I first heard of AS220 when I was hanging out with a group of friends in the parking lot of Lupo's in the mid-1980s. One of my friends told me about this place with chalk writing on the door that read something like "Downtown Beatnik League." I wandered over there one day and found a bunch of people, including Bert Crenca and Susan Clausen, just hanging out. Before too long, I was showing up there quite a bit, enjoying performances, art, and people, and eventually started performing weird stuff on stage myself.

I showed up at AS220 during a time in my life when I badly lacked direction and purpose. AS220 and its community excited something in me. The biggest thing I got out of my involvement was a sense of agency. I began to create things that took a level of self-awareness that I hadn't possessed prior to being part of the AS220 world.