Blue Boy
August 19th, 2025
Last year before opening the gallery, I assembled a “board”. Not quite a real board, because it’s mostly a bit between me and my three friends who are “board members”. (We are, of course, planning a corporate retreat.) While the gallery was still being built, we had our first (and only) board meeting, wherein I shared the above slide to illustrate how I saw blue boy’s programming functioning. What’s happening inside the gallery is the core, followed by what’s happening in the yard (openings, talks, movie nights), followed by what’s happening in Savannah (chatting with people in town, attending a crit club, going to dinner, etc), followed by how blue boy interacts with the larger world.
The last two rings have surprised me a lot. There are really many hands in the pot at blue boy, despite running the gallery “by myself”. It’s been very sweet to think of how the gallery can interact with others, sometimes in unexpected ways. After install, I take the artists out to dinner at @lateairwine - the owners have become friends of mine, and often donate really good wine for the openings. I’m also reminded of last fall, when @gallery_peace reached out to see our third show, they stopped by and have since helped me design some merch for blue boy (and given me a tattoo). Our merch is being screenprinted by @nathanielryanthompson, who is an artist in town, and has been so supportive of our program from the get-go. @ripeinkpress prints our posters, who is a peer of mine from UGA. Austin (who runs @living___skin in NY) stopped by the gallery last winter, and now we are working on a project together. On the morning after openings, the artists and I typically end up at @sixbysavannah for breakfast - @actuallygiancarl0, a recent SCAD grad and much loved employee at the bakery, held their senior thesis at blue boy this past may.
All of this to say, I have started to see the outer two rings as much larger parts of the picture than I first expected. The programming happening within the gallery is still the most important, everything grows from there, but all of the people that occupy the outer rings are what the inner circle exists for.
The image that is coming to mind more recently is a flight map, or sometimes a spider web. I love the thought of all of these small points being connected, and I’m curious what it might look like for blue boy to create those paths between the dots.
I think about this poem a lot - I first heard it while listening to Poetry Unbound, a wonderful podcast that @onbeing puts out. I love the last few lines, especially his mention of the kettle and pans. Often, I’ll open the door to the gallery and see a lizard dart to the back corner (I think it lives in the cinder block foundation). And at every opening, by the end of the night, the gallery is one massive bug cave because the fluorescent lights appear so bright in the dark. Today there is a vine growing up the outer wall and into the space through the eaves - I’ve not decided if I’ll trim it back yet or not.
This all makes me think about attention - what grabs it, holds it, what we give it to. The connection between attention and community is interesting to me. I think this poem really beautifully pulls on that thread. I spend a decent amount of time alone at my house, or in my backyard (which is basically blue boy), but all of these small visitors (the lizard, the vine, the kettle) loop my singular experience into something larger and more communal - if I can remember to take notice of them.
There are lots of unexpected partners all around us. These things feel like very real and subtle forms of community.
