DBB

Carla Goldberg's kork installation "Play!" in Jan 2011

I'm taking a moment from my Do the world a favor string of posts to make mention of the much too early death at the end of July of Deborah Bailey Browne. 

DBB gave me free reign to ply my creative impulses, repeatedly, in her office of her accounting firm in Poughkeepsie.  My initial Curatorial endeavors in her office was a response to how square I found the business scene centered around Poughkeepsie to be.  In Denver I had known a business sector that was somewhat hip and open to culture of all sorts. Granted, Denver is a large metropolitan center. Poughkeepsie is a rather small city, but I assumed its proximity to NYC would have an effect on the sophistication of its cultural climate. This assumption was wrong.  

My motivation in these art hangs in DBB's office was to show work that, with each iteration, was progressively more unusual for an office environment.   I became more and more interested in addressing the mechanics of the office as a generator of art... Eventually, I stole -adopted- an idea of Angelika's which became kork which had a three year run as an independent entity within the office above the photocopier.

DBB was ever a booster for all I had cooked up, even when it left her staff shaking and scratching their heads--which I warrant happened often.  I don't know that deborah ever really got what I was up to either, but her unflagging enthusiasm for each project was a great stage on which to play and it's something for which I'm very grateful.