In the fall of 2015, I was approached by Teya Ryan, CEO of Georgia Public Broadcasting, about creating a gallery of my photographic work for a new lobby being constructed at her headquarters on 14th street. I had gotten to know Teya after she hired Bert Huffman as Executive VP for GPB. Bert had formerly been Director of Development for The Atlanta Opera and we worked together and became good friends. He set up a lunch for Teya and I to meet, and she started getting my photo galleries of my travels on Phanfare. She explained they were bringing strong color to the new lobby and thought my images would be a good complement. After agreeing to do so, I realized she was talking about a permanent display, with revolving new galleries. Yikes!
I had no idea how to accomplish this task. I realized that the Smithsonian regularly created galleries in their museums and sought advice there. They advised me to get with Brett Abbott, the Curator of Photography at the High Museum and made an introduction. Bret put a lot of effort into helping me. He came to my home to see my work, then met me at GPB to see the space and give some crucial suggestions on the construction and placement of the gallery structures. He also advised me to get a curator for the exhibits and made an introduction to Susan Todd-Raque, who has been my curator since 2015 and has become a dear friend.
I engaged my architect, Duane Stone, to design the display structures based on my sketches, and he led me to a quality cabinet maker to build and install the structures.
I had decided I wanted to make the first gallery about dance, so we curated my images and selected 30 for the show. I engaged my photo coach, Ryan Nabulsi, to help edit the images for printing, and Ryan led us to a quality commercial printer to do that work. Mark Bradbury of GPB created the poster for the exhibit. Bert asked if I could loan my mannequin with the Devil Dancer to accompany the gallery and we did so. It turned out to be way more difficult than I thought.
Burt and Teya offered to have an opening event and we set May 25, 2016, for the gala opening. We ended up with about 70-80 guests.
