Spotlight on Half Gallery Director Erin Goldberger

On the Friday night after Christmas, Half Gallery director Erin Goldberger could be found at an artists’ studio in Greenpoint, where a few friends—photographers, musicians, writers—gathered in the kitchen over wine and an assortment of Moe’s Doughs donuts. A Francoise Hardy song was playing off a cell phone connected to a record player with an amplifier, and Erin’s laugh floated above the music. She was re-telling family stories she had just learned over the holidays about her Sicilian great-grandparents, who immigrated to New York at the turn of the last century (her paternal grandparents arrived in New Jersey from Poland after the Second World War).

The stories were funny, although this isn’t the first time that I had seen Erin captivate a small audience. She can recall names, memories, and obscure details at the drop of a hat, and delivers her sentences like an expert pool player: delicately on one shot, sharply on the other, and packed with dry wit on the next. A few minutes later, we went outside to sit on the front stoop and I turned on my recorder… Continue reading →