Lifelong Art Project · A Human Gathering Collective
The Board
Handmade charcuterie boards by my dad and I. Gifted to exceptional gatherers who help weave our social fabric in loving memory of Gerry Morris.
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Lifelong Art Project · A Human Gathering Collective
Handmade charcuterie boards by my dad and I. Gifted to exceptional gatherers who help weave our social fabric in loving memory of Gerry Morris.
This board isn't about maximizing profits. It's about creating new rituals which build generational community.
By accepting a board, one formally agrees to: host 4 quarterly “Board Meetings” a year, and participate in the Annual Board Picnic (BYOBoard). Your primary objective is to enhance the collective social fabric.
Membership has no term limit, but may be revoked if obligations are not upheld.
My mother, Gerry Morris, passed in April, 2025 after a six-year battle with Alzheimer’s. During those years, I spent a great deal of time at my parents’ home in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, caregiving for Mom and supporting Dad.
Gerry was the glue of our family. She embodied Southern hospitality effortlessly — forever generous, almost always joyful. Everyone wanted her in the room. She planned everything, cooked incredible food, filled rooms with her smile and charisma, sparked meaningful conversations, and brought people together with ease. She was a force of love and connection.
As her presence faded, I began to realize how much of what I value — hosting, creating space, bringing people together — I learned from my mother. It made me wonder how many people like Mom quietly hold families, friendships, and communities together, especially now, when connection feels more necessary than ever.
I felt called to step up, but didn’t know how to fill her shoes. I thought that strengthening my relationship with my 93-year-old father could be a place to start. Lee is a deep-thinking philosopher, retired minister, and lifelong woodworker. Like many men, connection often comes most easily through shared work — something for the hands to do that opens space for the heart.
For years, Dad made beautiful wooden gifts for friends and family: umbrella stands, toy boxes, luggage stands, cutting boards. My wife and I treasure these objects in our Brooklyn loft, but what we really needed were large charcuterie boards for our bigger gatherings. I asked Dad if he would help me make some boards, and teach me some woodworking along the way. He said yes.
Making the boards became our shared project. We worked side by side, cutting and shaping black walnut slabs — planing, sanding, drilling, sanding again, finishing carefully, wiping, oiling. Sometimes we talked. Sometimes we didn’t. We were always present together.
In 2023, I brought several boards back to Brooklyn and began inviting people over, asking them to bring things to share on the board. We jokingly called these dinners “Board Meetings,” and the name stuck. Over time, they became regular gatherings, and friends started asking me to make boards for them.
In 2025, in Gerry’s final months, Dad and I made eight new boards, cut from the same black walnut tree. I began to feel these boards wanted to stay connected somehow. I imagined a picnic where all my friends’ boards came together — filled with food and love, laid out in a grassy field at sunset, the New York skyline glowing in the background. From this vision, The Board was born.
Be intentional about who you invite. Bring friends, chosen family, collaborators, people you know well or want to know better. Ask everyone to bring something for the board. Drop in. Don’t accept surface chatter.
