the extended version:

greetings and salutations,

so you'd like to get to know me better...

let's start with my full name: darby mae wagner—first, middle, last. it reflects elements of my European heritage—Scotch-Irish, Franco-German, and allegedly, a dash of English. 'darby mae' is a reimagined family name—Gaelic in origin, supposedly. my nationality: American. 

i'm a kook with an unconventional bent—largely unorthodox, somewhat self-taught, and forever marching to the beat of my inner drum. i've stumbled into a more 'artistic' life than most, drawn more to personal and creative freedom than prestige, money, or power. that's not to say i'm unmotivated. on the contrary: i'm impassioned and savvy as hell—a result of circumstance, grit, and a knack of adapting. death/life/ death cycle, anyone?

i experiment with art and craft in their many forms. in 2024: designing and building light pendants (and an ephemeral design showroom). in 2025: cocktail and food recipes. in 2026: writing again?

i believe real success comes from total immersion in experience—regardless of the outcome. to truly succeed requires persistence, patience, clever maneuvering, and a resistance to being boxed in. [BREAK THE BOX. fuck the box.] you also need maniacal devotion to intuition. to universal pathos. to the art of ambiguity. 

i'm not saying you need to be a hedonist (but i won't judge you if you are). i'm saying: be present. bon vivant your way through the mess. hold paradox. you can be an ambitious aesthete and a freewheeling dirtbag. trust me – two things can be true.

channel the fool, embody the sage. 

“there is no leader, there is no teacher, there is nobody to tell you what to do.”

—J. Krishnamurti

so what do you want to do?

on GNOSES

i materialized GNOSES in 2021—insofar that I gave an idea a name and a purpose. hell, i wrote a manifesto for what i envisioned it would be, could be, is? i became obssessed with this Bauhausian/Wagnerian notion of Gesamtkunstwerk: the total work of art. GNOSES would thus become a vessel and vehicle for practicing/embodying this concept; a shape-shifting platform for experimentation, collective ritual, and embodied aesthetics. in a city where studio space is a luxury, GNOSES became a reliable proxy—for art, for others, for feeling. its existence, real; its presence, amorphous. part make-do studio, part make-believe sanctuary.

pathos mirroring ethos; ethos mirroring pathos.

[on happiness (and its discontents)

(optional sidebar/essay insert)

happiness is a contrived cultural currency. a pressure. a homeostatic ideal. 

for the chemically-imbalanced, happiness can feel like a pipe dream—a forbidden fruit in a perverted Eden. 

forget happiness. think about joy! 

financial stability does not guarantee you a happy life. nor does financial instability doom you to misery. 

some equate happiness to social non-conformity:

'delete social media. boycott corporations. tend to the land. fuck the patriarchy.'

i love all that. truly. but.

social anarchism doesn't promise joy either. you've got to craft your own recipe, your own path, for keeping the soul vital & resilient, and the spirit in a state of 'lightness' & levity. and that recipe? it evolves constantly. the goal isn't to reach the river's far shore. it's to enter the stream—and trust the current.]

who i am / where i'm from

i don't always understand how or why i do what i do, or am who i am; but, deep within me, there exists a daring, playful, observant child—alive as ever, brimming with hope & life & flaming desire. 

i grew up in a suburb of Minneapolis—a place of geographic and emotional extremes. maybe that says something.

i try to read Taoist meditations every morning. i meditate in my own idiosyncratic ways—like reorganizing a space (over and over). my movement practice is varied. it involves a lot of walking and at home, cycle-based exercises. i also love to dance. i expel tension in ways that sometime look ridiculous. it's therapeutic. i have this thing called raynaud's phenomenon (thanks to early childhood frostbite), and a condition I lovingly call austistic laughter, which i (may have) inherited from my mother (apparently she has it, too).

i strive for balance over perfection. i draw from philosophies of imperfection. 

DIY, or better yet: do-it-together. i'm an aesthete who's never had much money, so i've learned: good taste pays. 

i find great joy in creating intimate worlds within chaotic places. i dream vividly. i live with intention—and a healthy dose of chaos.

work / movement / memory

i speak french fairly fluently (thanks to my [public] childhood education) and lived in France from 2015—2018. a place i return to often.

after a 6-month hiatus from the world, living with my mother and grieving the death of my father, i decided to move to new york city. it was may 2019. somehow, i ended up in wine—and managing a band. it wasn't the plan—but then again, what was? 

seven years later, i've found myself deeply enmeshed—and yet more and more on the periphery—of a global community: musicians, winemakers, importers, chefs, artists, entrepreneurs, designers, and everyday-hustling-freelance-creatives. the list keeps growing. wine became more than a passion, hobby, or job. it became a vessel. a bridge. a portal. it blurred the poetic with the scientific, the ancestral with the surreal. 

and like any true vessel, it carried me somewhere new.

GNOSES, part II

as COVID reshaped time and space, GNOSES evolved into a personal and collective container. inspired by gnosis, the nose, the body, grief, joy, death, design, art, aesthetics, esoterica, ancestral foodways and beverage lineages. influenced by thinkers and figures from Hegel to Lilith, Patti Smith to Walter Gropius. by objects and symbols, like chairs & candles, bones & sigils.

i've since collaborated with individuals and collectives across several fields of interest. but after a string of different jobs and food & wine-oriented events, i felt like something was missing. the format felt too contrived by trends and reliant on social media. i missed the ambiance of the classroom. i missed the feeling of shared learning. 

i wondered how i could bridge communities more intentionally. 

and thus came the concept for one of my on-going concepts/experiences: WINE POETIC: an integrative symposium weaving poetics of taste and place: where the life & work of iconic poets are examined alongside diverse beverage lineages–wine, spirits, teas, et al. It would be a space for fools, bards, and sages alike. intentional, improvisational, alive.

now / next

in 2024, i re-entered the mystical river—this time towards design. urban, spatial, functional. i worked with a furniture & interior designer-architect-professor who was kind enough to take me under her wing. her name: KIKI GOTI. her work: playful, poetic, unconventional, yet beautifully refined. the experience was enriching, enough to motivate me to pursue a long-held dream of curating an ephemeral space, in other words, a salon-style design showroom where people could really engage with each piece, and bring it home if they so pleased.

the dream was a shared one: something my dear friend, christina agnes love, and i connected over early on in our friendship. both of us french speaking and wine & design smitten. she is much older than me, whose similarly nonlinear path greatly inspired me to continue along my own. after several weeks of back & forth, deliberating what we would call this project, we landed on coucou bisoux. the greeting and salutation of our daily exchanges. direct translation: hi kisses. it wasn't perfect, but we came to love it.

it is now april of 2026. much has transpired. branded dinners, immersive workshops, coucou bisoux, and a personal move from Brooklyn to Manhattan, among others.

career reinvention is humbling, destabilizing, and sometimes incredibly exhilarating. 

regardless of circumstance (having to out of pure will or pure necessity): it requires a lot of courage. 

so: to anyone who's ever leapt: i see you. and i commend you. brave, you are!!!

through it all:

GNOSES remained: both anchor and vessel. 

moving. pausing. morphing.

reminding me of the miles already traveled, and the many journeys yet to come.

at the ripe age of 32 going on 33, i'm learning it can be whatever the hell i want it to be---whatever we will it to be.

the end (for now)

i'm here to observe, to connect, to record

to create both alone 

& together. 

to build, to bridge, to fall 

& to try again

& again. 

i'm here (for now) to meet the world. 

to love & be loved. 

to make a dent. 

to die joyful.

~

thanks for reading the extended version of who i am----obtuse, unfiltered, and imperfect as it is (& should be). 

~

i hope one day we meet (again).

break bread. drink wine.

and share tales of what makes (& made) us feel.