Setting up a Show, Day 5:

Today’s job was to help Michele and her other assistant Allie set up a show in Gallery 817 in the Anderson building at Uarts. I walked over there on that cloudy just in time before the storm started, and my first task was to unwrap the artworks that from their packaging. I was very cautious unraveling these oddities. Then we were to arrange how they would be displayed according to size. I often obsess over orderliness and size when hanging up my own work, or other such arrangements such as books or furniture, so I had a good sense of where things were to be placed.

 

Then there was the measuring. This is where it got difficult. Four the four similar pieces we were to make sure that they were both equally distant from the corners and each other. After the extreme experience with Jay Walker I still had that super-precise mindset in making measurements. Of course I had to re-measure a couple of times so the pieces would all be of the same height. Then there was the setting up of the pieces on the next wall over. They had to match what was on the opposite side of the room, which led to more measuring. Thankfully I got it right after the second try and it was satisfying to see the work hung up well in place. If there’s one thing about setting up a gallery, it’s that things have to be PERFECT. Since I'm extremely obsessive compulsive in everyday life, this shouldn't be too hard for me to translate this into the fine arts.

I decided to go the show the following day. I ate a meal’s worth of crackers and basically walked in circles speaking to no one. I got a chance to look at the artwork from a viewer’s standpoint. Learning the titles and the fact that the artists in the show were collaborations with children. I scrawled down my own interpretations of what I could interpret in a sketchbook. This is what I came up with:

Fascinating, isn't it?