done. (almost)

Done. Except for lighting, labels, and some odds and ends (plex cut to the wrong size, needing to add printed thing, etc). It's very nice. Was very rushed, but really came together. This morning 1/2 of the professional work wasn't up, none of the shelves for printed samples, and no student show. So today was productive with the help of Michael, Katie (who single-handedly hung the student show!) and Kyle.

I'm really happy with it- it's weird to stand in the place and be physically surrounded by everything that was ideas, notes, or images on websites or in magazines. I don't know why it's so different with this show, except the massive scale of it all. I really was blindsided by how different it's been from other shows that I've worked on. Now we have the reception to look forward to. I'll meet John on Thursday when he's on the panel talk and then at five is the reception.

Now, I have to wake up a bit, finish my Halloween costume and go have some fun!

half full or half empty?

Remember the panic mode from a few days ago? Totally justified. Today seemed to progress slow as molasses. I spent the entire day painting in the names of the artists, which, at the end of the day look like vinyl anyway (which would've been 2 hours work vs 10). I was yelled at by a security guard, talked to 2 classes (I try so hard to get over my fear of public speaking!) At about 7pm after feeling discouraged about the names not looking painted, I decided to paint a nice happy yellow around the statement on the title wall. As is, it looks like a crappy dried out highlighter pen went over it. I'm either fixing that tomorrow or adding orange to the subtitle and dates to try to de-crappify it. Just a boat load of negativity today and I left asking myself why the H I'm going through all this trouble for... (?)

And, I have my own illustration work waiting to be drawn as well as my robot suit for the Halloween party I hope I still make it to waiting to have the lighting system (i.e. control panel) installed.

I miss my life and feel really discouraged tonight. There's still 1/2 a show to hang, all of the shelves for the printed materials, and- oh yeah, the entire student show in the back of the space. This is why I panicked Tuesday. Grrrrrr....

Me and my big ideas

So back in January or whenever this show got approved- I decided to have huge stencils made in vinyl of all of the artists names to help delineate whose work is whose, and also to jazz up the white walls (I'm not a real fan of colored gallery walls- pretty much the only viewpoint of mine that could be construed as "conservative".

Anyway- that was a great idea then. Now that it's time to do it, it just looks like a pile of problems (is this blog turning into a place for me to whine about how much work this is?) There's the bleed factor (paint seeping under the stencil), we have to measure out all the work, figure out where the left edge is, and then install the rta ("ready to apply"- an acronym for the vinyl text), paint the names in, dry them, peel them off, install the work. But, it should look cool.

Tonight I did the test on the title- it worked great. I may change my color scheme for the show now though. It occurred to me on the way home (long after I painted on the walls of course) that I should've used orange. The identity of the show- created by Robert in Creative and Print in the school- is orange based. But then the title would be orange and the rta below it black- which is so Halloween, so maybe this is better. BUT maybe the names should all be orange instead of the 10 different colors that I've bought to do them in.

Whatevs. That's for tomorrow. For tonight is a glass of wine and a shower to wash away the drywall dust and paint in my hair.

Extreme gallery makeover

omg- flipping nuts. And Mark does this for every single show- it's mind boggling. I started the day pretty much needing to breathe into a paper bag (see the before photo). The walls were in place, but everything needed to be sanded, painted, and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned before I could bring any work in to lay out the show. So I panicked. I got to work painting, keeping my panic on the inside (except for explaining anxiety dreams to Mark or telling Neysa- our Director- when she asked how panicky I was). So we all sat down, talked through how it's do-able to restructure the gallery during every install at Glass Curtain (this is something I do not do at the other galleries). And, proceeded during the day with lots of help from the super freelancers Michael and Chelsea as well as the super work aides Nick, Greg and Kyle to go from picture A (big old mess) to picture B (clean gallery with work laid out ready to install tomorrow).

Mark has a cold and got the brunt of the worst job today- sanding drywall mud. While he was working on that, the gallery looked like there was a fog machine on (hence the dust masks and Greg's fancy shoe covers). It's probably a supreme health hazard- aside from the fact that it produces so much dust that takes so long to settle, that it took all of us a good couple hours to de-dust the gallery afterward. And Mark and his team do this for every single show- did I mention this? I find it admirable, but f-that!

Which is my way of saying thank you to everyone who helped today :)

re.....lax.....

I'm feeling a little tense. A little paranoid... Walls take time to build. three days time, it turns out. The estimates are putting me starting the install and laying out the work late Wednesday or early Thursday. This makes me have palpitations. I am the type that wants the work to be going up the first day. The forth day? Palpitations.

It'll be fine. It'll get up. It'll look great. (say aloud and repeat)

obstacles or "why I'm flippin' nuts by nancy"

So- there are logistical issues with working at Columbia. We have the whole "city is our campus" line that the admissions peoples tell new students- and that was SO true this week. Because bringing this show together involved trekking things all over the city.

So as not to bore you, here's a quick run down of what I'm talking about: work comes in to mailroom, mailroom calls me, I walk a block to the mailroom, navigate my way through the tore up sidewalk in front of the door, get the package of artwork, navigate back through the sidewalk (repeat ten times). Gather all the work out of my office, bring in the car, bring in students to help (thank you Nick and Andy), haul all the boxes to the car (in front of my office is now a no parking zone), drive the boxes to the next no parking zone to unload (repeat).

Also- trip to Ikea to get 24 steel shelves to use as magazine racks to show the printed materials on- which I'm hoping is an excellent solution to the problem of finding a way to put tear sheets and books neatly into the show. (thanks to Katie for painting them!)

And that's to say nothing of the matting. Back in summer when the show was months away and I just wanted the best artists possible, I offered to mat any unframed work. Most of these images in the show weren't created for gallery exhibition, so they aren't framed. This offer made it easier on the artists, and also made shipping less expensive. Then a couple weeks ago, when it came time to find someone to mat the work, my inner virgo came out and decided to do it all myself for fear of anyone else touching (aka ruining) these awesome works of art.

Also- trip to the hardware store to have them cut 40 something pieces of plex (thankfully I didn't get all virgo on that task)- to be picked up next week.

This week I came to regret the mat-it-yourself choice. I ordered the mat board and backing boards. Four boxes (32 x 40" in size, 32-39 pounds in weight). I then drove in, loaded them all into the car, drove home, lugged them all up to my 3rd floor walk up apartment (it was easier on my schedule to cut mats in my studio between projects than to do it at work), cut 44 mats and backing boards (my cat just learned to sit on whatever I'm doing- which made me extra glad that I left the art at work), haul all 4 boxes down again, take them into work, insert all of the art into the mats, and...done w/ that-mostly.

So now all that's left to do is re-cut a few mats, order all of the vinyl lettering, move some walls around in the gallery, paint the gallery, and install the show. Easy peasy.

Despite all of this moaning about how much work this week has been, I was so so excited to put the work in the mats (using non-adhesive, archival, safe as can be mounting strips). I am actually looking forward to installing Monday just to start to see this come together. It's been a long, long time of planning and it will be so cool to see everything DONE! And, I'll be working with Michael and Chelsea who are excellent freelance preparators and Mark who is a great wall-movin' coordinator!

Bio: Gina Triplett

Gina Triplett

Years In Industry: 10

Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Bio:

Gina Triplett is an illustrator living in Philadelphia, PA. Gina studied illustration at The Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore. She enjoys spending time exploring the city, sitting at cafés, playing with her dog and collaborating on paintings with her husband, Matt Curtius under the name Gina and Matt. Her clients include Target, Converse, Urban Outfitters and Chronicle Books. She is represented by Frank Sturges.