"What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art." -Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Cynthia's phone is broken, so she sends me and Carinne an email asking if we can work on Friday. Things need to be packed, there's an exhibit to be set up, and I still have to finish the accession reports. Apparently the storage room lock is broken and I get to learn another "wholly unseemly way of getting in."
Day seven.
Imagine my disappointment when the lock was fixed.
Imagine my disappointment when I realize I need more copies of the condition reports and I've already interrupted Cynthia once, twice during her interview with the newspaper. So instead of doing what I should have done and gone to ask for the Xerox key, I fill out the accession forms and wrestle with tissue paper to pack the large prints. The roll is roughly as tall as I am, I haven't the foggiest where to find the razor blades (remember those?), so I'm just tearing it off of the roll in a not-so-dignified fashion.
Eventually the interview is finished, the condition reports are copied, and I'm sent to help pack up an exhibit.
Except we have no packing tape.
"Um, yeah just be creative. There's some tape still stuck to the old bubblewrap."
Excellent.
Carinne and I wrap up these paintings, re-wrap them because we did it incorrectly, and attempt to stuff them into the packing boxes.
"There was some space in between them so I...got creative with the styrofoam."
"Well let's add some bubblewrap too."
Did you know that you should tape a box flap down at least six times?
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
If I Should Learn, In Some Quite Casual Way
"If I didn't start painting, I would have raised chickens." -Grandma Moses
Day six.
The mere fact that I have to wear white gloves for work today means that it's going to be roughly a thousand times better than last time. I have the feeling that the smugness of punching in the code to the storage room, carrying tools (i.e. a measuring tape and an archiving pen), numerous folders, and a stack of prints through Brodie is never going to lose its charm. Not to mention the white gloves were either stuffed conspicuously in my back pocket or being worn the entire time.
It's a regular day at the office. Filling out accession reports, being silently aggravated about forgetting my laptop with my music, swearing when I'd stack a print without labeling its collection number, handling some seriously SWEET lithographs (really, I WANT one), memorizing the address of donor Janet L. after filling it out eighteen times...all the nicely therapeutic aspects of gallery work.
But still. Kinda boring.
I nabbed the pair of white gloves, by the way. I figured it was high time I carried a pair around in my bookbag. Don't worry, Cynthia, I'll return them at the end of the year. But they're just too cool to NOT carry around.
Day six.
The mere fact that I have to wear white gloves for work today means that it's going to be roughly a thousand times better than last time. I have the feeling that the smugness of punching in the code to the storage room, carrying tools (i.e. a measuring tape and an archiving pen), numerous folders, and a stack of prints through Brodie is never going to lose its charm. Not to mention the white gloves were either stuffed conspicuously in my back pocket or being worn the entire time.
It's a regular day at the office. Filling out accession reports, being silently aggravated about forgetting my laptop with my music, swearing when I'd stack a print without labeling its collection number, handling some seriously SWEET lithographs (really, I WANT one), memorizing the address of donor Janet L. after filling it out eighteen times...all the nicely therapeutic aspects of gallery work.
But still. Kinda boring.
I nabbed the pair of white gloves, by the way. I figured it was high time I carried a pair around in my bookbag. Don't worry, Cynthia, I'll return them at the end of the year. But they're just too cool to NOT carry around.
Conscientious Objector
"One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one's capacity." -Auguste Renoir
"So...apparently the collection has somewhere in between eight to nine thousand prints that we didn't know about."
"Oh crap."
Day five. I show up in Cynthia's office under the assumption that I'll be doing some condition reports, maybe handling some sweet prints, definitely wearing (the favorite) white gloves...ya know. Nope.
Instead, I'm handed a stack of papers, the collection list, and told to find which ones match up. Apparently the incompetence of Cynthia's predecessor was not to be believed and there are several THOUSAND prints floating around somewhere in the collection. The problem is, we're not sure which ones we know about.
So I trot off to the seminar room, under the assumption that the 60-page list of prints is alphabetized and it'll take maybe 20 minutes. Much to my chagrin, there is no apparent order in how the list is organized. What. So. Ever. Of course, I discover this after Cynthia has peaced out for the gym. And Vicki isn't in her office.
Being the devoted and pathetic intern that I am, I make an attempt. To search through a 60 page document with size (I'm being serious) 6 font. Maybe 8. But almost definitely 6. That is not in any particular order. After about ten minutes of this, with zero results, I decide to pretend that it's not there and wait for Cynthia to get back so I can use the beautiful Command-F function. I spend the remaining time taping pages together.
Eventually Cynthia gets back and I get to Command-F the crap out of the now alphabetized version of the print list. Thank goodness I gave up the chase early beforehand. Out of the 230ish pieces on the insurance list and the 6000 pieces on the print list, TWO match up. TWO. That's right, people. TWO.
Let's give a prolonged, very very sincere round of applause for laziness. It saved my ass.
"So...apparently the collection has somewhere in between eight to nine thousand prints that we didn't know about."
"Oh crap."
Day five. I show up in Cynthia's office under the assumption that I'll be doing some condition reports, maybe handling some sweet prints, definitely wearing (the favorite) white gloves...ya know. Nope.
Instead, I'm handed a stack of papers, the collection list, and told to find which ones match up. Apparently the incompetence of Cynthia's predecessor was not to be believed and there are several THOUSAND prints floating around somewhere in the collection. The problem is, we're not sure which ones we know about.
So I trot off to the seminar room, under the assumption that the 60-page list of prints is alphabetized and it'll take maybe 20 minutes. Much to my chagrin, there is no apparent order in how the list is organized. What. So. Ever. Of course, I discover this after Cynthia has peaced out for the gym. And Vicki isn't in her office.
Being the devoted and pathetic intern that I am, I make an attempt. To search through a 60 page document with size (I'm being serious) 6 font. Maybe 8. But almost definitely 6. That is not in any particular order. After about ten minutes of this, with zero results, I decide to pretend that it's not there and wait for Cynthia to get back so I can use the beautiful Command-F function. I spend the remaining time taping pages together.
Eventually Cynthia gets back and I get to Command-F the crap out of the now alphabetized version of the print list. Thank goodness I gave up the chase early beforehand. Out of the 230ish pieces on the insurance list and the 6000 pieces on the print list, TWO match up. TWO. That's right, people. TWO.
Let's give a prolonged, very very sincere round of applause for laziness. It saved my ass.
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