"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.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
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.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
A Visit to the Asylum
"Surely nothing has to listen to so many stupid remarks as a painting in a museum." -Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
Day three.
I did not think it could get much more tedious than writing hundreds of condition reports on prints of dead cardinals' tombs. This thought was quickly overturned when my Friday afternoon was spent painting the trim of the McClellan House. Painting the trim grey, no less. Poor Minerva and Carinne. They had to stay for more than my two hours.
Day four.
I pretentiously stumble (if that's possible) from church to the 9th Annual Art Gala in excruciating heels I haven't worn since senior prom. Candles line the walkway, a string quartet is cycling through the same four or five songs in the hallway, and I'm assigned a tray of deviled eggs to pass around. Minerva is standing in the gallery, looking bored, and holding a tray of hors d'oeurves that include something wrapped in bacon and something with shrimp. When the tray of deviled eggs is sufficiently depleted, I sprint (well, more like quickly limp, with very good posture) to the kitchen, where everyone who wants to avoid Geneseo's elite is munching on appetizers and massaging their sore feet.
President Dahl begins his address and all the sophisticated adults turn their attention to the various speeches in the gallery. Minerva and I take this as our cue to steal apple cider and food from the tables, while silently cursing Lockhart's creaky floors.
The rest of the evening is spent alternately snitching cake, making pleasantries about the exhibit, and teaching an older man with a British accent how to eat a deviled egg. (Shove the whole darn thing in your mouth, turn your head away from polite company, chew, swallow. Lather, rinse, repeat.)
After saying my goodbyes and avoiding the distribution of leftover food, I head home. I decide that the next time I waitress for a gala, I will wear better shoes and force everyone to eat whatever foodstuffs I've got on my arm. I will also eat beforehand.
Day three.
I did not think it could get much more tedious than writing hundreds of condition reports on prints of dead cardinals' tombs. This thought was quickly overturned when my Friday afternoon was spent painting the trim of the McClellan House. Painting the trim grey, no less. Poor Minerva and Carinne. They had to stay for more than my two hours.
Day four.
I pretentiously stumble (if that's possible) from church to the 9th Annual Art Gala in excruciating heels I haven't worn since senior prom. Candles line the walkway, a string quartet is cycling through the same four or five songs in the hallway, and I'm assigned a tray of deviled eggs to pass around. Minerva is standing in the gallery, looking bored, and holding a tray of hors d'oeurves that include something wrapped in bacon and something with shrimp. When the tray of deviled eggs is sufficiently depleted, I sprint (well, more like quickly limp, with very good posture) to the kitchen, where everyone who wants to avoid Geneseo's elite is munching on appetizers and massaging their sore feet.
President Dahl begins his address and all the sophisticated adults turn their attention to the various speeches in the gallery. Minerva and I take this as our cue to steal apple cider and food from the tables, while silently cursing Lockhart's creaky floors.
The rest of the evening is spent alternately snitching cake, making pleasantries about the exhibit, and teaching an older man with a British accent how to eat a deviled egg. (Shove the whole darn thing in your mouth, turn your head away from polite company, chew, swallow. Lather, rinse, repeat.)
After saying my goodbyes and avoiding the distribution of leftover food, I head home. I decide that the next time I waitress for a gala, I will wear better shoes and force everyone to eat whatever foodstuffs I've got on my arm. I will also eat beforehand.
Monday, September 13, 2010
How Naked, How Without a Wall
"I am risking my life for my work, and half my reason has gone." -Vincent Van Gogh
"You should probably put those pins back where you found them."
Day two. Minerva and I are attempting to scour the pinboards of Brodie to find enough pins to install an exhibit in the Bridge Gallery. We manage to convince ourselves that just going to the storage room and getting nails would be more work than hunting all over the building for stray pins. Which in the end, we have to return and go to the storage room for new ones after all.
"You know," Minerva says musingly. "Being a gallery assistant has made me really good at leveling and guessing measurements." It should come as no surprise that neither of us really needed the level for the installation.
After finishing up in the Bridge Gallery, we're instructed to hang up posters in all the other buildings. No sooner do I reach the corkboard in Welles then I realize I'm missing a crucial element: pins. So back to Brodie where I quietly steal thumbtacks and then troop to the rest of the buildings to hang the posters.
There is some framing and matting done and then we all head over to the Lockhart Gallery to paint walls. Apparently if you let paint sit for a long time, the color slightly changes and should not be used for touch-ups on the walls. Because then you will have large splotches of odd color. And then you will have to paint the whole frickin' wall.
Painting the trim was mostly uneventful, minus the parts where I got lost in the basement, spilled paint on the wood floor, and painted the wrong wall. So not bad. Could have been worse.
Did I mention there's a GALA on Sunday?
"You should probably put those pins back where you found them."
Day two. Minerva and I are attempting to scour the pinboards of Brodie to find enough pins to install an exhibit in the Bridge Gallery. We manage to convince ourselves that just going to the storage room and getting nails would be more work than hunting all over the building for stray pins. Which in the end, we have to return and go to the storage room for new ones after all.
"You know," Minerva says musingly. "Being a gallery assistant has made me really good at leveling and guessing measurements." It should come as no surprise that neither of us really needed the level for the installation.
After finishing up in the Bridge Gallery, we're instructed to hang up posters in all the other buildings. No sooner do I reach the corkboard in Welles then I realize I'm missing a crucial element: pins. So back to Brodie where I quietly steal thumbtacks and then troop to the rest of the buildings to hang the posters.
There is some framing and matting done and then we all head over to the Lockhart Gallery to paint walls. Apparently if you let paint sit for a long time, the color slightly changes and should not be used for touch-ups on the walls. Because then you will have large splotches of odd color. And then you will have to paint the whole frickin' wall.
Painting the trim was mostly uneventful, minus the parts where I got lost in the basement, spilled paint on the wood floor, and painted the wrong wall. So not bad. Could have been worse.
Did I mention there's a GALA on Sunday?
Thursday, September 9, 2010
From a Very Little Sphinx
"Believe it or not, I can actually draw." - Jean Michel Basquiat
Day one.
Fall semester.
After announcing myself with a lot of dramatic waving around and exclamations of "Oh hey! How's your summer been? I'm here! Let's do this! I'm here!" to Cynthia, I am directed to the Lockhart Gallery where I smugly retrieve the key from its hiding place and unlock the gallery rooms, basking in my elitist Gallery Assistant title. There is only one small damper on this glorious return; I haven't the foggiest idea how to turn the lights on.
And yes, I checked for all possible light switches.
I meekly jog upstairs to the Alumni Center and ask the kindly lady at the desk if she does have the foggiest idea how to illuminate the Esteemed Lockhart Gallery. I follow her, again meekly, to the locked reception room and then to a closet in the room and then to a cupboard in the closet (for real) where she turns on the lights. Except, oh dratsicles, most of the lights are still not on. So she meekly jogs upstairs to get another kindly person and I meander around the room facepalming and flipping the only light switch whenever I pass it.
The second, and more informed, kindly woman flips on the rest of the lights using a keypad the first thought was for the alarm system. And then she tells me I've only been turning the porch light on and off.
When Cynthia arrives and there is finally enough fluorescent lighting, I am assigned the task of peeling off painter's tape. Despite an embarrassing fear of heights (Anecdote: I once took so long to jump off the high dive that the lifeguard clapped when I finally did.), it's invigoratingly cathartic and even mildly amusing when I throw balls of tape at the walls. Unfortunately, it wasn't any of those things when I somehow managed to hit myself in the nose with the folded ladder.
The next task is to paint the borders of the walls in another room. Taking a deep breath and trying not to think about how I'm wearing my Explosions in the Sky shirt and favorite pair of jeans, I mostly focus all vacant thinking energies on the stupidity of the movie "Letters to Juliet" and how I would much rather do this instead of going to lab.
It's good to be back.
Day one.
Fall semester.
After announcing myself with a lot of dramatic waving around and exclamations of "Oh hey! How's your summer been? I'm here! Let's do this! I'm here!" to Cynthia, I am directed to the Lockhart Gallery where I smugly retrieve the key from its hiding place and unlock the gallery rooms, basking in my elitist Gallery Assistant title. There is only one small damper on this glorious return; I haven't the foggiest idea how to turn the lights on.
And yes, I checked for all possible light switches.
I meekly jog upstairs to the Alumni Center and ask the kindly lady at the desk if she does have the foggiest idea how to illuminate the Esteemed Lockhart Gallery. I follow her, again meekly, to the locked reception room and then to a closet in the room and then to a cupboard in the closet (for real) where she turns on the lights. Except, oh dratsicles, most of the lights are still not on. So she meekly jogs upstairs to get another kindly person and I meander around the room facepalming and flipping the only light switch whenever I pass it.
The second, and more informed, kindly woman flips on the rest of the lights using a keypad the first thought was for the alarm system. And then she tells me I've only been turning the porch light on and off.
When Cynthia arrives and there is finally enough fluorescent lighting, I am assigned the task of peeling off painter's tape. Despite an embarrassing fear of heights (Anecdote: I once took so long to jump off the high dive that the lifeguard clapped when I finally did.), it's invigoratingly cathartic and even mildly amusing when I throw balls of tape at the walls. Unfortunately, it wasn't any of those things when I somehow managed to hit myself in the nose with the folded ladder.
The next task is to paint the borders of the walls in another room. Taking a deep breath and trying not to think about how I'm wearing my Explosions in the Sky shirt and favorite pair of jeans, I mostly focus all vacant thinking energies on the stupidity of the movie "Letters to Juliet" and how I would much rather do this instead of going to lab.
It's good to be back.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Here's to Opening and Upward
"Painting is just another way of keeping a diary." -Pablo Picasso
Day thirteen. Last day.
Well, of the semester.
I'm helping install the winning pieces from the annual county high school juried art show in the Lederer Gallery. Holy crapola. I had barely legible handwriting in high school (it's even worse now) and these kids are doing oil paintings and ceramic chess pieces (modeled after a battle between Mount Olympus and the Underworld) and portraits and digital art and let's not even talk about the effing CHAIR someone CARVED...well, frankly, it's all a bit upsetting.
"Wait. So this kid is like...fifteen."
"Yeah. I know. Insane."
But I'm helping install an exhibition, which is the main thing. There are several moments of panic, like when Cynthia and I hung up a huge banner-esque work and I almost fell off the ladder. Or when I almost fell off the ladder trying to hang up another giant canvas. Other than that, it was mostly okay.
"Hannah, can you please sweep the floor? This place is a mess."
I occasionally forget that I am first and foremost an intern.
As we leave the gallery, all the sickeningly-fantastic artwork beautifully installed, we say our summer goodbyes.
"Thanks for an amazing semester, Cynthia."
"Hey, I get a hug."
Bags and bundles and tools down. Hug.
"See you in the fall! Have a great summer!"
"Take care!"
See you in the fall. Have a great summer.
Day thirteen. Last day.
Well, of the semester.
I'm helping install the winning pieces from the annual county high school juried art show in the Lederer Gallery. Holy crapola. I had barely legible handwriting in high school (it's even worse now) and these kids are doing oil paintings and ceramic chess pieces (modeled after a battle between Mount Olympus and the Underworld) and portraits and digital art and let's not even talk about the effing CHAIR someone CARVED...well, frankly, it's all a bit upsetting.
"Wait. So this kid is like...fifteen."
"Yeah. I know. Insane."
But I'm helping install an exhibition, which is the main thing. There are several moments of panic, like when Cynthia and I hung up a huge banner-esque work and I almost fell off the ladder. Or when I almost fell off the ladder trying to hang up another giant canvas. Other than that, it was mostly okay.
"Hannah, can you please sweep the floor? This place is a mess."
I occasionally forget that I am first and foremost an intern.
As we leave the gallery, all the sickeningly-fantastic artwork beautifully installed, we say our summer goodbyes.
"Thanks for an amazing semester, Cynthia."
"Hey, I get a hug."
Bags and bundles and tools down. Hug.
"See you in the fall! Have a great summer!"
"Take care!"
See you in the fall. Have a great summer.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Now I Lay With Everywhere Around
"All art requires courage." -Anne Tucker
"So would you be interested--"
"Yes."
"--in an internship with Wadsworth Library in the fall? They need someone to help them catalog their collection of prints and watercolors."
"Yes."
"I'd help you in the beginning and show you the process and then you'd work on your own."
"Sounds fantastic. Yes."
Day twelve. I have barely sat down and I've already secured an internship in the fall. Clearly it does not get much better than this.
"Oh, and would you be okay with finishing early? I have to go to a couple senior portfolio reviews."
Never mind. It does get better. Especially since it's 77 degrees and sunny out.
Jean is out sick, which means that I am given the task of packaging prints solo-style. The initial stage is very validating and enjoyable. By "initial stage" I mean the part where I stroll confidently to the storage room, punch in the code, and then set up my music. After that, sweat beads start to form. Why? Because I have to confront a massive role of plastic wrap, easily my worst enemy in the universe. Not only am I totally alone in the matter, but apparently the scissors went on vacation and we only have razor blades to cut plastic and paper.
"Why isn't this cut-- oh, wrong end."
The brown paper that goes on after the plastic wrap has been rolled so tightly that I practically have to lie down on the work table to get it flat. After a fair amount of tussling, I'm able to put my Christmas-wrapping skills to use and I get a package that may or may not be somewhat rectangular. And by the twentieth print, I've got this stuff down.
Still hate plastic wrap.
"So would you be interested--"
"Yes."
"--in an internship with Wadsworth Library in the fall? They need someone to help them catalog their collection of prints and watercolors."
"Yes."
"I'd help you in the beginning and show you the process and then you'd work on your own."
"Sounds fantastic. Yes."
Day twelve. I have barely sat down and I've already secured an internship in the fall. Clearly it does not get much better than this.
"Oh, and would you be okay with finishing early? I have to go to a couple senior portfolio reviews."
Never mind. It does get better. Especially since it's 77 degrees and sunny out.
Jean is out sick, which means that I am given the task of packaging prints solo-style. The initial stage is very validating and enjoyable. By "initial stage" I mean the part where I stroll confidently to the storage room, punch in the code, and then set up my music. After that, sweat beads start to form. Why? Because I have to confront a massive role of plastic wrap, easily my worst enemy in the universe. Not only am I totally alone in the matter, but apparently the scissors went on vacation and we only have razor blades to cut plastic and paper.
"Why isn't this cut-- oh, wrong end."
The brown paper that goes on after the plastic wrap has been rolled so tightly that I practically have to lie down on the work table to get it flat. After a fair amount of tussling, I'm able to put my Christmas-wrapping skills to use and I get a package that may or may not be somewhat rectangular. And by the twentieth print, I've got this stuff down.
Still hate plastic wrap.
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