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?

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.

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.

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.

A Total Stranger One Black Day

"It is a mistake for a sculptor or painter to speak or write very often about his job. It releases tension needed for his work." -Henry Moore

"What is this called?"
"Bubblewrap..."
"I just couldn't remember the word for it; the only thing coming to mind was 'popping paper.'"

Day eleven. Jean and I are packaging up pieces from the drawing exhibit to ship back to their respective artists. This means I have to work with both packing tape and massive rolls of plastic wrap, two of my deadliest foes.

I had spent the first hour putting all those rejection letters I mentioned last time in envelopes, along with the artists' work. It was a bit depressing. Not only did we not want their art in our galleries, we did not want the CDs of their work to clutter our filing cabinets. Or remind of us of our heartlessness.

"Cynthia, do you want me to just throw out these letters from the artists?"
"Put them in a folder. Then I won't feel so bad."

When Jean and I finish packing up the artwork, we sit around the office while Cynthia is on hold with Fed Ex. Apparently Canada has a lot of issues with getting artwork back in vast quantities. The three of us discuss grad school, Paris, automated phone operators, and Paris. "International shipping representative. No. InterNATIONAL shipping representative." Hold.

"Where were we?"
"Paris."
"Oh, right. Paris. I would definitely have an apartment there." This from Cynthia.
Jean laughs. "When you make your first million?"
"Before that, definitely."

Enter No

"But that's what being an artist is - feeling crummy before everyone else feels crummy." -The New Yorker

April 14, 2010

Dear Mr. Alba,

Thank you very much for submitting your work for consideration. Unfortunately, we cannot accept it at this time, as our galleries are fully scheduled for the next two years. However, if you are still interested in a future exhibition, please...

Dear Ms. Kretz,

Thank you very much for submitting your work for consideration. Unfortunately, we cannot accept it at this time...

Dear Mr. Wynn,

Thank you very much for submitting...

Day ten. Another Wednesday, a couple extra hours, and a box full of artists to reject. Artists continually send slides, CDs, binders, huge envelopes of their work to the galleries on campus, all very earnestly requesting an exhibition, a wall, anythingpleaseforpete'ssakethankyouverymuch. And someone needs to tell them that unfortunately, we cannot accept it at this time, as our galleries are fully scheduled for the next two years.

It's been awhile. "Some of these are pretty old; they've been here since before I got here two years ago."

I open one of the envelopes. "Oh hey. 2004. I was going through puberty."

23 artists and 23 exhibits we will probably never see at Geneseo. That's not such a bad thing in some cases.

"These kind of remind me of Andy Warhol plus Van Gogh plus medieval Jesus paintings."
"Yeah, I don't particularly like them."

Dear Ms. Kim, Ms. DeSalvlo, Mr. Navarra...

Thank you very much for submitting your work...

Two Little Whos

"One of the best things about paintings is their silence - which prompts reflection and random reverie." -Mark Stevens

"Jean, the door to the storage room is jammed."
"Are you sure?"
-brief pause while our protagonists go the locale of said door-
"Hannah. This is the gallery. The storage room is over here."
"Oh. No wonder the combination didn't work."

Day nine. It's Wednesday afternoon and I'm doing a couple extra hours since Cynthia will be in New Jersey on Friday. It would seem that the doors in Brodie are all conspiring against me. It didn't help that I had absolutely no idea where the storage room was in the first place and spent a solid five minutes wandering around looking for a door with a combination lock. I have a sneaking suspicion that whoever planned Brodie was either addicted to Tetris or just deeply sadistic. The main point is that Brodie makes absolutely no architectural sense.

Jean and I are in the photography room, taking pictures of the collection.

"These are 1000 watt bulbs. Holy mother."

The process is pretty basic. There's a table covered with grey paper (neutral background), with heavy-duty lamps on either side. The camera screws in to this interesting elevator-esque contraption which essentially operates as a manual zoom. I simply line up the print and snap a picture. Unfortunately, this basic task has me standing on a chair in my socks, surrounded by very toasty lamps, and sweating profusely.

Poor day to wear a fashion belt. "Jean, the worst part of this is, I know if I take my belt off at any point during the day, I'm just going to have a ring of sweat around my middle. Which is both funny and gross."

Several of the prints were of our own dear Brodie, featuring students looking all chipper and college-y.

"Oh man. These are from the seventies. Look at that hair!"

The longer I looked at the photographs (i.e. the more pictures I had to take of them), the more I was struck by the thought that these cheery-faced students were my age when these pictures were taken. And now they are most certainly not. This seems like a fairly obvious statement, but to once again realize, oh hey, this doesn't last forever, is always startling.

I think that's another reason I love art. It never really ages. Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly fine with growing older, but it's nice to know that art will remain constant. Well, art and frickin' Brodie.