The ceiling was a nightmare. A wrongly measured, badly cut nightmare that took several students and several attempts to firstly, get it up on the structure to discover it was wrong, and secondly, try to twist it around due to me insisting that yes, itwould fit. Well, it didn’t. This conclusion was only reached by the end of the day however, when all our student-helpers had gone home, leaving me, spindle-armed with my not-so-spindle-armed boyfriend, to take the whole thing down ourselves with huge damage to the costly flexi-ply. I was quite grateful for my (by then) developed skills in wood-filler, meaning I could wood-fill the newly created huge, black split in the top of the wall.
Once re-cut, the ceiling did drop in, as it should, though this time we were wiser and erected it in two parts. I then spent the rest of the week (two weeks, I suppose) re-painting and refilling every flaw that there was at least six times. I used a lot of layers of paint on the structure, and about half as much on the inside, but am pleased to say that once the ceiling was repainted, wood-filled and sealed, the natural light spotlights were so effective that I never had to worry about artificial lighting (or the guts of a fridge-freezer) again.
The show is now up with everything done and dusted. The floor was vinyled in black with minimal bubbles or creases, and the curtain rail was put up with just one small error that was corrected. The velvety curtains were sewn together with welcome help from my sewing-machine wiz mother, and look fantastically thick and dark in contrast to the chalk white antechamber doorway. The studio floor was scratched, scraped and scrubbed by me and some friends, (to whom I am eternally grateful), and the embroideries were put up in a surprisingly successful fashion involving brass pins and picture hooks. They now hover away from the wall, tilted towards the light, catching it, reflecting it, and gleaming in the illusion of darkness that so resembles an observatory in an alien world.
The private view was a huge success, and a welcome one given the two weeks spent painting a wall mural (and tidying up the furry edges of the paint that bled underFrog Tape with specialised ‘paint block’ technology). I felt it worked pretty well, wrapping around the strange, igloo like structure, pinpointing the galaxies. I had fantastic feedback from all those who viewed the piece, which made it all the more worthwhile, and was thrilled to yesterday see one of my embroideries placed in a display cabinet at the Museum of the History of Science, here in Oxford. It’s there for the week, so go look at it, if you have a chance. And come to see the show, too. Not just to appreciate the blood, sweat and tears that went into the creation of the (now titled) Cosmos, but also to see the array of other works that are all fantastic, all well worth seeing, and that I enjoyed exploring as much as I enjoyed exploring the creation of mine. It’s on for the week (until Saturday the 12th!) so do go see it.
Check outhttp://www.brookesdegreeshow.com/ for a taster of what you’ll be missing out on if you don’t.
