This is the point we have all been waiting for….the final show…. a major marker of the completion of our degrees. Yesterday started to throw up some technical problems for me and I realised that with a bit more fore-thought, I could have had a much less stressful experience!
When I embarked on making the sculptural elements / forms for my final show, at that point I had not had a full understanding of how it was all going to come together. My art is often the result of chance happenings; the evolution of my piece was like this and I had not considered the finer points of putting it all together for display. In many ways I like the fact that my art is not too considered and planned, as I find that an exciting element in my experience of making. The reverse is also true (especially in this case) as a bit more planning may have led to a ‘smoother’ curatory experience.
The major glitch yesterday, was that the ‘flying’ sculptures I had created and happily hung in the workshop on thickish wire, were quite difficult to hang on the fishing / invisible line I had purchased. I had seen this as a fairly straightforward affair, but had under-estimated how difficult it was going to be to get them hanging and balanced. Also in piercing them with an extra long home-made needle I had created to thread the line, one had started to become a little damaged. All the problems are repairable, but as stated, a little fore thought would have made life a lot easier. It also made me think that I need to consider the longer term durability of my art works.
Although I am now awaiting my astro-turf to arrive, I also made the decision to paint the front of my space and the public walkway outside of it. It seemed a bit silly not to use available time to complete any tasks possible. I am totally aware that however much we complete now, the next seven or eight days leading up to the formal assessment and Final Show will be busy and frantic!
Further curatorial considerations I am pondering at the moment, are around how many of my structures to put into my space. I am very aware that in the past I have over-done it… I think that it is only once my astro turf floor covering is down, that I will really be able to judge this further.
