Week 1 – Part 2
We have a great team of volunteers and tuned into the work already – I knew this immediately because when I was told about the non-appearance of the main frame and the main technician, Benoit, Lyn and Genevieve saw my disappointment and started to compensate with positive ideas about what we could do with our time before the frame arrives as well as about the experiments needed to establish hanging issues. Three of the team are students at UWE on the Drawing and Applied Arts course and have had experience of hanging their work using fishing wire, which is a bonus! Time was spent till Wednesday going through all the gifts and transferring the label numbers onto them with gold pen, as well as establishing what the production line process for getting the objects up as quickly as possible would be.
Rosie, one of the two museum apprentices (the other is Casey) who have been assigned to helping me, has been helping Becky the designer finalise the proofing of the postcards and floor texts for The Gifts (1-99) so I have had to some proofing as well as final looks at the catalogue which looks beautiful and went to print on Thursday. Simon, the designer who is project managing, has started work on transferring the The Gifts (1-99) grid I supplied to the mirrored circular disc that they will drill holes in and hang objects from.
I initially thought that with 2 pairs of people we could get it all hung in 5 days. I have revised this since we spent all of Thursday and Friday hanging one row and a half. However, these are the two crucial outside rows, which determine the line of the whole piece – which I had plotted out on a graph, and we are taking the figures from that- so they were bound to be more time consuming. We have learnt a lot from the way we worked over this week and from tomorrow things will speed up and I know more surely that it will flow. The line looks good and the height works I need to focus on what is hanging already rather than what is on the ground.
I have been staying with Julia, the curator who has been a brilliant support as always, getting hands on as well as standing back to take on board where we are at. Tomorrow Rosa arrives with to start installing her work and I am curious to see how our two worlds meet and reflect, I am excited to see her work in the flesh and to see this new, temporary universe unfold …transforming the space and us.
