As I have been preparing for each new opening at YES Gallery, more and more I've been curating sections of the space on my own before the Artist who has helped me in the past arrives to begin hanging art with me. I don't like ladders, and so from the very beginning someone I know had been helping me with hanging the work, and I also wanted to make sure that everything was done correctly in order to protect and show the art at its best. But there were some areas that the person who had been helping me wasn't understanding how to work in, and so I had started to do those on my own, and little by little I had done more and more until this time around there wasn't very much left to do except for two big walls and a few other places where I knew pretty much what I wanted, except I didn't want to climb the highest ladder myself to do it.
But in the way that sometimes happens, there was an unexpected shift and the person who has been helping me left much earlier than expected on the first day and on the second day even earlier than that. In the past I would have been completely at a loss, but this time around, though I was surprised by the unexpected change of plans and the absence of the help I thought that I would be having, I decided to just say a lot of prayers and keep on going. It was a very strange experience because the schedule change was such a surprise on both days that it could have completely left me at a loss, but what ended up happening was that I discovered that the ladder was a very stable and excellent one and that I could climb it and do the work I needed to do all by myself. I also had to move around some very heavy and bulky objects and a lot of other smaller objects too because of the decorative aspects of YES Gallery, but even those things were made possible when I just sent prayers up and said in those prayers that this needs to be done so please help me do it.
There was no other way because on the first day the person who had said they'd be helping me left earlier than planned, saying that because we'd be working late the next day it was better to stop earlier which I agreed to though that's not the way we had done it in the past or planned it this time around, and then when the next day came this person left even earlier and completely unexpectedly, when we were in the middle of beginning to work on one major wall where we had taken everything away from so everything was literally in a shambles. So I prayed and climbed the ladder and hauled and lifted and moved and hung and pounded nails and moved the ladder and pounded more nails, shifted things around and moved more things and hauled and put everything back together again. Someone I know was nearby the gallery just as I was getting ready to go and was walking out the door, and when I told her the story and that this the majority of the curating and hanging had been completely done by me, she came into the space and took a look at the walls and said she thought it was the best ever. When she looked at the wall that I had done completely on my own she said, "I love that wall!" It was truly an astonishing experience because I knew that though in the past I wouldn't have thought it was possible, I had hung the artwork in most of the space myself and the places where the person who had been helping me had done some hanging, I had been the one curating and adjusting and making sure things looked the way they needed to look.
Over the next few days more and more people came in to say how much they thought everything was so beautiful, with one very young visitor arriving who said in the way of kids these days that "this is dope!" I have received lots of very positive responses to the gallery at other times before, and many people have told me how beautiful it was, but this time just knowing that it was so much of my own vision and work that people were responding to gave me a feeling of great gratitude to God and joy in being able to do the things that had to be done to create this installation. As I completed the preparations for the opening of the new show, I found that I had to keep adjusting things the other person had done. It was such an odd experience because though I had to do that in some cases before, this time it was almost as if I was seeing everything in a different light. Someone I know had visited the gallery a few weeks ago and said that she knew that I "curated every inch of the place," and she was right. I had thought that the person who was helping me cared as much about the space as I do, but that's impossible because it's my gallery and only I can love it and care for it as much as it needs to be loved and cared for. Someone else could just look at it as a job and that was what was happening with this other person. I'm grateful for the help I had in the past, and I'm grateful for the unexpected change of plans that led me to discover that I could do all these things that I didn't thing were possible. Sometimes other people can help you do the things you want to do, but sometimes they can't because they don't understand your vision. Now that I've found the ways to do the things I was thinking I couldn't, I've found new wings that can help me fly.
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