Shifting into Overdrive

Only two weeks till the exhibit opens. Here is how my Friday went: arrived on campus at 7:30 am, taught at 8am and again at 9am. Talked to a student, at 10 am, about research for next fall’s exhibit and then taught my third course (the new prep) at 11. At noon, I got a quick bite to eat and headed down to the museum at 12:30. And there I stayed until 6:15 (sigh); me, the foam core board, the spray mount, and the xacto-knives. Such fun. I set up shop right outside the door (can’t use that adhesive inside) and went to work—spraying, smoothing, and trimming. Whew, about 35 pieces in all. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, Mr. Guest Curator (MGC) showed up to do some writing (he'd already been in, much earlier, to be interviewed by our campus PR office). Having the both of us work on different things at the same time was good. He could advise me how he wanted certain items trimmed and I could help edit aloud as he wrote text for the introductory panel. For someone high on spray adhesive, I still had a pretty good lexicon of descriptors and other museum lingo. Yesterday, I went in from 2-5:30 and had the entire place to myself (though I ran into our Chair once or twice when I went up to my office to get a new can of adhesive). I finished up all the pieces that were ready for me—another 28, and neatly leaned them against an exhibit case for maximum impact the next time MGC came in.



He had already taken the ones I prepped on Friday and lined them up against the various walls on which they’ll be hung. Some are pretty hilarious; others are just too racist to be funny. But that’s the point, after all. The collection in its entirety is such a statement. I finished the last two pieces with a cut to the thumb that I had to wrap in paper towels to keep from dripping on the artwork (I use that term loosely). Between that and my near asphyxiation from the spray adhesive, it is a wonder I made it home that night. This scrabble board (which I did have to read/play upside down) bears witness to the loss of brain cells. (I’m hoping to play again when this exhibit is up and see if I can manage a word more than 6 letters long.) Too bad the text panels are still to come. And all the actual label copy. And the time line for the north wall. Bring on the oxygen mask.

Today, I had to go in to let MGC into the building and museum. MP1 (who was home for the night) went with me and we dropped off a HUGE load of her clothes (yep, there’s an empty closet in this house). Their apartment is really looking cute, I must say—the kitchen is so clean and new.

Before we left campus, I took a few minutes to upload some changes I had made earlier this morning to one of the museum’s web pages. This past January, when MP1 and 2 bought Macs, I was browsing the Net in the store and noticed that the right edge of this one particular page (kind of buried in the website, but a recent program addition) was chopped off on the right. I was really horrified, at the time, to see how this formatting problem happened in Mozilla, but within a couple weeks, I was just too busy teaching to care. I thought about it again this past summer, but also decided, “Ah, who cares—almost everyone uses Explorer.” (Denial, denial, denial.) THEN, for some reason this week (maybe it was 2 applicants emailing me about our job posting?), I realized that probably 30 times the normal traffic will be winding its way through out Departmental website to find out just who the hell we are and I decided it was just too crappy looking to leave the way it was now that everyone seems to be using Macs. So, now it’s done. One thing that will look ever so slightly less-lame to internet visitors. On to those readings for tomorrow…only 12 more weeks to go.