Week after show

Following the show and its opening a few of the artworks have been purchased. In order to reflect this, red dots have been placed alongside and the website updated to reflect this. Some of the paintings have been taken out of the show to be photographed for archiving and packed away.

For the next three hours we are summoned to re-hang a lot of the private collection upstairs as a lot of it has collected dust and newer ones put in their place. This takes a good 3 hours as there were 20 or so specific instructions on where things had to be hung, at what level and what to replace them with.

It pays to write all of these things down to save yourself for being yelled at the end of the day. Due to this being a commercial gallery, there is a buyers room and paintings have to be showcased there for the prospective buyer to sit down with the manager and negotiate a price. This room has to be kept very tidy, to impress the buyer and the paintings are laid out to specific mathematical instructions. That work continues on today....

Post show

After the hanging of the show last Thursday, the private opening dinner was held on the Friday and the public opening was held on Saturday. That Friday was quite a busy day to say the least. It started off with having to clean up parts of the show, so everything looked spick and span.

Walls had to painted and spack filled to hide any pencil marks or holes left from hanging. Once this had been done, plinths had been laid out to showcase some of the artist's journals and sketches, they were extremely heavy and required 3 people to move.

Once this had been finished we had been summoned to the kitchen to help guest chef Tony Billson prep for the evening, which was an experience in itself which led to me having to drive to the Chef's Warehouse in his car to collect some new trays as the ones we had brought previously had holes in them and the fat would just drip out.

Between the prepping and serving the tables which were hired had to be set and cutlery laid. Then for the rest of the night mainly waiting tables and pouring drinks while the owners and artists gave speeches.

That was a busy day/night with a 9.00am start and finishing at 11.00pm!!

What's hanging

Today is the big day, as one of our artists has his big show opening this evening. Yesterday we had spent the whole day hanging and positioning the paintings, not an easy feat.

However the formula used by another of the employees made it a lot more simpler.

For example, the width of the inside canvas minus the interior frame plus the 62 inches as the bottom limit of where all the paintings hang, regardless of the height. This formula is the basis for how all the paintings are hung in this exhibition as given as instructed by the curator. Once all the markings have been on the centre, two arbitrary marks are placed in a T shape on either side to mark where the screws are placed to hold the painting in place.

Once they have all been marked, they are ready to be drilled with guiding holes, then the screw is finally inserted about an inch out to hold the painting in place. Then we add the screws and the painting is ready to be hung.

Aside from taking the bins out running around getting all the food and drink ready for the opening night tomorrow, everything has been hung. Now the walls just need a lick of paint to cover the pencil marks and it shall be ready...

Week 2

Back to work, it's week 2, have the opening of the gallery and setting up down pat. No more dawdling then accidentally letting the alarm go off...Today we have a new intern start and I have to show her the ropes by collecting the mail and papers for he owner to read and cut new keys.

A big show is expected for this weekend so printing 750 invitations and putting them in envelopes with price sheets has taken up the vast majority of our time today...three hours later it is already time to drive them down to the post office praying that it's not too late before the post goes out.

These last minute rushes are to be expected when there's staff shortages. More tomorrow...

Day one

First day of the internship...really had no idea what to expect, and probably this was the best way of experiencing it as I was in for something I would have never expected. First off, had to run down the newsagency to grab the newspaper and collect the mail. Then went around the gallery for the safety induction which was very thorough and the owner pointed out all the fire exits, etc.

Then after getting all the paperwork I had to do some arranging of paintings onto racks split into the owner's collection and those to be returned to the artist. This took a few hours until I was summoned to set up for lunch as the owner had a big lunch on with a couple of the artists. Apparently this happens every Thursday and I would have to keep this in mind that it will eat into a lot of time required for other tasks. Unfortunately on this day of all days the lift broke down with the ice for the drinks inside and we had to make a quick mercy dash to the bottle-o to retrieve some more ice.

As you can see, nothing is predictable. For the rest of the day, I revolved around cleaning up after the lunch, entering new collections onto the gallery website and placing posters of previous shows into frames.

The owner has gone to Brisbane this weekend and he had told me how to set up and close the gallery. Well, tomorrow will be a lot quieter with spending more time on the floor and assisting customers with their enquiries. The fun continues......

The beginning

Hello people! My first post and my internship starts next Thursday I am so excited after sending thousands of emails across the country to all sorts of galleries, public and private, big and small and finally I landed a placement after walking right into a gallery, calling them the next day and I find out they have a place open on Thursday and Fridays whilst one of their staff is overseas.

I get an email back, walk into the gallery and have a chat with the owner and he seemed impressed about this course and all of my previous experience and hires me on the spot. I have never had anything offered to me so easily like that. I was chuffed.

He had taken me up to the storage room and explained to me that I will mainly be doing the hands on stuff which I love and will perfectly balance out my sedentary office job the other 3 days, drilling, hanging and shifting and maybe some canvas stretching which I haven't done in over 5 years or so.

I also discussed him the topic of my research paper on the necessity for Blockbuster Exhibitions and agreed with me on their existence is necessary for the arts to survive in Australia. I was so pleased by all this it seems like everything is in place.

We'll see how we go after my next blog post after Thursday.