Install and Opening Night Reflections
My experience so far with "what you bring to the table" at Slip Gallery.
What is it like to create artwork consistently and quietly?
To wake up each day and go to the studio, passing the hours in contemplation, research, creation.
What’s it like to not find it painful?
Focus-induced headaches and awkward body placement and lifting lifting lifting.
I am surely getting stronger.
Paddling and climbing walls and dancing.
I am also older and experiencing the weight of more years.
Easy aches and lists of doctors appointments I must make.
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I wrote this while gallery sitting on Saturday, the day after the Belltown Artwalk and opening reception for the show I curated, “what you bring to the table”. It was about halfway through my 6 hour shift, and I was suffering from a headache, something that has been happening frequently since I injured myself climbing a few weeks ago. Reading it now it feels dramatic and silly, a “processing poem” I wouldn’t normally share.
Install highlights
Let’s back up to show install, which happened during the couple of days leading up to Friday’s opening event. All artists showed up on Wednesday night with their individual artworks and the components to create our collaborative place setting piece. We worked together to decide whose pieces would live where, the various elements of each setting speaking for themselves while overlapping and complementing each other. It was one of the most fun and rewarding art processes I’ve been a part of in a while!
On Thursday I returned to hang up the rest of the artworks and signage. This always takes longer than I expect between moving things around to find their perfect place and remembering how to properly hang things at eye height and spaced well. The day was made fun by others doing their own things in the gallery and by Yam (one of the artists) helping me get things on the wall. I am proud of myself for asking for help with the install process. Not only was it fun, it saved me a lot of time, stress, and feelings of isolation.
Opening reception and Belltown Artwalk
In short, the night went very well. The Belltown Artwalk always brings out lots of people. It was so nice to see folks interact with the artwork and watch the dance performance. I sold one of my embroidered poem pieces, and Yam sold her “Fried Egg” rice and lentil piece. Lots of friends came out to support, and despite being very tired I left that night feeling like it was a success.
I received feedback that the artworks speak well to each other and create a few different dialogues. They seem to be divided between basic foodstuffs (Yam named one section the “farmers market wall”) and much more processed, brightly colored components with lots of human intervention. I love how this mirrors the modern experience of food and consumption.
The artists’ relationships with food are clear in each piece, and they are all relatable in their own ways. The person who purchased my piece, “Interview with a Knife” said it reminded him of a Theodore Roosevelt quote he loves. People enjoyed playing with the interactive elements of the place setting piece: Claire’s homemade food ink, paper, and quills and Greta’s tapestry asking how people control their food. I have noticed that the process of walking around the table feels ritualistic: a new route added to the classic gallery perusal of the outer walls.
I am extremely glad that it worked out to have “The Table” dance piece performed live. It features Nikki and Lisa from Alana O. Rogers Dance Company, and you can watch an edited recording of it in the gallery for the rest of the show run through October 5th. Alana is an awesome human who also is a physical therapist for performing artists, and I got connected with her earlier this year to try and address the hip issues that were keeping me from attending ballet classes as much as I’d like to. I’ll write more on my own dance experiences in a future post, but in short my connection with the art form means I have wanted to curate a visual art show that also features dancers. I reached out about participating in this show, and Alana and the dancers truly brought it all to the table with the resulting piece about human missed connection. They activated the Slip Gallery space in a unique and engaging way.
Events like this always leave me so tired. It’s a very important three hour culmination of lots of hard work: the one event that will bring this many people streaming through the gallery. With just one chance to get it right, I worry the whole time that I’ve set something up wrong: that the sales process isn’t simple enough or the flow is awkward or I should be talking to people more. I wore my new hearing aid the whole night which helped cut the usual abrasiveness of sound in the echoey gallery, but it introduced a new experience that left me feeling more quickly sapped of energy. Ultimately, I learned a lot and I’m glad it’s over.
What I have learned so far
I got into show organizing originally because I was craving community. However, in practice it’s very easy for me to push others away in favor of handling (controlling) it all myself. This leads me to probably the biggest piece I have learned in putting together “what you bring to the table”: it’s time I admit that I need more artist connection and less putting myself out there into the void of public display.
I am craving more critique nights and coworking gatherings and blog posts, less grant writing and budgets and marketing. If it were a matter of putting on shows to support myself financially it would be a different story; as it is I don’t make money from them, and in fact I’m lucky if I make back the amount I sink into each show.
So, I need to let this one be the last show for a while that I organize. I did not give myself enough time after the closing of Living Artists Collective to truly grieve and anchor back into my artistic practice. I also barely made any new work in preparation for “what you bring to the table”; usually imposing a deadline encourages me to create, but this time didn’t quite work out that way. The next time I organize a show will be because I want to show off a new series, or because I get an idea that I cannot possibly hold back from sharing. And even then, I will get others on board to help from the start.
What else is going on in my life
Most of the updates I gave in my last post are in a similar status, despite it feeling like a ton has happened in the past couple weeks. I hosted my monthly arts leaders meeting at Slip Gallery to show off “what you bring to the table”, which prompted a pretty cool conversation about what it means to curate a show, as well as to offer and request feedback from fellow artists. The folks who show up to these meetings really inspire me and provide great examples of the real life connections I want to continue pursuing.
I feel like I am doing well at considering myself first when deciding what to do with my time. In my life I have tried to avoid being selfish at all costs, and it turns out that when I don’t consider what I want I lose myself entirely. I definitely want to write a future post on what the word “selfish” means to me.
Thank you for following along with my journey. There’s two more events happening for “what you bring to the table”: a still life tableau co-create session on the 28th 6-9pm and our closing party potluck on Oct 5th 6-9pm. RSVP for these events here. You can also catch gallery hours on Thursdays 1-6pm, Fridays 4-7pm, and Saturdays 12-6pm. I’ll be there every Saturday if you want to say hi. In the meantime, please subscribe to this Substack for free, check out my website, and invite me for coffee or to have a studio visit.
website: alainaarts.com
email: alainaarts@gmail.com
insta: @gobbeldigook