Saturday, September 30, 2006

 
DAY TWENTY-FIVE: PROVIDENCE V

A late bedtime, a late wake-up, and vague plans melt into a time-pressed day that ends in a bewildering farce.

Scott needs to finish preparing his photographs to bring to the show installation in Boston, and Jen must get ready to go meet a friend who might be teetering on the edge of crisis, also in Boston. I'm thinking about going to the new ICA building on the waterfront, but the reality of what needs to get done today overtakes these thoughts. Scott is burnt-out and I help him get everything to the gallery.

A woman named Lee put the show together and found this gallery, Laconia, to show it. It is in the lobby of a residential complex. When we arrive, we also meet Candy, a volunteer who lives there and is wearing an apron. This is our first tip-off. The next one is that we must use their complicated high-maintenance hardware to hang five of the images in the front space. This takes us no less than three hours. Candy visits us periodically to give critical passive agressive comments, like we used the wrong colored leader. Lee and I commiserate on the unrelenting and controlling nature of Candy, unsure of what is going on (is she for real?).

Jen arrives and graciously gets burritos for dinner. As we sit in front of the next five images to be hung and eat our dinner, Candy stages a masterfully dramatic scene about cancelling her plans for the evening because we are taking so long to finish, and completes it with a grand exit and barely-muffled huff. It's the sort of thing that leaves all mouths agape.

A half a burrito later, Scott and I hang the photos, with L hooks, in 40 minutes. Candy returns without a nod to her previous performance and makes sure Scott understands how lucky he is to have this opportuity to show in this gallery. And makes more comments that fuel our entire ride to back to Providence. We leave at 8:00pm

She seemed hung up on the fact we arrived at 3:30 and not noon, but this requirement was not made clear to Lee nor Scott, nor the requirement that we leave at 6:00. It appears like a small matter, but the snippy world-owning person that she is was revealed to us over it. Scott wants to make her a sympathy card that reads "So sorry for the loss..." (open card) "...of your life."

Jon Lausten, an artist in the show, vacuums his building construction sculpture.

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