Well, it's been a long haul, but tomorrow it all comes to an end. Tomorrow will see the completion of a thirteen day work cycle without a day off. Time flies when you're having fun... and when you're extremely busy, so in all honesty, since I was both, I can't really say I've been suffering. What I am is tired. Extraordinarily tired. I feel like I could sleep for a week and rather wish I could, but since I can't, I'll take as much time as I can in bed this weekend.

Putting together this show was a pretty amazing experience quite unlike those I'd had before. Many of the Arts Centre staff pitched in to help, mainly from the Gallery, but the theatre's technical director set the gallery lights today and did a marvellous job of it. He really brought the carved antler portraits to life. It's amazing just what the setting of a light can do. The teamwork exhibited was superb, with a genuine feeling of comraderie, which is not to say there wasn't sniping, bitching, and complaining, but overall, we all worked well together and shared the load.

It's humourous to me that I spent as much time as I did (which is to say, a lot) writing up condition reports, first for the out-going show and then for the incoming show. Apparently, I do a perfectly good job of condition reporting so nyaahh to my collections management instructor who said it wasn't my thing. Of course, I also spent a lot of time taking hangers off the backs of work and affixing better ones, rolling paint on walls, scraping spackle into holes and other sundry activities. It was today's activity that I quite possibly enjoyed the most. This will possibly sound fairly anal and strangely compulsive coming from someone who generally comes across as pretty laid-back, but truly, applying the vinyl titles to the walls today was a great deal of fun.

Working mainly with Matt, one of the preparators, with some assistance from Sarah the intern, I got to put up three titles on the wall. Have you ever wondered how those big letters get pasted up on the walls? Sure, sometimes they're painted or screened on, but often they're printed vinyl. Like a cross between car window clings and gigantic Letraset, these titles were massive poster lengths of text sandwiched between sheets of coated paper that had to be peeled off (from underneath) and pressed onto the wall with special rubber-spatula-type tools. Before we could do any of that, though, we had to measure, line up, centre, level and tack up each line in the place we wanted it. While levels and tape measures were made use of, so were our eyes. Matt had to agree, I am something of a human level. It also turns out I'm a pretty excellent judge of inches. We bonded while we worked and laughed a lot, which was a foil to the tension of the job. Once a letter is up on the wall, it's very difficult to get it off or reapply it so with each line we only really got one chance to get it right. And, with only minor set-backs and hitches (tears, bubbles, etc.), we did it.

The opening itself was pretty good. It was well attended and everyone seemed to have a fairly good time. People actually looked at the art, discussed it, and stuck around until almost ten o'clock. The Curator had to actually start herding the remaining people out the door. I didn't get home until after eleven o'clock and I'm really tired now. Tomorrow, I get to lead a group of people from, and visiting, the Chamber of Commerce on a tour of the new gallery show. I wonder what I'll say. Heh. I'm sure I'll think of something.