hanging out

I hung my solo show at Blue today! I am really glad I asked Anna Low about her experience at Blue because her feedback made choosing my work a lot easier. I had initially considered having both paintings and collages on display, but when Anna mentioned that large pieces worked better in that space than small pieces, I decided to stick with just paintings. I ended up hanging 9 pieces (8 along the long wall next to the performance space, and one on a little wall "bump" across the room and above a table), all of which were either 16" x 20" or 18" x 24". I brought along two small paintings just in case, but after trying them in a couple of different spots, I decided to save them for the Gorham Art Fair this weekend.

The hanging process itself went pretty quickly; in fact, Terez said I was able to put my work up faster than anyone has in the past. The setup at Blue is different from any other place I've ever shown, and I really liked it. Rather than having artists put holes in the wall that will need to be spackled and painted over and over again, they have a long metal rack mounted along the wall, close to the ceiling. This rack has a series of movable S-hooks; each S-hook has a long piece of framing wire suspended from it with a picture hook attached at the bottom. The painting hangs on the picture hook, and this allows the artwork to be displayed without holes, nails, or pushpins. A little fun-tak helps unruly pieces stay in place...thankfully Terez had plenty on hand so I could do just that and still hang my tags and my artist's statement. I did forget one tag, though, so I will need to make sure I have it ready to go on Friday. All in all, it was a smooth process...I even managed to score a parking spot right across the street, and the meter still had about 40 minutes left on it! Woo-hoo!