Hang hanged hung pt 2

I went over to the gallery Wednesday the 29th and finished a lot of the hanging of the original work. I also did a lot of finishing on the book and got that to the printer, though the covers were still being done. Things were moving but still scary...



When I went in Thursday to hang stuff I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I had gotten the covers printed earlier that day so I knew that was going well (more on the book later) but I was getting a little scared about all the wheatpasting I had to do. I had never done it on this scale and I didn't have time to mess up. Luckily the rain was all gone...



And luckily I had a helper. The great photographer and artist Will May showed up, unasked, to help for a few hours. He and I figured out the glue-to-water ratio and started glueing, first with Geof Huth's work.



I quickly learned a few things:
1.The glue shouldn't be too runny.
2.You can just coat the back of the paper and then slap it on a cover the top and it will hold without too many wrinkles.
3. Planning composition too much doesn't work well.



So I started using a more thick glue mix and a more freestyle composing technique. Once Will had to leave we were through Huth and on to Café Royal. I'll pause here to, once again, thank Will for his great help both swinging a glue-brush and talking to me about everything. He has a really great show up here in Cville right now - I'll post images soon.




After Will left I kept glueing through Café Royal and then Craig Atkinson. It was a little crazy - I had pages spread out all over and I just grabbed ones I liked and slapped them up. I started with a grid of sorts but that broke down and there were overlaps and weird joints. I deliberately put images near the ground that I thought my kids would like!

Somewhere in the middle of the melee I walked over to Belmont BBQ and got some food. Great BBQ and fries, comfort food. Greasy victory.




Soon I was through Craig and on to André Lemos and Opuntia Books. André's work was all up and rather than take it down I covered it all with garbage bags and kept heaving glue. I tried to keep Opuntia's artists work together more, but it still got all mixed up.



I put some posters at either end of their section and started getting clever with composition, putting some heads at the top and some weird animal/people at the bottom. Mostly I tried to mix up color and BW and make it look interesting and alive.




When I finally passed out Thursday I could see the end - way off, but there. More to hang, a little more to paste, a book to assemble and a thousand other small things to attend to, but the end was in sight.

Next: Books, shelves and a Franklin. Oh, and victory.