Friday the 13th Open Thread
I'm still knee-deep in reviewing the copyedits (see yesterday's thread)...it's fun, but somewhat time-consuming.
Knowing that when today's date coincides with a Friday, it's traditionally considered an ominous sign, though, I thought I'd see what might develop in an open thread about awful mishaps in the studio and/or gallery...what's the worse thing you've ever done (and wish you could have blamed on the calendar)?
Among my many mishaps, one that was actually just a near miss was tripping with a glass of red wine in my hand at an opening (at someone else's space) and just barely not drenching a pure-white paper sculpture (by an artist who's prices are above $50K at the point). We don't serve red wine in our gallery any more for that very reason.
Feel free to share...regular blogging to resume next week.
Knowing that when today's date coincides with a Friday, it's traditionally considered an ominous sign, though, I thought I'd see what might develop in an open thread about awful mishaps in the studio and/or gallery...what's the worse thing you've ever done (and wish you could have blamed on the calendar)?
Among my many mishaps, one that was actually just a near miss was tripping with a glass of red wine in my hand at an opening (at someone else's space) and just barely not drenching a pure-white paper sculpture (by an artist who's prices are above $50K at the point). We don't serve red wine in our gallery any more for that very reason.
Feel free to share...regular blogging to resume next week.
Labels: open thread
posted by Edward_ at
8:27 AM
20 Comments:
I worked as a framer for a while and once was matting a WW2 vet ( read as older gentleman) prized signed squadron commemorative print of like remaining members of his group. I got some schmutz on the poster and as I tried to fix it, the problem just got worse, I felt like an episode of Lucy. I finally tried to spot tone it like an dust on a black and white print, that was horrible. In the end it was a pebble sized hole. I finally had to call the guy, mind you I was 21 and this guy was like the general in Dr. Strangelove. He actually was very understanding and appreciated my honesty. He got the frame for free.
Drop and give me twenty, maggot!
I worked for a small company which was founded on a Friday the 13th (we called it "Founder's Day"), so every Friday the 13th a keg of beer and snacks would "magically" appear by the back door about 3PM and we'd have a mini beer bust the rest of the day - so for me, that date has some happy memories (company long since gone through mergers). In fact, all of the "Alumni" of that company tend to get together online and have a toast on that date - tonight being no different.
And for the blog post? Red wine with white paper sculpture!?
My former partner and I both have overcrowded studios and have each had a turn at breaking the other person's work- luckily the work was mechanical and could be fixed, but still it caused some tension and remorse.
Planning on painting tonight..and as for mishaps, it doesn't necessarily have to be Friday when your paint soaked brush dips into your glass of vodka+??? instead of your water and ends up intoxicating your canvas ;)
I had just finished modelling a terra cotta portrait bust and was enjoying a cup of coffee with the sitter, both of us admiring our work, when to our dismay, the bust fell off the modelling stand. The bust was a write-off. Thankfully my sitter was able to laugh it off. We never did another bust though.
$50,0000 for a paper sculpture? Paper as in will rot away in under a decade paper or are we talking paper with a shelf life? Rich people have money to burn but I've come to the conclusion that most wealthy people are insane. More power to the artist who sales for that price.
Can I show up to your gallery today in a hockey mask and just kind of stand? HEH. Have you ever had to kick anyone out of your gallery?
Let's see, there was the time someone left the gallery door open while the gallery owner and I were hanging some art, and my blind dog wandered out into traffic. I thought he was a goner, but a good samaritan stopped and rescued him.
Then there was the opening where the neighborhood lush showed up completely smashed and nearly damaged several pieces of art (gallery owner had to call the police).
Neither was Friday the 13th, but they should have been. Alas, the gallery is now closed. But we had some good times.
Why not 5 minutes ago I was hanging sheetrock on my bathroom ceiling (roof leak led to mold, so whole thing had to be ripped out and redone). Arms getting shaky, I dropped the sheetrock and my drill and broke the lid to my toilet tank! Happy Friday the 13th indeed!! Many bad words were said. I'll take some of that vodka+++ now.
My bathroom is not a studio or gallery, of course.
Worst art accident was some years ago banging up a painting the day before a show and spending the next 24 hrs sanding out the crack and repainting.
Charles
While unpacking a Robert Ryman, an ex-girlfriend casually tossed aside the Ryman, which she thought was packing material at the time.
Over the course of two weeks in grad school I broke three full length mirrors. . . according to the laws governing such things my bad luck should run out in about two years from now (if the seven years had to be served consecutively). I'm looking forward to those blissfully unlucky days ahead.
Nothing bad has ever happened to me in the studio or a gallery that I recall.
I think I breathed in some solvents which put me in a near suicidal funk for 4 days. Because what else would do that?
In scupture class I was annealing some spring steel from the junk yard (no shit) and it sprang (like duh) right out of the vice, poking me in the arm (the scar is still there 15 years on but it wern't no big deal).
Moral: just say no to working rusty spring steel.
Before that in shop class in high school I chipped some hot slag off a weld and it hit me right there the nose meets the eye.
Moral: Wear your safety goggles, kids, even if you can't see what you are doing. You'll feel safer.
Not mine:
Guggenheim: Obsidian Aztec artifact comes off of its mount and rolls onto the floor, shattering into (x) pieces. I'm not sure what happened to the meatball.
Giggenheim: Art handler (independent contractor) gets donged by a heavy steel sculpture. Has bad back for rest of life. No insurance. No other job. Raw deal.
Zip, I knew you were a sculptor...
That happen actually Sunday
at Armory
I visit the fair earlier because was less people around
I was walking around the amazing maze of Armory.
When I felt, I was stepping in something different than regular floor... I panic, by mistake I was stepping in somebody art work, I just run out of the place, afraid to face anybody. I just short my stay there because of that...Feeling kind guilt, but tell you the true the piece in question, look like a sample from Home Depot.
This wasn't a disaster, just kind of a funny mistake. I once showed someone a giant de Kooning drawing while wearing only a tiny short slip (underwear, basically) and barefoot. I was in bed and the doorbell rang and I thought it was someone else, but once he saw me in my slip I decided to just go with it. He didn't seem to mind.
Hmm, maybe gallerists should work in their lingerie to keep sales up.
In the days of book publishing before computers: ripping a transparency in half while removing the designer's mark-up paper stuck onto it rather than the mount. Only the original (not dupe) photo of some rare plant taken on a trip to some remote corner of the world...
Not a Friday the 13th story, but all too true. It was told to me by the framer, who has a great setup with long tables, overhead air compressors to dust off schmutz, and a lot of people to do the work. She'd just hired a new worker, showed him the setup, explained how the compressed air functioned and gave him a work on paper to frame.
It was a pastel. Do I need to tell you what happened? The newbie, being conscientious, kept blasting that pastel until every last bit of pigment had been blown off the paper. He then framed the ghostly remains.
I was looking for light bulbs in a friends studio. I shouldn't have been there, but I had keys b/c it used to be my studio.
There was a piece of plywood leaned against a work table. I tilted it away from the table to look at the shelves underneath... and heard a loud crash.
I had broken a $1000 piece of hand-blown glass. It was leaning against the plywood, and was to be used in a piece of custom-made furniture.
I apologized and made good, but it was horrible.
joanne -- that's hilarious!
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