the potholder rises (Armory)
A show! A show!
I live for shows. I love shows. Especially when MY work is on display. I am now in the throes of hanging The Longest Potholder in yet another show, readying a space for its Potholder Lengthening Event.
Ah yes, HANGING the potholder. If my nice Jewish parents saw what I had to do to hang at Armory Northwest, they would probably tie me up and shoot me, preempting an inevitable, undignified fall to paralysis and death.
I was never a terribly sportive little girl. I loved music, books, dolls, making doll clothes and puppets. Geek that I was, I even loved school (academics) and Hebrew school. Did I enjoy sports? No. Soccer? Never. Baseball? Haw. Basketball? HAW haw. I threw like a girl. I ran like a klutz. I caught like a, well, I don't think I ever caught anything. Did I ever even clamber up the monkey bars? I doubt it.
In this show, my lovely long potholder is being hung mostly from the ceiling, which soars up to about 20 feet, and probably more. Do you like that "being hung" phrase? That lovely use of passive voice? "Being hung" by whom? I'll give you three guesses.
Which means I get to have the childhood I never had, climbing up and down, up and down, up and down, and up and down the [monkey bars!] moveable scaffolding. A sight that is (as the hipsters say these days) hiiiiiiiigh-larious.
When the preparator ("show hanger") Mike Hernandez showed me how to climb the scaffolding, he scurried up like a squirrel, all speed and grace. "Get inside and underneath." "Climb up to the first scaffold." "Then all the way to the top." Piece of cake.
It sure is if you are Mike Hernandez. Even an actual squirrel couldn't pull this off.
OK, so I'm short, OK? I can't even get to first base without a step stool. But even though I am short, I'm not short ENOUGH to get underneath without a few lumps on my head. When I try to slip gracefully under the x-shaped metal-tube bracing, I knock my head on it about a third of the time. [Or I get my hair caught.] Each time dragging my 30-lb. little red stepping stool/toolkit.
So, from little red, I grasp a bar above my head and find a lower bar for the first footstep. In this single motion I discover that little red is as still and stable, while the scaffolding is, well, not. Yowza. Once on bar #1, I step up about 16 inches to bar #2. Wobbling. I grab the bar above me to get steady, move the dangling other foot up to rest on the same bar. Wobbling. The bars are not a "ladder. There is no slant. They go straight up. So any "jutting protuberances" have to be accomodated. And, as I go higher, I clasp these bars like the lover I wish I had, hanging on for dear life and hauling myself and whatever I am carrying up, up, up.
When I get to "scaffold #1," merely a way station to the top, I twist to slide my tush over it and sit down, feeling (you guessed it) those lovely splinters you-know-where. I swing my legs up and find myself lying down on this wooden platform, white with plaster dust, paint, wood dust, and dust dust. And I am lying in it. Then kneeling. Then, while standing up, I repeat the earlier procedure (thankfully, no "little red" needed). And find myself, prone, on the top.
Standing up, having nothing to "hold onto," I shuffle around in tiny footsteps (wobble wobble), putting nails into the wooden beams of the ceiling (wobble wobble), trying not to hit my head on the low beams or the large pipes, and trying not to drop my tools accidentally over the edge.
Going v e r y , v e r y s l o w l y .
We open on October 7, from 6 to 10 pm.
Will I be finished?
I live for shows. I love shows. Especially when MY work is on display. I am now in the throes of hanging The Longest Potholder in yet another show, readying a space for its Potholder Lengthening Event.
Ah yes, HANGING the potholder. If my nice Jewish parents saw what I had to do to hang at Armory Northwest, they would probably tie me up and shoot me, preempting an inevitable, undignified fall to paralysis and death.
I was never a terribly sportive little girl. I loved music, books, dolls, making doll clothes and puppets. Geek that I was, I even loved school (academics) and Hebrew school. Did I enjoy sports? No. Soccer? Never. Baseball? Haw. Basketball? HAW haw. I threw like a girl. I ran like a klutz. I caught like a, well, I don't think I ever caught anything. Did I ever even clamber up the monkey bars? I doubt it.
In this show, my lovely long potholder is being hung mostly from the ceiling, which soars up to about 20 feet, and probably more. Do you like that "being hung" phrase? That lovely use of passive voice? "Being hung" by whom? I'll give you three guesses.
Which means I get to have the childhood I never had, climbing up and down, up and down, up and down, and up and down the [monkey bars!] moveable scaffolding. A sight that is (as the hipsters say these days) hiiiiiiiigh-larious.
When the preparator ("show hanger") Mike Hernandez showed me how to climb the scaffolding, he scurried up like a squirrel, all speed and grace. "Get inside and underneath." "Climb up to the first scaffold." "Then all the way to the top." Piece of cake.
It sure is if you are Mike Hernandez. Even an actual squirrel couldn't pull this off.
OK, so I'm short, OK? I can't even get to first base without a step stool. But even though I am short, I'm not short ENOUGH to get underneath without a few lumps on my head. When I try to slip gracefully under the x-shaped metal-tube bracing, I knock my head on it about a third of the time. [Or I get my hair caught.] Each time dragging my 30-lb. little red stepping stool/toolkit.
So, from little red, I grasp a bar above my head and find a lower bar for the first footstep. In this single motion I discover that little red is as still and stable, while the scaffolding is, well, not. Yowza. Once on bar #1, I step up about 16 inches to bar #2. Wobbling. I grab the bar above me to get steady, move the dangling other foot up to rest on the same bar. Wobbling. The bars are not a "ladder. There is no slant. They go straight up. So any "jutting protuberances" have to be accomodated. And, as I go higher, I clasp these bars like the lover I wish I had, hanging on for dear life and hauling myself and whatever I am carrying up, up, up.
When I get to "scaffold #1," merely a way station to the top, I twist to slide my tush over it and sit down, feeling (you guessed it) those lovely splinters you-know-where. I swing my legs up and find myself lying down on this wooden platform, white with plaster dust, paint, wood dust, and dust dust. And I am lying in it. Then kneeling. Then, while standing up, I repeat the earlier procedure (thankfully, no "little red" needed). And find myself, prone, on the top.
Standing up, having nothing to "hold onto," I shuffle around in tiny footsteps (wobble wobble), putting nails into the wooden beams of the ceiling (wobble wobble), trying not to hit my head on the low beams or the large pipes, and trying not to drop my tools accidentally over the edge.
Going v e r y , v e r y s l o w l y .
We open on October 7, from 6 to 10 pm.
Will I be finished?
posted by laurelpaley at 9:59 PM
1 Comments:
Ignore, or delete, the previous comment. It's one of the irritating things about the web.
An orangutan you are not. Poor Laurel.
Post a Comment
<< Home