Getting Ready
This time next week I'll be packing my bags and heading out to Houston for my gallery show. I have spent the last few days shopping for clothes. I am in a desperate search for JUST the right outfit. I have a few things to live up to here. I am a gay atheist New Yorker who is about to have a gallery show at a faith-based gallery in the heart of a red state. I have to look sharp. Sharp with a slight edge. About a week ago I fell in love with a vest at H&M and decided that I needed to base my outfit around that vest. For the next few days I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to track it down in my size. (Did you know that there are 8 H&M locations in Manhattan? Did you know that only 5 of them carry men's wear? Well you do now.) After nearly giving up I finally braved the 5th avenue Christmas crowds in order to check the last possible location. If you've never shopped 5th avenue at anywhere close to Christmas, let me just tell you that this was tantamount to taking my life into my own hands. Long Islanders and college age girls from New Jersey have no idea how to navigate NYC traffic and tons of them flock to this street at this time of year. Anyway... it worked. I found it! I have my vest, in my size, the base of my outfit is chosen. Now I just have to get the rest of what I want... I already decided that I wanted a solid blue tie, "A Train" blue if you care, and that I wanted to wear jeans and a white shirt. Finding a solid blue tie turns out to be harder than it sounds as well. Macy's, land of 10 million ties, didn't have one. Nor did three other stores that I checked. It took Express for Men (ugh.) to get me the tie. I'm dropping my tux jacket off at the cleaners tomorrow... so the outfit is settled I think.
The gallery has graciously provided me a place to stay, and my host has offered to allow me to borrow a car. I've made all my flight and hotel arrangements for the weekend. I've gathering about a dozen subway maps (for use as decor at the opening, and to probably hang around the gallery, would anyone in Houston know what the NYC subway looked like otherwise?) and I've begun removing the sketches from the books. I bought a corner rounder to clip the square edges of the pages so that they match the precut corners from the books. In some ways a lot to do, in some ways not much.
As it gets closer I'm getting more excited and more nervous as well. It's been a LONG time since I've done this. I get to spend the evening being charming and selling myself as much as my work, something that I've only really had to do in meetings and interviews for the past few years. I know that a lot of people look at my work here, but now they'll be looking at it, with an eye to buy it no less, with me right there in the room. Asking me direct questions about it, Looking at it, and critiquing it within earshot. Wow, just typing that makes me nervous. It makes me even happier to know that I'll have plenty of friends there. It seems I get a new email (or comment!) saying that someone will be at the show everyday.
Yeah. I'm nervous, but I can't wait.
The gallery has graciously provided me a place to stay, and my host has offered to allow me to borrow a car. I've made all my flight and hotel arrangements for the weekend. I've gathering about a dozen subway maps (for use as decor at the opening, and to probably hang around the gallery, would anyone in Houston know what the NYC subway looked like otherwise?) and I've begun removing the sketches from the books. I bought a corner rounder to clip the square edges of the pages so that they match the precut corners from the books. In some ways a lot to do, in some ways not much.
As it gets closer I'm getting more excited and more nervous as well. It's been a LONG time since I've done this. I get to spend the evening being charming and selling myself as much as my work, something that I've only really had to do in meetings and interviews for the past few years. I know that a lot of people look at my work here, but now they'll be looking at it, with an eye to buy it no less, with me right there in the room. Asking me direct questions about it, Looking at it, and critiquing it within earshot. Wow, just typing that makes me nervous. It makes me even happier to know that I'll have plenty of friends there. It seems I get a new email (or comment!) saying that someone will be at the show everyday.
Yeah. I'm nervous, but I can't wait.
Best of luck with your show. I hope you'll take photos of the display and post them here.
Yeah, good luck, although I'm sure you won't need it - your work is brilliant. I'm really impressed with how generous the gallery is being, that would not happen over here - unless you were Damien Hirst!
Please can we have some photos posted from the show?? I'm dying to see the outfit and can't wait to hear about opening night!
cool! too bad it's far from here... when will have the chance to see this in a NY gallery?
But above all try to have fun!