Playing Curator

Over the past week my studio mates and I have been anxiously (and frantically) preparing for our upcoming show at the Gardiner Museum, Toronto. An annual event, the Gardiner show is cause for celebration, pride and anxiety among all graduates in the Ceramics program. Not only will we be presenting our current work in public for the FIRST TIME, but it's at the only Canadian museum dedicated to Ceramic Art. Making work for the exhibition, though important, is not the only cause for fluster in the studio. We've also been working on developing our promotional material. This week we have "played graphic designer", fiddling away for hours on Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and diving into the worlds of typography, dimensions and the digital layout. Last night I must have looked at my name in over 200 fonts, in a variety of pt. sizes and colours. The variety never ends, and it is overwhelming.

We have also been "playing curator" in our studio, marking out dimensions of the show space on the floor while navigating around wedging tables, damp closets and throwing wheels. We have tacks on the wall with plinth heights, paper templates of the plinth dimensions on the floor, and an Excel spreadsheet so we can even continue playing with floor plans when we are at home in bed.

Monday morning we marked out our floor plan in chalk and started to lay our work out, in order to imagine the space. The time change and early morning may have been a factor, but I felt as if I were in a life size version of a Sims game, where the furniture keeps rearranging.  There were nine of us shifting around "plinths" here and there, pulling out the measuring tape and tiptoeing around fragile ceramics on the floor. Our print out of the Excel spreadsheet had us moving around miniature cut outs of plinths and playing lego with them on the table. Chaos would be an understatement.

Though eternally frustrating, the process was helpful. We were able to better visualize the space, and account for room between plinths to move around. After a few hours we had settled on a floor plan, where everyone's work would be and what height they would look best at. I guess real curators do this too.

Our graduate show will be at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto, Ontario from April 4th - April 18th. The opening (where you can meet myself, my studio mates and have free food and drink) is April 4th from 6-8pm. The opening will be a great time to network, learn about the artists and talk to us about our work!