The Exhibit: A Success?

Contrary to every expectation and even to good old common sense, my exhibit opened today. We're still missing three pieces (which equals one empty wall), and a fourth only arrived this morning five minutes before we opened, but all things considered, it's pretty close to complete.

Continuing the trend of surrealism which defined this week, Vellum and I found ourselves driving back from Almost Neighboring State yesterday morning with two paintings crammed into the backseat of a Toyota hybrid. I spent most of the trip desperately hoping we neither hit nor were hit by anything, because the $250,000 worth of art in the backseat was worth more than I will make in the next decade. We survived the trip, and now those charming paintings are hanging cheerfully in the exhibit.

I've had 12 14 visitors today (only one of whom was a token guest - my mother), and most of them seemed to enjoy their visit. The challenge with this exhibit is that it's not an art exhibit (i.e. not a "look at pretty things" exhibit) but rather a teaching exhibit.

I'd like to claim that this is only because I think everyone should know more about the artists who lived and worked here, but the truth is, I ran out of art after a room and a half. The exhibit is four rooms. Something else needed to go up, and that something ended up being text teaching visitors everything they ever wanted to know about the lone art historian in the colony, the architect who designed the houses here, the fancy pageant they put on in honor of the colony's founder, the composers and musicians who summered in the colony, and all the various and sundry art styles which were at one time or another used in the colony.

The last two visitors here actually read every single bit of text. I was impressed.

With the exhibit more or less hung, I've turned to trying to create a shiny catalog for it. Before I return to that task, though, I'll leave you with a pretty picture of one of the pieces in the exhibit. Major points if anyone knows who the artist is or what it's a painting of. I didn't know it existed until a month ago, and I've never heard of the artist, so if you recognize anything about this, I will be extremely impressed. And then I will have to ask you to keep your mouth shut, because you would know exactly where I work, and probably know me in RL, too.