Setting Day

Sara can't be in until after lunch, so D and I take apart one of the cases in the artifact gallery. A shelf needs dusting. I'm paranoid about these cases, because they're top heavy. We raise the top piece one end at a time and block it up with a board across the back and side, which allows the front to be unscrewed. I clean the front panel and D takes the artifacts off and cleans the shelf. Put the front back on, lower the top down. Lunch was tomato bisque at the pub, because we'd had Loretta's breakfast wrap earlier. Sara arrives and the process begins. The paintings are all on the floor, leaning against the walls, divided into the six bays thematically, all that remains is to arrange them. We've both done our homework, communicated via email and fax for several weeks. We know these paintings. The six main walls will carry five or six paintings each, maybe a few more, leaving just room for the labels. Five other small walls will hold a painting each, and there are four panels, both sides of which get used. Still too many paintings, we relegate a couple to the back hall, our least favorites. Modernist is hard to define. Lively conversation as we shuffle the paintings around within their bay. Sara wants a strong painting for the middle of each main wall and has mostly made up her mind ahead of time. Then the two sides, flanking the strong piece, must be balanced. Large but finite choices. We move every painting several times, taking the white gloves on and off. We talk about negative space, color, form, we make sense to each other, explain ourselves, reveal ourselves, in the way we work together. I love particular time that always comes, when you're installing a show, placing things in three-space. Locating them. The next two things I love are: showing the Carter nudes to the accession committee on Monday, and then, starting to hang this show on Tuesday. I love hanging a show, like some of those boys in West Texas like to shoot doves; get in early, stay late. The complexities. Some of these pieces specify that they need special consideration when it comes to attachment. Safety devices, instructions on page four of the condition report. I still leave early, after a last cigaret on the loading dock with Sara and D, beat my way windward, park at the bottom of the hill, hike up with a pack. Towhees in the underbrush sound like a small war. Back at the house, I don't do anything for over an hour, recline and listen to the sound of almost nothing happening. Finally get up and start a fire, consider my larder, make a passable pork fried rice, try, again, to call my younger daughter and congratulate her on surviving another year. I never know what to say, and when I open my mouth, it's largely inappropriate. Later, always later, I think of what I should have said. I have an idea for a page I want to try tomorrow. It's a little scary because I'm not sure I can do it. But I value failure as at least a rival for success. Let's not talk about failure, I have a show to hang. Another page to write tomorrow.