Handling Art

All day unpacking, and get it almost done, still maybe 8 boxes left, out of ninety. Fun and interesting, but it is actually very tiring to handle delicate objects for 7 hours. The packing was as wacky as expected. My favorite note, with explanation points, writ large on the top of the box, was to not lift an untitled object by its handle. The handle was not a handle. The object was a kind of wooden teapot on a cast iron base, the handle and the body were laminations of Baltic birch plywood. It's a interesting object. Something else today, I forget what, was wrapped in several layers of used pantyhose that still smelled, faintly, of womanhood, in a nice, a little grassy, a vetiver, maybe, salty sea-side air. A pleasant surprise, and I wonder if it was meant to be sexy. Surely it was. Another problem with artist packaged art, is that it's sometimes very difficult to unwrap. So many layers, so much tape. Many ceramic and glass artists use a large box that they pour a layer of foam peanuts into, then set the piece, wrapped in some sort of foam or bubble-wrap into the center, then pour the sides and top full with more peanuts. We've developed a two-person approach to this: one of us, usually me, holds the top flaps upright, and usually D attempts to pull the wrapped piece up through the peanuts. We've gotten pretty good at it. But when we repack those pieces, we have to take peanuts out of the box, in order to pack the piece correctly, and that always means loose peanuts, no matter how careful you are. I hate loose peanuts. However, several people have discovered that if you put foam peanuts in gallon zip-lock bags, you suddenly have an excellent packing medium. A lot of jewelry in this show, and jewelers, almost universally now, wrap a piece in cloth, inside a zip-lock bag, inside a foam lined plastic food storage container, inside a foam lined cardboard box. They are the hands-down absolute champs when it comes to packing, because they actually think about it. Many of their boxes only require that you slit the tape, fold back the flaps, remove a piece of good blue foam that has a opening cut and marked for exactly where you're supposed to put your fingers, and you can then, without removing any packaging, remove the food storage container, and get to whatever the piece is. It's our mandate to become Art Critics on this day, when we unwrap an installation; I make a few notes, about things I'll need to mention, when I docent this show. A problem with a exhibit like this, The Best Of, is that there isn't any logical theme. There are ten thousand ways you could install this show. Also new, this year, were diapers, and cat-food bags stuffed with wadded newspaper. I intend to repackage those pieces in bubble-wrap, because the newspapers are last year's, from Chicago. I love reading old news, when I'm starting a fire in the cookstove, mid-winter. A habit I've developed over the years, because it amuses me, that I'll stand there, sometimes throw a blanket over my shoulders, really needing to start a fire, and be deeply engrossed in some Congressman's sexual scandal from a year ago. Where I find myself. Listen, I don't even care anymore. Where anyone fabricates meaning. I have issues with this. I'm not sure what fiction is.