Up To Speed

D brought in equipage from the tech lab at OU, $15,000 worth of camera and tripod. The images actually look better than the pieces. We set up a photo booth in the rear of the main gallery, where the ceilings are just over eight feet and we could reach the lights to adjust them. I brought the pieces over and D shot them, if they were covered with glass or plexi, I'd hold a piece of muslin, to break the glare, and he'd shoot from an angle, so that he wasn't in the reflection. He can easily correct the parallax before he inserts the pictures in the catalog. This is a big deal for us, 44 pages, full color, but it's our show and it needs a catalog. Because of the other venues, it should turn a profit. I spend some time studying the chronology of the individual works, because Sara wants to see them in that order. Do have to put up some additional panels as there's a lot of linear feet in this show. Several of the pieces have never been hung, so we'll have to invent some attachments, which is always interesting. Spent some time in the vault, sorting Carters. Met TR and the Music Guy, along with B, at the pub for a beer. There was a couple at the next table, from out of town, that I docented through the Carters this afternoon, and had shown them the vault. I talked with them for a few minutes, they were effusive about the museum. They'd never been given a tour like I gave them, one on one, and were impressed that I knew so much about the collection. I get an hour, next week, with a group of out-of-town art students, to talk about Carter, am I'm looking forward to it. Introduced TR to that stage of working together where actual language isn't necessary. We'd loaded the elevator and taken it downstairs, but it was loaded in a kind of reverse order, large crates first and then then smaller stuff, and we had unloaded some of the smaller boxes, but we were going to have to get the larger crates out and stashed. I waited for him to get this, and he started, right on time, "I think we should..." and I cut him out with a "yes we should" knowing exactly what he meant. I've always worked like that. When I'm working with D I usually know what he needs before he asks for it. Routine. Certain procedures. It's not difficult to project the next step when you've done something a hundred times. Knit one, pearl two. Whatever. D rattles off some numbers at me, I do some calculations, and rattle some numbers back at him. We're usually correct within fairly strict tolerances, though maybe four times out of a hundred, one of us makes a mistake. It's a lot of numbers. Mistakes are the bed-rock of faith, and fairly common. I got a phone call this afternoon from a gallery in Clear Water, Florida, how they got my name I'll never know, asking me if I could give them a price on rehanging some paintings in a gallery where (I guess) they'd been miss-hung. I was highly recommended. They'd cover all expenses and pay well for my time. Six paintings, it can't be more of my time than a single day, and they don't want to send one of their people because it would involve two days of travel. Clearly I'm the guy I tell them six hundred dollars, because I know they can't do it cheaper than that. I become the shipper of choice.