Final Push

Got to town early and went to Kroger to do a bit of shopping, picked up a protein fruit smoothie, to prepare me for the day. I had all the labels trimmed, so I made tape loops and started affixing them to the walls. Meanwhile, Charlotte, who had gotten to work at six in the morning (she couldn't sleep) and then Mark, pretty much did everything else. I was working on the labels until nearly three, then hauled trash away. Physically and mentally tired, after two weeks of pushing, but it is all well and truly done, and I don't need to be back at the museum until mid-afternoon tomorrow, to set up for the opening. Plenty of time for a sponge bath and a hair wash and an early beer at the pub. The show is beautiful, with the gallery cleaned, the floor mopped, the last of the lighting done. When I was setting labels I did notice that I'd made a one-inch mistake, in one place, but no one else has seen it, so I call it dues for Allah. And there's a small set of paintings that don't look quite right (12 inches by 12 inches each) but it's because they're not exactly the same size, they're unframed, and the canvas is bunched differently on the corners. I do the best I can, and Sara says it's fine. Astra greeted me so enthusiastically, lunch at the pub today, that all the other patrons turned around to see who it was. I didn't talk to anyone, which is unusual; I just sat hunched over my bowl of soup, and thought about what I needed to get accomplished in the afternoon. You pull off an installation, you get it done, there's an enormous sense of satisfaction. Sara said to me that it was our show, because I could hang anything so difficult, but it's her show, because she had the vision. I'm a mere technician. Maybe not mere, but still, a technician.