Running the Math

I'm not much good at complex math but I can run simple numbers like a savant. I mumble to myself the whole time, so I look like an idiot. Each painting takes a different set of numbers, and I chant them, out loud, so that I don't have to remember them. It's a matter of constant measurement and getting to the small legal pad, where I do the figuring, before I forget the number. The first number is the horizontal centerline for each piece on a given wall section. You measure the wall, then you measure the width of each piece, you add those up, and subtract it from the wall length, then divide that by the number of pieces plus one, and that gives you the spacing. I strike a centerline at about 57 inches above the floor (which is the vertical centerline (there are two centerlines here)) because I need a reference point. Then you do a vertical calculation based on where, exactly, the hanging hardware is, on the back of the painting. I get confused, and always run the numbers twice. I no longer bother with eighths of an inch, because they just don't matter. There are thirteen bays, in the main gallery. It's a lot of math. I wear out mentally, before I wear out physically, so I often take a walk when I get home, to settle my brain. I don't go far, and something always catches my attention: the web a September spider spins between saplings, a pile of dropping I don't recognize, that new fall light. The commute to work has become quite beautiful. The color is coming on, and Kentucky, across the river, is a lovely thing. At work, I started hanging right away and continued until four-thirty, when I was effectively brain dead. Almost done with this part of the job, still have the front wall to hang and a couple of very large canvases, that, after all the panels, seem incredibly light. Then while M and C and Sara are lighting the show, I have something like a hundred labels to make and then affix. Great day today, except for being exhausting, the work is so good that almost every piece was a treat to install. I stopped at four-thirty, because I had the last grouping on the last wall to hang and they were exactly the same size and being hung in a tight arrangement. Hanging things that are the same size, in a tight grouping, is very difficult. because the hanging hardware is going to be slightly different. There are six of them, hanging two-by-two, and I did the center set perfectly, but then my brain shut down. I'll finish the other four first thing tomorrow, when what's left of my mind is more sound. The problem is that they have to be within very close parameters or they look like shit, and they're on one of the physically hardest walls in the museum, every attachment requires a plastic anchor and it's difficult to adjust them an eighth of an inch (this is the one situation where the eighths of an inch are still in play, because the human eye is so goddamn sharp), but I have some tricks. And I'm sure I'll have to play them. I always want a show to be installed to the highest standards, but this show I want to be as close to perfect as I can make it. This woman Koo Stadler, I think is her name, working in egg tempera, is amazing. I'll meet her Saturday night, when we open the show, a couple of her pieces blow me away. The one word out of my mouth, in over four hours, was "damn", when I stubbed my toe, going for another glass of wine.