High School Art

Part of a national program, "The Memory Project", where students (and some teachers) do portraits from photographs of orphans and the portraits are given to the kids, who are photographed receiving them. Most of these kids have nothing from their past, and this gives them a picture of themselves, fixed in time. Twenty of them, in the smallest gallery, and they're very hard to get straight on little saw-tooth hangers (when I do get them straight, I lock them into position with small pieces of double-st tape on the back). I get them all hung, then make labels, and install them. I need to add two more lights tomorrow and clean-up for the opening reception tomorrow evening. We're supposed to get the front edge of the next big storm early in the morning, big cold rains turning to snow; temps are supposed to drop like a rock. Two Christmas parties coming up at the museum and everyone but me will be gone, and when the weather turns off like this, if I'm the only person, and I have to be there the next day, I stay in town. Which means I stay at the museum, often sleeping in the Carter room that is dedicated to his later work that mostly involved ovoids, and there's a three foot high fiberglass egg, lit from below, that I leave on as a night-light. I'm not sure if Mark and Charlotte will approve of this arrangement, me sleeping at the museum, but Jesus Christ, there's hot running water and somebody has to be there. Here's the deal: I'll do it, if it's ok with them, and if it's not, I'll quit, unless they rent me a motel room close by. I just can't guarantee that I can make in from the ridge. If the footing looks questionable, I blow it off; at the drop of a hat, I just stay on the ridge. My sweet spot.