The Road to Degree Show - 5

The Not-so-final Trial

Arse.

Over the last few days the art department has turned into a machine of procedure. Deadlines have been triggering event after event:

get all final materials needed
solve any problems within your exhibition space
pack down the studios
empty the studios
move your work from your studio to your exhibition space

I was operating to schedule. Sure - the paintings are not finished yet and there is a fair bit of work to be done on them and sure - that means I will have to work doubly fast on the build so I can get them up in their places and finish them. That's fine. Its close but its fine. And everything else has been going as planned.

Well, almost everything else.

I spent a busy week in a combination of frantic but impassioned painting and diamond clear organising as I took away the excess from my studio bit by bit. As a result, today - our final day in our studios - could be spent putting some finishing touches to the areas of the paintings I was working on and then cleaning my painting materials ready for use in the last phase of the plan. I had timed it so well. I was packed down and ready to go ahead of schedule and all that was left was to move my paintings from my studio, across the campus, to the exhibition space.

I had contacted my two helpers who arrived promptly (they were both great and I am optimistic about the three of us making short work of the labour ahead) and with good efficiency we wrapped up the paintings in bin liners and prepared to get them in transit.

Now I knew this was going to be difficult because my biggest painting is 3m x 2.2m and you rarely find a door large enough to accommodate that size. However, I had thought ahead and planned a route through the largest portals available and sure enough we quickly had the paintings on the trolley and on their way to the exhibition room.

The transit went without too many hitches, all obstacles being easily overcome, and we finally made it to the Ben Pimlott building where we would catch the elevator up to the 5th floor - my exhibition space.

I knew we had too many paintings to get into the lift in one go so up went my helpers with the all but the biggest painting and I waited down in the foyer for the final leg of the journey.

The lift returned with my helpers and we prepared to move the big painting in. Now, you know this is the last step and so far nothing has gone wrong so you can probably guess what is to come.

Yes dear reader, we could not get the damn painting into the lift.

We must have tried more angles than pythagarous, twisitng it, leaning it, diagonalising it - but the laws of geometry were against us and finally we had to conceed defeat. The problem is is that the lift is the only real option we have of getting the painting up there. We can't take it through the staircase because even though the staircase is more than big enough to accommodate my dear painting the doorway to the staircase is smaller than the doorway o the lift.

I have retired to my room to sleep on the problem and I can do magic so I believe I will find a way of getting that painting up 5 flights of stairs even if it means stepping out onto the balcony of the building and hauling it up with a rope.

This is my art 'heart of darkness' but I'll be damned if I succumb to Kurtz. Even if I have to bend space and time (or more likely bend my painting) that thing is going up there!!! Stay tuned...