First Show Arrives at ASV

There is much of interest that occurs behind the scenes of an art exhibition, or really any art presentation, be it theater, dance, music–artists often work as hard on the preparations as on the events themselves.  We have learned much over the last year in preparing Art Space Vincennes LLC  to function as a business.  We often ask, “What are we getting into?”.  We continue the phrase that we repeated throughout our teaching careers, “The things we find ourselves doing to make art!” Well, here I thought I would fill you in on an example of the tasks that inspire both of those comments:

Saia Truck brings delivery

We were expecting a shipment of Trang T. Lê’s work on Friday, September 13.  The work is for the exhibition Quiet Thoughts, Paintings of  Trang T. Lê, which opens October 4 with a reception for the artist.  After two days of delays, an eighteen wheeler semi truck from SAIA parked at the curb in front of our building on Main Street, with Lê’s crate from California in the trailer.  I was aghast!  It was roughly 9 feet long, 20 inches wide and six feet tall, weighing 470 some pounds.  I had not dealt with a crate that size since my museum days in the mid 1970s, that is when I was young!  I was somewhat concerned about whether the equipment I had available or my body could handle this awkward load.  Could even the crate handle my handling it?

Joe Edge transferring Crate to Cart

Joe Edge 1

The driver, Joe Edge from Tell City, had a hydraulic pallet mover, which he used to maneuver the box to the trailer’s lift. Joe asked me standing on the street to steady it from below as he lowered the lift, a dubious task, because I questioned whether I could keep 470 pounds from tipping my way.  Once it was down we attempted to put it on one of my carts, but it was apparent that the weight of the box would make it unstable along the gutter edge of the crowned street pavement, let alone the cracked driveway.  There was some obvious writing on the wall. I offered to get a second dolly, but Joe offered to help me with his hand lift, a generous offer, since the company policy was curb drop off service only.

Unloading the Crate

Joe stuck the forks of the pallet lift under the crate so that it would ride cross ways.  He pulled while I pushed from behind.  We had no trouble getting the crate up the ramp of the drive and over its cracks and seams to the back of ASV.  My original plan was to bring the crate into the gallery, but that was not possible.  It would be like parking a bus in your kitchen.   So together we tugged the big box to the garage, where my sculpture shop is. We lined the crate up so we could push it in length wise, using my two wheel dolly to pry it up high enough for the cleat supports at the bottom to clear a two by four on the floor that seals the door shut when the garage door is closed. With surprisingly little problem, we managed to lift and push the crate into the garage safely.

3. Sliding crate into studio

By the time we were finished, Joe with polite Southern style manners requested an invitation to the show and a copy of any publicity, especially if his picture were to be included.  He was fascinated to learn that this large impressive package had something to do with art and he wanted to show that he was part of it.  I show you to the world, Joe! And thank you again for your help.

 

 

 

2 Replies to “First Show Arrives at ASV”

  1. Wow! That is exciting. Am really looking forward to this show!! We had internet connectivity problems at home for the past week or so, but are back up and running. Will talk to our artist about an artists’ talk on the 4th or the 5th.

  2. Thank you, Rebecca. We are excited and working hard to get the word out. It would be fun to match up artists together for talks in the future. It’s too late for us to do that for our present shows. Trang wants to see your show and attend the talk that your artist gives. Hope it all happens. Watch the next Hoosier Family Living magazine. I wrote a vignette of each of the galleries in town, plus their fall schedule. Also in a news release for our show, I mentioned what the other Main Street Galleries were doing. I put the story in the context of a gallery walk.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.