Solo Show install at Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Day 2

May 11, 2010
Put on my ski suits, headed out to work. It might pour rain today.

Joe is measuring the space for a wood bar to go up on the wall. With 2 eye hook crews in it, we can stretch the steel cables tight and straight enough to hold the hanging sculptures. I'm still feeling fortunate that he has a good brain so I can remain cloudy.

This condor scissor lift became our best (machinery) friends and irreplaceable tool in the next 3 days. Meanwhile, I and Jesse cut up the hardware cloth squares to accommodate the hanging clusters of glass vessels. 

Joe knows of a way to split airplane cables and reweave them in so we can avoid using the costly ferrules to make a loop. Here Jesse is learning the eye splice and having fun. I lay on the chair and watch them making "Molly Hogan" come true. Conserve energy so I can perform when my time comes!

Curator Sarah and technical director Brian working on Cara Lee Wade's show next door. I took some spying pictures of them working together. Before I know it, all the photographs were hung. Brian is a speedy installer with 23 years of experience. I later learned that he has a military museum of his own. Cool~

Labels for the drawings came in. Ignorant me have never seen professional labels like these before, not paper nor mounted on foam core, they are hefty solid card stock themselves. I'm fascinated by the way museums make labels and how much emphasis they put on the artist. I guess when the price tag is let go, true value shows through. The question of who makes art is interesting. Some consider artists make the art, some consider the market price makes the art.

Historical moment came, Joe and Jesse each hold one steel cable, straightening the pre-woven-in hardware cloth. They pull the cables as tight as they can so the eye splits can go on to the eye hook screws (which was open at this point). Final steps is to close and twist the eye hook screws in order to tighten the cables even more. At least this is how I remembered it. Of course there are lots of details in between that my leaky brain forgoes... I had to focus on where which sculpture goes, so no distraction to what guys are doing up there:)