This past Thursday the mixed media class had a very successful gallery opening! The gallery was full of work by us students, our professor, and a number of guest artists. As a class we worked really hard on putting the gallery together and making it what it is. The gallery was to show off all we had been working on during the semester and it was a great opportunity for us to get experienced setting up a gallery and preparing for an opening.

A few weeks before the show I made two different graphics that were posted and used to spread the word about the show. All of us in the class were telling as many people as we could about the show.

Once our work was completed we started to set up the gallery. We had to go back and forth from Insalaco and Shields to get different podiums and lights for the gallery. We placed every podium and positioned all the lights. We had some great help with this from our professor’s friend, Stephen Hendrickson, who was a professional set and lighting designer. We worked with him to find the best way to place the podiums and light all of the work. He was very collaborative with us and listened to our opinions and what we had to say.

The lights took quite a bit of work, we worked on them the Tuesday before the show and the Thursday of the show. On the day of the show I printed out the name tags for all of the pieces, the price book for the pieces that are for sale, and a special thank you sign for Stephen Hendrickson that I had made. There were a couple of name tags we had to hand write because there were some last minute additions to the show or some names that weren’t correct.

We also got some tablecloths for the table with our guest book and price book and one for the table where we set up some food. We had picked up some food the day of for the opening and some flowers to decorate the table. At the opening we had a great showing that came in what seemed like 3 waves. Though not everyone signed the guest book we think we had around 80 people which was amazing!

I had four different pieces in the show, a female torso and 3 different doorknobs. I’ve written about these pieces before and I’m really happy with how they came out and the whole process of making them. Being able to see them on display in the gallery was really awesome, I’ve made a lot of pieces but I haven’t seen many of them on display before so this was a great experience.

Overall the gallery opening was wonderful and I’m super happy with how it went! Plus it being a successful was a great birthday present!