Leaping into an Artful Event: Celebrating the Effort

Hanging a new show is a demanding process, and this one was doubly, triply, astonishingly intense.
Uncommon View, Photos by John Peterson Myers  renewed a standard of accomplishment for us in the gallery and frame shop. Pete arrived on Saturday February 24. By Friday the 29th- Leap Day 2008, we had framed nearly 60 of his fabulous photos, and hung 33 of them all beautifully. The others will be hung in Charlottesville for his opening this Friday night at the Mudhouse.
All of this took place between his lectures at Middlebury, Green Mountain and Castleton Colleges on environmental health. Jim steadfastly kept the matting and framing process going at an amazing and exacting pace. He is a perfectionist with a great sense of subtle color.  Pete and I would jump on board when we returned from the hallowed halls of academia, matting, cutting the glass, cleaning the pieces, assembling, etc into the night.  Pete emerged from this process as an excellent framer as well, having traveled from Charlottesville with his matt cutter in the back seat. Precision suits him.

The opening was well attended with a crowd of people arriving from Shelburne, Poultney, Ripton and all the mountain nooks and crannies in between. It was a gathering of wonderful thinkers, and articulate do-ers. Much fun, and amazing conversation.

In the photo with the three of us you can't see all the red dots... for those uninitiated in the ways of the art world, red dots denote sales... one form of public validation of the work. It was a success in every way...

Pearl Buck speaks to the reality that an artist can't wait for the muse to murmur in their ear. We must leap into the creative act, and persevere.

And for some reason we do.

And yet, we can't forget how important it is to take the time to celebrate the effort.