Work Placement day 2

As promised, my second day at my work placement did include a great deal more in the way of a variety of work. One thing I have realized is that gallery work is 90% of the time office work, researching and contacting and 10% design, sorting out exhibitions. I do not mind this idea as long as there is variety in the office/research work.

Similar to yesterday, I started off the day by finishing off the list of contacts to call in inquiry to leaflet distribution and gallery advertisement. Lucky this was finished rather quickly, as it is not something that I necessarily enjoyed too much.

Following this I was sent out for a few erands. one of these included collecting paint charts from a DIY shop. When I returned I was told this for the next exhibition, called rsing stars. I was involved in the discussions of the set up of this exhibition, which mainly consists of jewelry. This is a hard thing for the gallery to display because it is just one large open space. On top of this we have to display the work in a way which is appeallin, showing off the work to its full potential. we chosen the colours pink and grey as accent colours for the exhibition to tie everything together and to highlight the main pieces of the exhibition.

I was then involved in a large research task which was based on showing the government the importance of the craft industry for society. This was an important task which I loved researching and talking through with the director Alison. Notes to follow...

Discussions over a new set of three exhibitions based on a connecting of fine art and craft, looking to explore the boundaries and connect the two concepts through a range of artists’ works. In the discussion process, it becomes difficult to decide which artist’s works to exhibit as because the space is so limited, we are limited to the amount of work. One of the main difficulties with this exhibition is that while researching artists, from their personal artist statement it suggests that they are interested in experimenting with materiality, but their work does not display this passion. To be displayed in the gallery an artist’s work must connect, visually and textually. This allows them to fully explain their reasons behind creating the work, even to member of the public, who do not necessarily have a lot of knowledge in terms of artist context. These exhibitions will be taking place next year, as everything needs to be planned and explored thoroughly in advance.