New Paint on Wall of Plates

So, Saturday, today, was a fine day at Second Seating. Plenty of visitors and lots of fun with Moises and Alexandra. Sold a few painted plates. And we actually repainted a portion of the Wall of Plates a bright turquoise blue. For several days I've been looking at that wall, which I like very much, but which needed ever more color to separate it from the background wall. More color it got today and I'm liking it.Here we are - Alexandra and I are comparing boots - with paint brush and cans still in hand. And we had Kim Som Vietnamese takeout for lunch too.

First Monday of the Month

Houston's chapter of The Transition Network gathered as we do the first Monday evening of every month for supper, conversation and this time, a look at Second Seating. TTN is a marvelous network of interesting women who have a lot to say and share about change. Many of us seem to be making good things happen when 'change' bounces into our lives either by retirement, divorce, death, illness, empty nests or new career opportunities. The change list is long. The organization itself is loose and welcoming.
Tonight I had the privilege of talking about what Second Seating means to me. For many of you who've followed the process on this blog for over a year now, it's old news. This installation has afforded me the opportunity to employ all of my skills and talents - to the fullest. I've had to raise the money to make the whole thing happen and find the wherewithal to ask what could possibly be hundreds of people to engage in the process.
'Making' Second Seating a reality has taken over a year and a seven day a week schedule. And you know what? I had fun doing it all. It's been a tremendous exercise in 'focusing'. It's provided me with an air of happiness in knowing that I brought a lifetime of knowledge to bear on this goal of collaborating with others to make an environment that just may enchant, entice, embrace anyone who enters.
The very best news is that every day someone walks into the space and says, "I want to have an event here. Can that happen?"
Yes, we can make that happen. In fact, that's kind of what it's all about. To those of you who've uttered those particular words?
You 'got' the whole idea of Second Seating. You want to be in the space itself. Thank you.

Eight Days From Now

A week from tomorrow, dusk will come and then night and the Second Seating chandeliers will hover over our heads spreading magic and there'll be a bevy of twinkling LED throwies on the walls too. The Second Seating chandeliers are quite simply spelling binding at night. We were there working until nearly 10:00 p.m. and it's soul satisfying just to be near these magic sources of light.
What a day! Mark and Alex and I were busy until early afternoon bringing things into the space. Alex brought the last of the oyster shells. I wish we'd weighed them all or counted the tubs of shells he hosed and trucked down to the space. Mark and I are continually engaged in conversations about that banquet table which is really one big series of tableaus. He's very good at them and you already know, tableaus are my favorite thing. As we worked away at it all today, the table that appeared so crowded at my Harrisburg studio is not so crowded in this new space. There's stuff left, but not particularly wonderful stuff. And we need more. No, I will not go to Value Village or The Guild Shop one more time. I may dig into stuff I packed away a year ago for this occasion. We'll see. The thing is, everything on that particular table is salvaged from a thrift shop, a garage sale, a closet, Hurricane Ike, an oil refinery and the street. And it's beautiful. Perhaps the lesson here is that you can make a celebration out of anything if you're into tableaus and lights.This afternoon, Moises arrived and he and Mark and I worked on in the space until well after 9:00. Moises finished painting the shelves for the Wall of Plates that I'd been working on most of the day. We'll tack on some of Aggie's wonderful metal 'rick-rack' of sorts and get those plates up along with Jose Solis' vertical wall piece. It will really take shape tomorrow. We took a break to eat take-out from Kim Som on Irma's patio and I for one, really wished for very cold beer.
Got home near 10:00 and wrote a draft of a letter for all the underwriters with a special invite to the opening. Modelle will help me get those out tomorrow. I'm having that beer as I write and off load some wonderful photos of Second Seating.The chandeliers are magic at night. We need to have lots of private parties there in October. How I love installation spaces.

Lists and More Lists

It's often instructive to look back over a day and see exactly how you 'moved the meter' toward a goal. Often the day is filled with many little shoves in the right direction. Another day there will be a terrific leap forward on one front and then, of course, I think I can sit back and relax. Yet another kind of day can be all about laying plans and setting a course, taking stock, regrouping.
Every single day I make a list and print it out. The list is then overlaid with penciled in items. Or I renumber the list and simply follow the numbered tasks. Lately, I've topped the list with goals for the week. Here are this week's goals:
1. Finish with the electrical contractor. He was in the space today and will be there again tomorrow. I've been lucky enough to borrow lights from HCCS and they'll be put in place by following my rained soaked mat board on which I drew the space to scale, but have covered it over with so many sets of numbers and circles etc. that any electrician looking at it should throw up his/her hands and ask for a real plan. This electrician had the sense to move right ahead after a few questions about my chalk marks on the concrete floor. I gave him my cell phone number and didn't hear from him all afternoon so I assume all is well?
2. A second goal is to get all the materials to Mark for the kiosk at the City Hall Visitors Center. I pick up the poster tomorrow sometime after 10:00.
3. I've got to spend time finding a good contact on the quilt festival staff. Who wouldn't want to eat lunch at Irma's and see Second Seating if they're teaching at festival for a week? Lunch hour is a good time for an arts destination.
4. I need to send out press packets to a couple of radio stations, the Houston Chronicle folks (what left of them) and local on-line arts websites.
5. I need to buy sheets of plexi for my collages. I can drill holes in them this weekend for little brass tacks that will hold the plexi to the frames. I want those pieces finished. I am still getting parts of collages mounted on mat board so I won't run into another gluing mess.
6. Finally, I need to finish all the text for this show and there's plenty of it.
So those are the week's goals. And here's what happened today after I took an early morning walk and saw pecans everywhere. The squirrels seem to take one bite and then toss the nut. You could hear them up in the trees and then a pecan would fall to the street. But I digress. Here's the day:
1. The painters returned to repaint the chartreuse wall and it's much better now.
1. I spoke with the electrical contractor early this morning and then was there to meet the electrician and his helper just before noon. While in the space I measured for Jesse's batiks, Aggie's metal pieces, my collages, montages and searched for space for Jose's wall pieces. We are literally running out of space. I'm going to have to be a stern editor for all eight of us. Amazing that suddenly there is so much work pouring in.
2. I called Bobby Schlitzberger to see when he can pick up that ton of compressed beer and soda cans and it looks like we'll do that on Thursday at 1:00.
3. I called Spectrum Metal Recycling to confirm that Thursday is a good day to borrow a bale of cans and it is. Except they'd like me to choose the bale tomorrow so they can power wash it and make it beautiful. How nice is that?
4. I met with Mark Lacey this afternoon and gave him a pile of CDs and we talked about making a sound track to play in the space. Snippets of songs will be interspersed with city sounds, trains, feral parrots, traffic, wind, rain, church bells, street music, whatever.
5. I went to Fiesta and met the assistant manager and asked if I could have lots of boxes. Yes, I can, but I have to pick them up on alternate mornings at 6:00 a.m. because they stock all night and then every other morning, they compress the boxes and they're gone.
6. We scheduled construction of the plate shelves for late Wednesday afternoon. I'll be glad to see them and wonder how I'll paint them. I called Jose and asked if he'd mind if we used his totem wall piece as a part of the plate wall. I think it will be wonderful as a fulcrum of sorts.
7. Before I left the house for the day, I sat at the kitchen table and paid bills and dropped them off at the post office. Done for a few more weeks.
8. At 5:00 today I proofed the posters for the kiosk and for the space. They'll be ready tomorrow. Then I went to Michael's to buy some sort of varnish to put on the plates to which I am affixing photo decals. Also bought a frame for the very nice Houston Woman Magazine Second Seating story which I will take to Irma's tomorrow. By the way, the stories and listings are beginning and that is good news.
9. Called a person who is willing to play docent in the space during October and will meet him on Monday for coffee. Still have a second person to call about this.
10. Tonight, I reprinted the Clorox table stories and glued them on the white labels I made last night. They'll be tied to the table linens stacked under the Clorox chandelier. Still need to get some facts and figures from the Clorox plant itself. Must send an email.
11. Tied on more than a dozen little painted labels to the wall hanging made from Hurricane Ike damaged fabrics. I think I am about done with that piece. Spoke with Mary B. and a friend. By the way, these two chairs are nearly finished. It was a heck of a job to applique that velvet on. I think I'll cover the rest of the backside of the chairs with gold spray paint and be done with it.
12. Now of course, I am really tired, been writing this post for over an hour, but am contemplating tomorrow's list that includes the following:
1. 6:00 a.m. Trip to Fiesta for corrugated boxes.
2 Take boxes to the space. Meet the electrician. See what he's done and where he's headed.
3. Receive extension ladder at 8:45 from Allison so the theater lighting guy can use when clamping the can lights to whatever he will be clamping them to.
4. Morning is self-improvement time. Pilates at 10:00. Must call the theater guy and tell him I won't be there until nearly 1:00.
5. Haircut at 11:30. This will be the haircut that sees me through the opening reception. One must plan these things and the timing is right.
6. Get to the space and talk about the lighting.
7. At 2:00, choose that compressed bale of beer and soda cans at Spectrum Recycling.
8. Pick up posters at A&E and pick up photos that have been mounted on board at Art Supply.
9. Check emails and wait for a tree man to come and deal with a fallen limp from the big tree in the ravine. He came this evening to look at the giant limb and give me a bid. That tree was really hurt during Hurricane Ike. I fear for it.
That's tomorrow. Just so you know what is taking up my days. A lot. Hey, I am still really happy about the City of Houston's special opportunity grant given through the Houston Arts Alliance. It's keeping me sane, meaning I am not worrying about raising ever more money. I am simply working to get this show assembled and lit.

All of a Piece, What's Happening Now

Sometimes it's good to go back to the start of something, to remember how it was near the beginning. The second post on this blog ties in with the very things I am working on now. It's been slow and steady progress from day one.
Those oysters that my daughter Jeanne and her husband Dan and my grandchildren Kelan and Lauren and my sister and brother-in-law Denny picked up along a stretch of beach in the Pacific Northwest have been grilled and eaten. I boxed up the empty shells and sent them to Houston. Now they sit on a tabletop with dozens of silver plated scallop shells for Seating Seating.
Every day I take a giant Rubbermaid tub to a seafood restaurant and trade it for one full of oyster shells. The smell in my car is awful and the pile of shells by the side of my studio is growing. when those shells have been eaten clean and bleached in this hellish Houston summer sun, they'll surround the table as will these chairs which will be covered in more of my Hurricane Ike flood salvaged fabrics.
It is all of a piece, what's happening now.

Nine Women

Partnerships, collaborations and sharing are the things that make a project work. I don't think there is anyone who creates anything without lots of help and encouragement and the skills and talents of others. So it is with Second Seating. There are dozens of people who've gone out of their way to move this project forward. The list grows longer every single day.
I think of all the women who sewed on the very large 10 x 14 foot patchwork banquet tablecloth.
It's made from fabrics salvaged from Hurricane Ike flood waters. First, there was the lady who owned these fabrics and stored them in her garage where they flooded last fall during the hurricane. She hauled these sodden, mildewed fabrics out to the driveway and I walked past one day and asked about the mounds of velvets and brocades. "Take as much as you want," she said. "I can't look at them any more."

After washing and drying load after load, and ruining my dryer in the process, I arranged the fabrics on a big drop cloth in the Harrisburg studio, mixing and matching until it all looked like 'something'. Then we must have used a 1000 pins to hold it together.
Irina sewed with Catarina for several afternoons and then suggested that we move our work from drop cloth on the floor to a big table which made sense. we could sit in chairs.

Next, we scheduled sewing bees. Virginia came and so did Evelyn Pat joined us. Hedy took a turn in the early spring too. Each of these women arrived at a warehouse studio and together we pushed needles strung with embroidery floss through layers of velvet, brocade, silk and linen. It wasn't always easy going. We needed thimbles, so Evelyn brought a thimble or two with her. We ate strawberries and cookies too.

Catarina has given more hours to this sewing project than we can count. She spent almost every afternoon of her spring break sewing. She spent every afternoon last week working to complete this patchwork. Catarina was joined by Evelyn one afternoon, Irina another. Roanne was with us the last hour of the last afternoon. There were three of us sewing when the piece was finally finished. Roanne, Catarina and I put those final stitches in place. Perhaps a toast was in order?
Nine women stitched away until there we had one giant banquet table cloth. Thank you all for every single stitch.

Monday

Every day so much gets accomplished and yet it's all just a drop in the bucket because there is so much to do. I"ll recount what went on today. Woke up late at 8:10. Unheard of. Had a breakfast meeting with Modelle at 9:00 at Irma's. Wanted to show her the exhibition space and all of its quirks so she can assist with the process of getting a 90 day occupancy permit from the city. The electrical contractor is to be there this week to take care of the list of requirements given in the inspectors' report. Hope everything gets done the first time around.
Breakfast, of course, was grand. Love the migas and I covered the whole plate with Irma's salsa. Wasn't hungry until nearly 3:00 p.m.
After a tour of the Second Seating space, we drove over to Corporate Outfitters where, months ago, I saw two French looking chairs that would have been perfect for Bayou, Bay, Beach, had I purchased them when I first found them.
Eli remembered them and my wish to buy them for the show. But gone they were, sold, and I could kick myself for not ever calling him, not getting myself there in a timely way. So now I need to rethink chairs for that table that will be surrounded by thousands of oyster shells and trash.

A good thing about this particular tableau? I am now collecting plastic tubs of oysters shells from a seafood restaurant. Bought three tubs and will rotate them as they are filled with shells. They asked me today just how many tubs I'd need. I did not say that at least 50 tubs would be grand. I couldn't even lift the first tub into the back of my car. Poured the shells all out by the side of the garage to be picked over by ants, flies, rats and whatever other small animals might like to clean them for a snack. Need to pour a little bleach over them too. Smell is awful. However, I am more than delighted to have found a willing source for shells and we have time enough for them to dry out before they're needed. And collecting these shells for Second Seating is a good idea? I tend to see an image in my mind and have no idea what it takes to make it real. If I were a painter, would it be easier?
After lamenting the missing chairs (I'd even photographed them months ago), Modelle and I went on to the Harrisburg studio to gather the white tablecloths that were rolled and strung with filigreed Clorox bottles. Moving that chandelier around and letting the ends of the tablecloths drift along a dirty floor or two messed them up. As I have no clothes dryer (and that is a story for Rockbridge Times), Modelle will wash them and then I'll reassemble the entire chandelier, perhaps right there at Irma's in the space itself? When we are installing the show. Not a bad idea.
Modelle and I were so hot, with sweat running down our cheeks, that we dashed across the street to the East End mangement district offices for cold water. Found Sherri Oldham reviewing all of the photos we'd taken over the years of district activities and projects. Martin has very neatly cataloged them all on our server. Just this weekend, I'd decided to ask if I could peruse these district photos, many of which I've taken. Decided that the collages for Second Seating needed more than food images. They need East End images and there is no sense in retaking what I've already photographed. So will get there perhaps on Tuesday afternoon and wander through those digital files.

At the right, for instance, is a photo of some of the folks who attended the celebration for the completion of Jesse Sifuentes' mural on the side of Rex Supply on Harrisburg. There were almost 100 people at that reception.
Came home and spent time with emails, called folks and made an appointment to talk more about the parrot chandelier. Then headed over to Jesse's to see the progress on the coffee mug buffet. And progress, there's been. He's leaving on a vacation shortly so it won't be complete until the end of July, but I can see how it's going to be when finished. It's a mural that continues on down the sides of the table and somehow it reminds me of folk art. It will be quite wonderful.
The top of the buffet opens up so one can store coffee urns and cups inside the piece. Each side of the buffet is covered with coffee mugs and Jesse is putting each cup in with great thought. Colors blend with the bits of mural that run from the buffet top down each leg. He's got stencils of an old Model T Ford along one edge as a reminder that that great coffee plant on Harrisburg was once a Ford Assembly plant back in the day.
Back at home, Catarina worked on the fabric covered chandelier attaching drop crystals first with pins and then with thread. Haven't gotten a good photo of that piece yet, but here is a detail.

So, is it a waste of time to catalog the day when I could have been out mixing and matching for another collage? This does give me time to think, though I am truly thinking about Second Seating about 90 % of my waking moments.
Also working on text for the show. Found snippets that I wrote last February for the Clorox table. How nice to find these words and they still work and will be just fine.
Melissa is emailing me oyster facts and figures so we are on our way to text for Bayou, Bay, Beach too. Adding to the an ever longer list of all the people who are contributing their time and talents to Second Seating. I am continually amazed that so many are willing to play a part in this expanding effort. Perhaps I should post some names?
This is twelve hours of Monday.

Just Because

Posted this photo because what's not to love? Tomorrow I get back to work on 'Second Seating' after a week of filling a notebook with very good ideas and lists of 'stuff to do.' Tomorrow morning it's 'onward.' It's after midnight now and the two hour time change - backwards - just lost its steam.