Revealing the Ordinary

Tomorrow I begin installing Revealing the Ordinary at Gallery Korea, amidst an enormous amount of busy-ness and tumult.  Natural disasters (an earthquake and Hurricane Irene), a bathroom gut renovation, and the start of classes (I'm teaching five plus a seminar plus mentoring plus an administrative role plus ...) have fostered a dense environment where all my energy goes to meeting my essential commitments.  Installing this show feels like - and requires - moving into another world, and I am using this evening to settle and open my pores.  One evening!

Turns out the exhibit is much more open-ended than I knew, as the curators have invited me to bring all the work I submitted and other work I would like to include for their consideration.  I will be designing the exhibit independently and able to do the site work that will help snap the exhibit into the present.  With only three artists in the show, I will have a generous space.  The quality and nature of this opportunity are sinking in.  Tomorrow I get to work in real space and make new work that will be seen.

Part of what's snapped me to attention is learning that my dear, dear friend Maysey Craddock has an opening the night after mine at Nancy Margolis Gallery and will be in town from Memphis.  She will be at mine and I will be at hers.  I only learned this yesterday, and it has drawn a quick line from my present absorptions to the time when my work had my full attention - in graduate school with Maysey and before and after those years.  That's not been the case in awhile, and her presence and faith in me is, for lack of a better word, inspiring.