Installing at Gympie

It was a long drive to Gympie for a girl who falls asleep after one hour of highway driving, but I made it. Coming into Gympie, the recent flooding had left its mark with some incredibly high, muddy tide marks on trees and houses – luckily the gallery is on top of a hill!

It’s a beautiful old School of Arts, heritage-listed building built in 1904-05. 

The School of Arts movement began in the 1820s with an intention to promote mental and moral improvement of the working classes. The first institute in Australia was formed in Hobart in 1827, and in Brisbane in 1846. From this beginning, approximately 350 Schools of Arts were established throughout the state during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  -Wikipedia.

The building also houses a beautiful gallery shop.

Although I had parked in the loading bay, the loading dock was out of action due to stored pieces, so my many helpers and I trolleyed the work in to rest on drop sheets around the gallery. From there I wanted to absorb the space and feel what would work where, but there was a little too much going on, so I was glad when a tea break was called and I was left alone to do my placements as in Warwick. Again I was guided by the gallery layout, the placement of the moveable wall, the swinging-door wall, and where the signage was to go.

Happy with what I had achieved, with a few leftovers that I just couldn’t fit, I handed over to Julie Pratt, the Exhibitions Assistant. Immediately she began to make changes, wanting to make little ‘families’ of work to hang in a staggered group layout to break up the straight line. I assisted at times, letting her know which ones had some kind of relationship. She even rescued most of those that couldn’t fit before, yet ended up making more space for my prints to hang. 

A bit of a group decision was made to hang a sculptural piece over the two felt works on plinths – which someone had arranged in the most delightful folds – ‘don’t touch these’ I said – ‘they’re perfect’! Yet different to how I would have done it. Normally a bit of a control freak, I was perfectly happy with their ideas, and indeed, loved them. There’s no point in having the exhibition look exactly the same at every gallery. The pinnacle of this was Julie’s decision to put the metallic collar on a plinth, rising up off towards the leather collar – both suspended from the ceiling. This also mirrored what was happening at the other end with the felt, and really brought them to life as sculptural works.

I really enjoyed the experience of handing my work over to fresh eyes to envision it at its best in their space, am super pleased with the outcome, and learned a lot. It’s wonderful to be able to look at my own, such familiar work in a different way, to see it reinvigorated, and to even be re-inspired by some new forms. The team was a pleasure to work with, and were absolute professionals.

Saturday 19th March is the official Opening and my Artist Talk, so I will be posting pictures of that and of the exhibition installation this weekend.