About six months ago I started up this section with my revitalized interest in photography and last week I had my first showing of work since I was in college. It consisted of 21 11x14" prints that ranged in subject matter and were ones that I felt best showed the progression and different styles of work that I'd done over that time. I already wrote a more detailed piece on my thoughts about the show previously to it, so this page is simply going to be my thoughts on the night of the opening. If you're interested, I've also included photos that people took at the show itself and links to the photos that I showed.
Of all things that could have gone wrong the week of my show, one of them I hadn't thought about was the weather. Although I'd planned everything relating to my show so precisely that I didn't have to stress at all about it, I couldn't control the weather and 3 days before the show opened, we got about 7 inches of snow. In addition to that, we got about an inch more on the day of and in combination with the Lincoln area snow removal system (not very good at all), it made for some rough driving. As I took all my artwork down to the club at about 6 p.m. the only thing I hoped was that someone wouldn't hit me and destroy all the work in my car. Fortunately, I made it safely and got everything hung up pretty much without incident. No broken or cracked glass and really no other problems at all. I went back home about one hour after starting and got my other things together, then went back down to the club at about 7:40 with my friend Angie. After setting up the laptop with my site on it, putting out the camera, and setting up the nametags for the drawing, I was ready to go and started on a drink. At about 7:45, the first people started arriving (a couple friend and my dad and step-mom), and when 8:00 p.m. rolled around, a steady stream of people started coming in. Several of my friends and a few family members brought food, so there was a good selection of crackers, veggies, hummus, pita bread, and even chocolate chip cookies to eat. By about 8:30 or so, I'd finished my drink and was completely surprised by how many people were there already. It was excellent. I wandered around and talked with different people and told them about the drawing for a free print and told them to take pictures with the camera and had a good time in general. I had some good conversations and heard some good feedback on my work. At about 9:30, I took the little jar of names that people had entered throughout the night and sifted through them several times before pulling out the fake name of my friend Genevieve (part of the rules were that you had to make up a name for the night). So, she won the print and people started gradually filtering out from that point on. Finally, at about 10:30, I rounded up all my stuff and loaded up headed out. Overall, it was a great time. A rough estimate was that about 70 or so people showed up and I ended up even selling a couple pieces of art, which is all that I could have hoped for, especially considering the weather. At any rate, I had a great time and people took some very funny pictures (although I must apologize for the hue on some of them. I'll blame the crappy camera). If you haven't already, check them out by clicking the small picture of my flier above. Thanks to everyone who showed up or sent me an encouraging email. Oh, and I've also added a new page that links to all the photos I put in my show. |