The Charleston Catholic Art / Clay Center Project

It's Up!

2010-03-31T07:34:00.000-07:00

Our exhibit is up! We visited the Clay Center this morning to hang our exhibit. All the pieces were laid out on mats on the floor along the walls according to the layout in our model. Denise, the assistant curator, gave us a quick lecture about the math equation used to decide how high to hang each painting, and allowed a few lucky volunteers to put on white gloves and hang some pieces. Bridgett -- one of the Creative Services team members -- showed us how to hang the baseline tags beside the paintings, and also the reflections we had written about our favorite paintings.

The most exciting part was probably the installation of the vinyl title on the wall. When the backing was pulled away to reveal the title, we all cheered and took photos with our cell phones. (Yes, Mrs. Fitz, we know cellphones aren't allowed in class, but this is a special occasion, right?)

The exhibit opens to the public this weekend. We are all so excited to hear what everyone has to say about it. Will people understand our theme through the artworks we chose? Will people agree with our portrayal of life in West Virginia? Will they enjoy the show? Who knows?

Oops...

2010-03-05T09:29:00.001-08:00

One of the challenges we faced when building our model was that things aren't always the way they look on a map. The Clay Center gave us a great map with lots of measurements that we could use to figure out our space in miniature, but we realized during our last visit that what we thought was a wall was actually a series of columns. We also realized that another wall was actually a moveable wall with a space in the middle, so we had to change our layout. So, we took a deep breath, grabbed the X-acto knives, rulers, calculators, and tape, and tore down half of our model so we could re-build the parts that were off. This cut our wall space considerably, so we had to make the tough decision to cut some of the art from our exhibit. There were a few pieces that didn't fit the theme as strongly as others, so the pieces we cut were not too difficult to choose, but it is still sad to take out some pieces of which we've grown to love during this project.

As difficult as it was to tear apart our model, we learned a valuable lesson -- whenever you are creating something, there is a strong liklihood that you will have to make huge edits, or even trash your project and start over, and that's all part of the creative process. Nobody likes to do it, and it would be nice to get everything right on the first try, but that almost never happens. It's good to start over. In this case, we like the layout much better the second time around.

Graphics

2010-03-01T09:52:00.000-08:00

Last week, we visited the Clay Center's in-house creative services (graphic design) studio to see how the exhibit graphics are made. It was interesting to see how real graphic designers work, and to see some of the projects they're working on. We got a sneak peek at some new logo work, and enjoyed meeting Bridgett and Lauren, the Clay Center's designers.

After that, we revisited the space to see how our accurate our model is. We found a few mistakes, but for the most part, our model is pretty correct. We will have to cut some art from our exhibit, which will be hard to do, because we love all the pieces we've selected. This is the sad part of putting together any art exhibit -- there is never enough wall space!

We are ahead of schedule, which is always a good thing. Now comes the tedious stuff, like finalizing all the text for the exhibit, deciding which pieces we may have to cut, and waiting to hang the exhibit in a few weeks.

Our Exhibit, in Miniature

2010-02-24T08:04:00.001-08:00

Our exhibit is ready -- at least in miniature. After rearranging and rearranging, we can now see what our exhibit will look like with our scale model of the gallery.

Just for fun, someone placed a miniature Vincent Van Gogh action figure in the model so he can admire our exhibit. It looks like he's having a good time!

Tiny Paintings

2010-02-23T09:50:00.001-08:00

Our model is built, and all the paintings have been printed out in scale. We are "hanging" our miniature exhibit to see if all the art will fit. The most difficult part right now is figuring out what goes together, and what doesn't. Artwork that worked together in our minds doesn't always look so great together when you see how their sizes relate to one another, but new relationships between artworks start to emerge, too.

This week, we hope to get our miniature exhibit completed, and we will also visit the Clay Center once more to see how the exhibit graphics will be made. We will also be finishing the exhibit text panels and labels, which will give information about the exhibit, and about the individual works of art.

Model-Making 101

2010-02-19T06:33:00.001-08:00

There is a lot of math in this project. Who knew? In order to plan our exhibit and make sure all the art fits on the wall in an attractive way, we have to plan out the space, down to the last inch. In order to do this, we are building a scale model of the Clay Center's upstairs gallery, and "installing" scale models of each painting on the walls to see what our exhibit will look like and to ensure that it all fits together nicely. The Clay Center graphics department generously donated some foamcore to build our model with, and we also picked up a nice floor plan, complete with measurements of all the walls, when we visited last Friday. Now, we are reducing those measurements to create a model that is perfectly to-scale, so we can see what our exhibit will look like before we actually hang the art in the gallery.

It's a good thing we all paid attention in math class. Who knew we would be using those skills outside of the math classroom? I think, secretly, we all knew. Math is everywhere. Even in art!

Group Portrait in Front of the New Sculpture at the Clay Center

2010-02-12T18:16:00.001-08:00

Visit to the Archives and Gallery

2010-02-12T17:45:00.000-08:00

Today, we visited the Clay Center to see the gallery space and discuss how exhibits are planned out. There is a LOT of work that goes into putting together an exhibit, and picking out the images is only part of it. We met up with our Clay Center counterparts, Denise, Lewis, and Kayte to find out how pieces in exhibits are grouped together, and how much space we have to work with. Do you know there is an actual mathematical equation that is used to hang artworks in exactly the right place? Neither did we!

We got a huge surprise when Denise invited us into the vault to see some of the artworks that we have chosen for our exhibit up-close. We were expecting her to have one or two pieces out in the gallery for use to see in person, but we actually got to go into the vault and look at the majority of the pieces we've selected. It was amazing to see all the art just packed away in this vault. The collection is HUGE and the technology involved with storing and protecting the artwork is impressive!

Looking at the artworks that we had seen only in small .jpgs on the Clay Center's website changed a lot of things. Seeing all the details of the artworks, from brushstrokes to the artist's eraser marks made the pieces so much more interesting. Some pieces that we had overlooked suddenly became favorites that we want included in the show. And other pieces that we liked at first seemed less fitting for our exhibit theme. It just goes to show that art is meant to be enjoyed in person, and there really is no substitute for seeing it in person.

After visiting the archives, we planned our next steps. We will build a scale model of the gallery, right down to scale prints of the artworks we want to include, and we will plan out our exhibit. We will also write labels for some of the works, create tags for the individual artworks, discuss lighting options, publicize the exhibit... wow, we've got a lot of work to do! We are grateful to Denise, Lewis, and Kayte for all their help, and for giving us an opportunity to see an art exhibit from the curator or gallery's point of view!

Wildly Wonderful and Wonderfully Wild

2010-02-03T11:41:00.000-08:00

We have a theme! Our theme is "Wildly Wonderful and Wonderfully Wild." We are currently working to select artwork for the exhibit from the vast archives at the Clay Center. This is proving to be more difficult than we expected, with so many great works of art to choose from. In the process, we are learning about great artists with connections to West Virginia, such as Lee Savage, Jim Gibson, Anne Shreve, Julius deGruyter, and many, many more. Our goal is to select 50 pieces, but it is so hard to narrow it down.

Howdy, Neighbor!

2009-12-07T05:50:00.000-08:00

Today, we got a visit from our Clay Center counterparts Lewis Ferguson (Director of Art and Science education), Denise Deegan (Collections Manager/ Assistant Curator) and Kayte Brannon (lead educator.) We really enjoyed the visit! They gave us an overview of the project and we shared with them some of the possible themes we've come up with so far.

To come up with themes, we all went online to the Avampato Online Gallery and created our own, personal "galleries" using the "My Gallery" feature. We then e-mailed these to Mrs. Burch so she could see which paintings we chose. Then, she asked us to revisit our choices and try to find adjectives that described our collection as a whole. We will use these adjectives to come up with ideas for themes for our group exhibit.

Some of the theme ideas so far are:

People at Work
the Suburbs
Four Seasons
Shadows
Shapes
Charleston Art
American Dream... or not
People in Color
Warm Colors/Cool Colors
Melancholy
Tranquility
Ethnic Art
City/Country

A lot of people noticed that their galleries showed contrasts between two things, like "City/Country" or "Warm and Cool Colors." We like contrast!

Square One

2009-11-18T11:02:00.000-08:00

Hamilton, Charles Jupiter
Monkey Swim
acrylic & wood
1988 Gift of Dr. & Mrs. Richard Rashid

I am honored to announce that the Clay Center has asked Charleston Catholic art students to help curate a special exhibit, which will open on April 3, 2010. This is a fantastic opportunity for students to learn about art, and to see firsthand what it takes to put together an exhibit in an art museum. We are so fortunate to be located almost next-door to this superb collection of works by artists from Romare Bearden to Andy Warhol -- with a little local flavor from artists like Charles Jupiter Hamilton and Paula Clendenin, too. We can't wait to work with this collection and discover new favorites. We hope you will discover pieces that speak to you, as well.

Next week, we will get together in the school's computer lab and peruse the Clay Center's online catalog of art and select our favorite pieces using the "My Gallery" feature. Once we have a few favorites saved, we will begin brainstorming concepts for the show. We'll post a few interesting concepts on this blog next week.