So, did you see my Fringe piece at the opening?

If you did, you came early. How do I know? They didn't turn on any lights on the porch where it is!! So when the sun went down, it was in the dark. Yes, I should have asked them to turn on some lights, but by the time I came outside and noted this, I was tired and freezing from standing outside guarding the back door and pointing folks to the front. I volunteered for that, thinking I would be near my piece and get to hear what people said about it, but i wasn't really.

Besides that, there's another thing I'm not happy about. I understand about having to put up the piece with a rope across with just a few eye-screws for support when I originally wanted to use one for each string of "beads". But that had the result that the different strings tend to congregate in the center of each space between the eye-screws leaving uneven gaps and making the whole piece look pretty straggly. It's the entrance of the whole Fringe at the factory site. So why does no one but me take the trouble (about three minutes worth) to even out the distances between the strings once in a while, especially when there are large numbers of people coming in that entrance? Before I got there yesterday, there had been an opening for VIP's. I guess it must have looked fully straggly for them.

I can't go down there every day and do this since i work and travel by bus. On the whole, it it's going to look scraggly, I'd as soon people not notice it, so I've decided not to ask that the porch lights be turned on henceforth.

I am full of complaints today. My jewellery for the auction? Well, I guess I should be thankful that it's on the lighted side of the auction room. Half had no lights during last night's opening. Or at least it was. Each piece was laying in the box I brought it in, still on the dilapidated desk in that region, though with a label. I just hope it's still there for the auction itself.

Is there more? Unfortunately yes. Yesterday morning, I went to the BBC radio station for my interview that Produced in Norfold had arranged as a part of their series. Turned out the series had ended the week before! Luckily, I said the right thing when they told me this. I said " I'm sorry, too, because I was offered two dates and I chose this one because of the Fringe." They perked up and said that if i was part of the Fringe, they wanted to do an interview on that. It was very cool. I got to mention several other things and plug my classes and my website and the Fringe and such. They said it would be on later in the day, An irony, huh? An interview about my piece that no one could see.

Lord bless me, there's one more thing. While I was at the BBC, a couple came in. They had heard about the Fringe on the radio and come to the Forum (where the BBC and the library and the tourist information office for Norwich is) looking for information on it. The tourist information office of Norwich had not one single brochure or schedule of events. The woman at the desk looked that the web site on her computer. She found information about events, but no directions to the factory or to any other location. If they had even made web pages of the brochure pages, that would have been there. I knew and helped them as much as I could. Yes, I should have been carrying my brochures and invitations. I'm not perfect either.

OK. That's all out of my system. On to my next adventure as an artist in England. I'm letting this one go and simply trying to make sure I hold on to all the lessons I've already learned:
Fight for a proper set-up for your piece.
Fight for proper lighting.
Acrylic-painted cardboard tubes DO stand up to rain.
And, should I ever actually be the organizer of an event (which I am wishing more and more that I could take a crack at) (and they should immediately call me up and offer me next year's Fringe so I can get my come-uppance for all these complaints) MAKE SURE THERE ARE BROCHURES AT THE TOURIST OFFICE.

Oh, and one last parting shot. I just picked up the latest AN magazine for October, which has listings of all the art events all over the country and some beyond. Is there any listing of the Fringe under Norwich? OF COURSE NOT!

There! I'm finally done.

the fringe project is installed!

There's a picture of it (and me) on my website www.donnajcarty.co.uk.

Yes, I'm reverting. I don't want to take the time to look up the code sequence I have to insert to make that a link just now. I did have to make considerable changes on-site, though. It originally defined a sort of oriental entrance shape, but it could not impinge on the doorway in any way. OK, a few of the bottom squiggles do, but I'm hoping the powers won't remove them just because of that. It turned out that I was aided in my quest to put the piece outside the entrance rather than inside by the "nanny state", as they call it here when the state makes a silly rule that causes something like putting a label saying "may contain nuts" on a package of cashews.

Anyhow,, I was very glad I had made it in separate strands connected in a reversible fashion, because there was a lot of reversing, detaching, and reattaching to do in order to get it to surround the wide (both doors will be open for the opening) square doorway instead of my more romanic shape.

The comments from the artists going in and out weren't particularly enthusiastic, but Brits rarely are in general. I don't like it myself quite as well as I did before the rearranging. I had planned the color arrangements rather carefully, and they were all undone, and there was no way to take the time to spend a lot of thought on the new arrangement with a guy there doing the ladder work to attach it to the ceiling of the porch.

That was another "nanny state" thing. Seems the panels of the ceiling of the porch might well be asbestos, and heaven forbid we should drill holes and let some of the asbestos free into the outside air. So eye hooks were wedged into where the wall and the ceiling met. I just hope they stayed there.

Today it rained. What will happen to the piece as it hangs for two weeks in whatever the British climate throws at it? I don't know. I had already spent as much in time and materials and tools as i wanted to put into the project, and I guess it's the dredges of the scientist inside me (my former career) that wants to know just what WILL happen? This way, at the end, I'll know what acrylic painted cardboard tubes look like after a week of Brit fall weather. How else would I have a clue as to just how much care to take about such a thing should an opportunity ever occur to make something similar but longer lasting?

One of my galleries called me yesterday to say they are almost out of my work and need more. It is lovely to be called rather than calling even if they are the gallery that tends to take its time paying up when things sell. The other one needs work too, and I put my two most recently made things (and am kicking myself for not taking pictures of them before doing it. I'm going to design and emoticon that beats it's own forehead and says D'oh and make my fortune.) in the auction. Hey! If they don't sell for my minimum (which would only give me a little over half what the galleries would), then I just retrieve them and off to the galleries they go. In the meanwhile, I have good reason to bead, which is a great thing.

And tomorrow is the radio interview. I made a list of the things I wanted to talk about. I've got 15 minutes and 15 things. I hope the interviewer wasn't planning to say anything. (Ha. Ha.) One thing I learned giving scientific presentations was never to give more than 4 take-away facts in a 15 minute presentation, so I'll weed tomorrow morning and we'll see how close I come to actually saying what I wanted to say when faced with a microphone and an audience.

Then on to the opening tomorrow night. I still don't have a clue what to wear! Maybe I'll go pure excentric so as to wear my long sparkly skirt. The skirt. My embroidered blue jean jacket. Do I dare try to find the Betsy Johnson bustier? My blue woven necklace? The problem is I have nothing but summer tops to go with the thing. I'll think of something, sometime between noon and 3.