Friday, October 5, 2007

Installation complete – the Wildflower Center show is almost ready

I spent much of Thursday at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center installing the art for the Bamberger Ranch exhibit. If my mental count is correct, we installed 50 pieces, including my four panoramas, Margaret Bamberger's 21 prints, and something like 25 photographs by Kathleen Marie. Margaret couldn't make it (we await word of the results of her latest cancer treatment), so Kathleen Marie and I, ably assisted by Johnny Ramirez of the 'Center staff, performed the installation. I had planned to shoot a few panoramas of the exhibit after the installation, for inclusion here, but the exhibit still needs to be lit. That task will take Johnny most of Friday, so it won't be in a fit state to be photographed until shortly before the exhibit opens on Saturday. So, I'll have to find some quiet day during the next month to slip back and shoot my show panos.

While the Center wasn't overrun with visitors this Thursday, we did have to keep turning-away small groups of people who happened upon us and wanted to see the works. Sorry about that, folks. Here's hoping that you can make it back after the exhibit opens this Saturday, October 6th (and before it closes on November 11th). There's no opening party, or anything; that'll just be the first that time visitors will be permitted into the McDermott Learning Center to see the show.

The closest that anyone will come to making an event out of the show is on Friday, October 12th when David Bamberger will be giving the presentation "Selah: The Story of the Bamberger Ranch Restoration" at 10:30 AM, followed by a signing of the book "Water from Stone: The Story of Selah, Bamberger Ranch Preserve" by its subject, David Bamberger, and, with luck, its illustrator, Margaret Bamberger. Salesman's blood runs in David's veins, so he gives a very good presentation. I recommend attending, provided that you aren't too busy earning a living at the time. (Why is it that these sorts of things are so often scheduled while most people are working?)

Anyway, every piece on display in the show is available for purchase through the Wildflower Center's gift shop. (Purchasers will have to wait until the show closes to collect their purchases, of course.) So, if you have friends with lots of disposable income, and some blank spots on their walls, please bring them along. Also, if you happen to see something that you like that has already been sold, other prints from those editions can be ordered from each artist. The Center should provide our contact information. (If they don't, drop me a line, and I'll provide it.) In my case, I can not only provide additional limited-edition canvas prints of my panoramas (60 X 18 inches, mounted and ready to hang, as seen in the show), but also smaller, unframed, and much less expensive, archival-grade paper prints (40 X 12 inches). I have one such paper print of each of the panos at the show "in stock", at the moment, so I can say with confidence that the quality of those prints is excellent.

It's good to have the show, the prints, pricing, bios, descriptions, and everything else squared-away at long last, but my main feeling at this point is not accomplishment, or even relief – it's exhaustion. I'm also struck by just how bare the walls of my house have suddenly become.

Oh, well. Wish us luck.

By The Way...

...there are several upcoming public tours of the Bamberger Ranch, including a public tour this Saturday, October 6th. See the ranch tour schedule for details.

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