Happy/Mortified/Happy

I'm shocked to announce that my doubleweave project was accepted into the Artspace/Lima Spring Show. Blows MY mind. This is the first art exhibition I've entered in over ten years, and the piece that got in was my first-ever attempt at doubleweave (which is a very complex weaving method involving two separate warps being woven simultaneously on the same loom to get a double-sided interlocking piece).

My fibers instructor insisted that everyone in her classes must exhibit in at least one non-school show as part of the class curriculum. This show came up, so we all spent a good afternoon prepping up to three projects to submit. I submitted three: two of my surface design pieces and, as an afterthought, my doubleweave project. I wasn't sure it was worth submitting because of flaws I perceived. For example, when it came off the loom, it didn't hang straight. I had to do what you do to lace: pin it to the ironing table, stretch/pull/cajole it into shape, straighten it out, then steam it and let it set for awhile. (It's much straighter now.) I didn't think my selvages were aligned and that bothered me. But I like the piece and I put my all into it. I ripped back several times to correct seemingly tiny errors to make sure it was as perfect as I could get it.

Apparently nobody else saw the flaws (and my over-perfectionist tendencies were justified), because that's the one piece that was accepted--the other two weren't. (That doesn't upset me that much... I wasn't even expecting to get IN.)

Anyway, just wanted to share the little bit of good news for a change!

In class-related news, today our team did its presentation in C&I. I give 3 out of 4 of us an A+. The 4th guy... we don't know what to do about him. One guy handled the PowerPoint "poster" presentation and did a fantastic job. Another guy and I handled all the graphics for the game we designed--my Creative Partner (CP) put his all into his half and so did I and it came out killer. The 4th guy was supposed to provide the cards and interactive DVD. (We designed a game that fits the Scene It/Trivial Pursuit boardgame category, but with a twist... can't discuss it because we might market it for real). Since all of us got to look at the preliminary board graphics early on, I guess CP and I thought it was obvious what level of quality we were going for. Guy #4 assured us he could handle making the cards (2 x 2.5 inches) and, in his words, "a sweet DVD of movie clips". We even made sure he understood that the easiest way to do it was lay them butted up to each other, output one page, and trim them out. He nodded. Said he had it under control. Note that we didn't force him to do this--he offered to do this part.

What he brought this morning was a set of scissor-cut index cards with the information sloppily handwritten--scrawled--on them; a DVD with a list of links to YouTube clips that we had to be logged on to access; and a lame excuse that the bookstore didn't have anything "cool" so he just bought index cards. He even took it upon himself to change the names of the categories for the card sets and said he'd been thinking and it might be cool if we changed the rules yadda yadda. The three of us just stared at him like he was from outer space. Everyone got a copy of the Rules as we'd approved them together in our meeting so that we could familiarize ourselves with the way the game was played before giving the presentation. So we wouldn't look stupid.

I was horrified. But I didn't say a word. Nobody else did, either. We just went along and played up the good parts of the game, glossed over the cards, and prayed it wouldn't matter. Afterwards, I caught up with CP and found out he was equally horrified. We discussed how to handle it.

I just don't understand how someone can offer to do something, then so completely and utterly drop the ball with a clunk heard round the world at the last minute with no wiggle room for a more astute person to save the day. I was mortified.

But it's done now. And, who cares? I got into an art show!

posted by Jeanne @ 12:37 PM