Weird Weather Vs. Art Exhibition

by Teacherlem Iglesias

CHOOSING the right venue for an art exhibition is as important as the art pieces you plan to show during the event.

We learned this lesson in the most unexpected manner during our Student’s Art Exhibition last June 2017. For this one event, we had to set up the displays two times (!) before opening day.

Here’s one interesting story.

We gave the art exhibition the catchy title “Sit Up Straight, Participate” after being inspired by one of the Art Projects of our Primary 4 called “Pop-Up Van Gogh Chair”.

“Pop Up Van Gogh Chair” : Don’t just draw it. Pop it.

 

Aside from that, we also thought of the two most common phrases teachers tell their kids in class:

• “Sit up straight” — to get students attention, as symbolised by the Van Gogh chair project and
• “Participate” — a call to all students to actively take part in the art exhibition as artists or as  viewers.

Our 2017 Students Art Exhibition Poster

 

It has been our objective to include as many students artworks in this annual event, while making sure the students themselves make the effort to visit and view the art displays. We had a good number of displays this year arranged in a large open foyer as our gallery space. You can just imagine the soft breeze of air gently passing between each art piece in this venue, making the viewing experience more pleasant during  warm sunny days.

Before the exhibition: Our empty gallery space and Rembrandt, our collaborator.

 

“Monday You Can Fall Apart…” — Robert Smith, The Cure

The Student’s Art Show is an annual event in our school (SISB) that we’ve been organising since 2015. So, collecting and curating students artworks is basically a walk in the park. With great help from the other art teachers, we have perfectly set up the displays in just one Monday afternoon in the school theatre’s foyer — that’s three days ahead of schedule. The layout of the movable art display boards were as orderly as a mini garden maze. The paintings on the walls were hung with long cable wires from the ceiling with art gallery-precision. And our colourful ceramic art pieces were the centrepiece of it all.

Monday’s calm before the storm: It was perfect until…

 

Everything was ready as we went home, pleased with our accomplishment — until that evening when we got a text message from the building manager. He said, the place got hit by a weird thunderstorm. The rain came in with wind gusts of 40-50 mph. He said he has never seen anything like it and the aftermath was as surprising as the weather was. Our display boards were tipped over and blown away five feet from where they stood with some of our 3D displays crushed and crumpled. The paintings we’ve hung on the walls flew like kites 10 feet from the ground, he added.

“Tuesday, Wednesday Break My Heart…”

When we came back to school the next day, Tuesday, the exhibition venue was just as he described it last night. None of the display boards were standing. Half of the paintings had broken frames. It was only the fist-sized ceramic works that was spared since they were too small for the wind to carry. Still it was basically back to zero for us. We had to fix and arrange all the displays once again.

The best thing about what happened was experiencing how everyone in our school gave us encouragement to pick up the pieces and start over. A lot of people showed their support and helped us in recreating the whole exhibition arrangement almost from scratch. The whole Tuesday was us and the maintenance guys putting-up the boards with the art teachers fixing and hanging the paintings and other displays once again. We taped, stapled, and when needed, changed all the damaged art pieces to come up with another set of exhibits that were as good as our first one. Everything in the exhibition venue was set perfectly once again by Tuesday afternoon that day.

Maybe it’s the season — because like the previous Monday, dark clouds started forming in the distance just before nightfall. Luckily, I stayed back in school still finishing things up when the weird weather came back. As soon as I saw the boards and paintings beginning to sway as the wind slowly grew stronger, I immediately asked the help of some security personnel to fold all the display boards and lean them on the paintings on the wall. This prevented the boards from toppling over. This has also prevented the paintings from being blown away like kites. As the rain started to fall, we went home hoping the our temporary solution would hold everything in place. At least, we knew that none of the art pieces will get crushed by the boards since it’s steady leaning on the walls.

Tuesday night: Removed the displays we can carry and leaned the boards on the paintings as  strong winds started to kick in.

 

By Wednesday morning, the venue looked okay — the same as before we went home last night. The display boards have kept the paintings from being blown away. The ceramics were untouched. It looked better than we expected. Now, instead of fixing up the displays once again, all we needed to do is to just put the boards back up. The maintenance guys helped us with this and in an hour, the exhibits were back in their proper places. That afternoon, the weird weather didn’t come back. The exhibits were safe so we were able to focus on our Thursday opening day.

 

“Thursday Was an Awesome Start…”

Thursday was a good day for an Art exhibition. There were no traces of all the difficulties we’ve faced preparing for the exhibition in the last two days — and nights. The 2D art — paintings and drawings — perfectly adorned the walls and display boards. The 3D artworks, like the small African masks and ceramic castles were standing proudly in place. Everything was labeled and lighted properly. The venue looked great with flowers and plants, and ribbons all prepared to be cut to formally open the exhibition.

Thursday’s ready for the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

That day, we invited our very supportive Principal from the Primary Level, Ms. Cecilia and our Secondary Level Principal, Mr. Willem to do the honours of cutting the ribbon. Also on hand were our special guests Primary Vice Principal Jasmine and our School Manager, Ms. Judith. Some Primary 1 students also came over to happily witness the event’s opening. The art exhibition lasted for one week with even more students and parents visiting the venue in the following days since the opening. Everyone enjoyed the creative hard work of our students — and of the art teachers and maintenance staff who worked behind-the-scenes to make it successful.

All’s well that ends well   🙂

 

“Friday I’m In Love”

More happy photos from this 2017 Students Art Exhibition Below:

Build it and they will come: A lot of students came to look around and participate.

First Gallery Guests: (Back Row) Teacher Lem, Primary School Principal Cecilia, Teacher Mike, Primary Vice Principal Jasmine, School Manager Judith, Secondary School Principal Willem and the Primary 1 Students. (Photo courtesy of SISB School, Pracha Uthit).

 

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