Last week wednesday was the first day we were allowed to start making changes to the gallery. Everyone turned up around 10.30 to get going, we had a lot to do! We had painting, walls and plinths to move, making sure everything was in the correct place, electrics to do etc. We got quite a lot done this day a lot of the painting was done and we knew the next day we would have to re touch some bits.
Thursday, the following day we carried on with the same as Wednesday everything such as fake walls were in place so now it was just a case of making everything look as good as it could be. As well as painting and helping around. Joseph had made a change to the posters and wanted our team to have a look to make sure it was okay we all gave our opinions and then me and Melissa Stapleton went into town to try and get these printed but the image file was too large so it wasn’t possible. These were the two new chosen posters;
Friday everything to do with painting and moving fake walls etc and plinths was done, everything was built and in place and all painted in white! We were all ready to start hanging our work after the weekend on Monday!
Tuesday 27th – Hanging day 1
On Tuesday we expected a big turn out for hanging and thought that the majority of people would of wanted to hang their work already but intact we only really had 2 peoples work really up. We realised that there was a lot of planning before hanging up with making sure things were straight, aligned, the right order etc. Although not many people did hang up we did have a better view on what it was going to look like and we realised the back wall wasn’t looking as great as planned as well as having a lot more space then we had anticipated.
Wednesday 28th – Hanging day 2
The majority of our class hung their work today which was really exciting! I really loved being a part of this process because I was able to give my creative opinion to my peers about what I thought worked and didn’t when seeing work hung up on the wall. Once more work was up the curatorial team had a small talk and we were too happy with how certain things were, we just didn’t feel like the gallery looked ‘right’. Certain frames weren’t hung on the same level and others beside it on the wall etc. We had to re adjust some work which was a bit of effort but worth it in the end!
I still hadn’t had a chance to hang mine up because when I originally printed my images one came out far too small than I had expected it too so I had to re send it to print this Wednesday morning and was told it would only be ready by Thursday midday! I was quite stressed at this point but knew I couldn’t do anything about it so I got on with framing my work that I did have and visualising where images could go as my frames were a lot larger than my images inside them! I layer out all my work on the floor in the frames and it took me a good few hours to figure out where I wanted what! It took a lot longer than expected and I had to get quite a few peoples opinions but I finally figured it out and did manage to hang up my work by the end of this day! I also sorted out what was going in my perspex box that I had made, my grandfathers diary, album, clothe he made and pins from the war.
Thursday 29th – Contingency day
Thursday was supposed to be a contingency day where only small things that needed doing were to be done this day in the gallery, tasks such as cleaning etc. Although this is what was meant to happen a lot of people still did not have their work up on the walls so it ended up being a bit of a hanging up and contingency day rolled into one! I finally got up my last image and was so happy with how it looked!
Quite a few things went wrong this day, the poster that Kate had ordered was meant to arrive but it hadn’t so we had to think of another solution to get a poster printed quickly before the opening night the following day! As well as that not arriving the vinyl didn’t arrive either! Instead of it being delivered to the gallery Melissa Stapleton and Alex E. had to go pick it up from Nuneaton where the TNT depot was! – this was quite a stressful day!
Friday 30th – Opening night morning!
The opening night morning we just had a few bits to do such as cleaning, moving things, setting up the gift shop, drinks, donation pots etc! I also re painted some of my wall where it was scratched from hanging up frames and re painted bits of my plinth as well as that I went over the outline of my perspex box with black electrical tape as it had gotten a bit damaged during setting up time so I wanted to make it look more professional and neat.
Everything was done the majority of us left the gallery around 4pm to get ready to return for 5 to brief the 1st years who were serving drinks etc later on in the night and then we opened at 6pm!
Cruz Santos Media 
