Preparation Makes the Exhibition! Guest Blogger Christina Fairley Erickson

Exhibition – Level 4 Experimental Research for Advanced Design Oct 1-2, 2022

Whenever we put on an Open House or exhibition at the Center, it takes a village to get prepared! This weekend we’re hosting the work of our graduates of the Advanced Design course. Preparation started with transforming our studio space into a gallery. Patching and painting walls that have hosted lots of artwork over the years came first, the week before the exhibition.

Christina’s husband, Randy Erickson helped with our painting job!

We arrived to do the set up with 3 full days prior to the event. First we had to haul out anything that we weren’t going to need during the exhibit (tables, chairs, sewing machines, dye equipment, etc.) and unpack all the materials we planned to display.

A long way to go before showtime!

Volunteers are so critical to our putting on the exhibits… both before and during the event!

Gloria Shelton helped with both organizing our volunteers and ironing tablecloths, as well as planning to man our reception desk for a shift during the exhibition.

Behind many successful women artists are their hard-working husbands, painting or attaching hardware for hanging the artwork!

Peggy and her husband, John Doyle, preparing her artwork for hanging

Christina sorting out her various projects and sketchbooks

Getting pieces on the wall starts to change the overall mood of the space and generates excitement as you see the exhibition start to come together.

Gloria, Peggy, Gail, and Christina with “animal masks” in front of Peggy’s large wall piece.

Creating design boards helps display a range of items created in class. Putting together work that has been made over the course of the last 3 years into a cohesive grouping can be both challenging and exciting.

Christina cropping and mounting a piece for a design board

If you haven’t been to one of our exhibitions before, it’s really a unique experience. Rather than just seeing the finished artwork on the walls, you’ll be able to look through sketchbooks and design plans for the work… documentation of the processes and thoughts behind the artists journey are also on display! Furthermore, our artists bring a range of work from the time they started working with Gail, so you can see how each has developed their unique and special style over the course of their studies.

Pinning tablecloths in place to display sketchbooks, documentation and more artwork.

As has become a standard part of our exhibitions, beautiful floral arrangements brighten any room!

Peggy Doyle and Lorna Stevens cut and arranged flowers for the exhibit

We don’t want to ruin all the surprises, since we hope you’ll come see the exhibition in person this weekend…. You can also sign up to attend our Online Exhibition “Meet the Artists of Level 4 Research for Advanced Design” on Wednesday Nov. 9 from 10:30-12noon PST by going to our website: https://gailcreativestudies.com/portfolio-item/level-4-design-online-exhibition/