The Show is Hung!

Two years ago our doll club applied to the Fairbanks Art Association to have our own show in the Bear Gallery. We had to go through a juried process, complete with slides of our work, a formal biography, and other rigamarole. To our delight we were one of about 10 artists chosen for shows this year. Hard to believe that the two years has passed and this Friday is opening night. Today three of us spent 7 hours hanging the show. It was an interesting experience to say the least. We started out with a empty room - I don't think we knew enough about the process to be intimidated by it. We certainly had no clue it would take that long to set up! Let me tell you all about it ...

The first thing we did was set up our artist statements. They are right inside the front door and they look great. Since we had to have them on the upper half of the wall we balanced it out with the Big Girl on the bench. The gallery is in the Civic Center in Pioneer Park. Pioneer Park is the biggest 'tourist attraction' that we have. We are pretty sure that there will be tourists posing to have their photos taken with our Big Girl.

We had over 70 dolls to deal with so we put them all out on the floor. It looked pretty overwhelming. They are mostly unpacked in this picture.

We knew that we had to make an artisic display, not like what we'd seen in magazine photos, where all the dolls are crammed together on tables. We put all the dolls that could be hung on the walls together. Then we started grouping the dolls by genre and color. It started to look a little more manageable. Then we started moving the walls and pedestals around. Put some dolls up. Took them down. Moved the walls and pedestals around. Put some dolls up. Moved them to different pedestals. Moved the pedestals around. You get the picture.

We didn't have a lot of pedestals. We actually had more dolls than we could fit on them so we had to get creative. One of the girls had bought six little chairs which could hang on the wall. So one wall is filled with dolls sitting on these chairs - it looks awesome. Anything that remotely looked like it could be hung on a wall was. They even made me put two holes in the back of my Time for Fun clock doll and hang her on the wall. Luckily the body was a paper mache box, so no major damage was done, LOL.

The art association folks will light the show. You can see in this photo that the lights are way off. We are nearly done - that's Dalonna sitting down. We started getting drained - both physically and creatively after about 5 hours. But more people helping would have made it more difficult. Some of the exhibit went together very easily, other parts were very difficult. We wanted the dolls to compliment each other and I think we did a great job.

What we did will be 'tweaked' by the art association's head honcho - we're told she has an 'eye' for this. Hope she doesn't change it too much! Here's a couple more photos. I'll take proper ones next week when the lighting has been fixed.

This wall has a fairy castle, 3 dragons, and a 'wizard'. She's not really a wizard but she fit, LOL. The placards aren't up yet in these photos - but each doll has a card with the name of the artist and the name of the pattern designer (if any).

This shows the Seasonal Sisters by Kris Knutzen. This photo can't be enlarged. I have to tell you that Winter has a bigger butt than her sisters. I thought that was hysterical!

A few tourists snuck in while we were setting up. It was interesting to watch them. They weren't quite sure what to think, LOL. Ah well. It will look fabulous on Friday so wish us luck with our opening!