Today Saint Louis had its first big snow. It made me really happy when I woke up this morning. I walked to class around 1:00 and took my time just enjoying it. Unfortunately my feelings quickly changed...
I had to leave screenwriting early to get downtown for a meeting about the Art Saint Louis Show. 64/40 was miserable. It had not been scraped or salted, so only one of the three lanes was drivable. I think we were only going 15 mph, however, I'm not sure because my speedometer doesn't register speeds that low. I got into the right lane to exit (in other words I drove into a snowbank.) Then this damn green Miata cut in front of me and slowed down to about 2 mph. I still don't understand what exactly he was doing, but I had to pull back into the middle lane to pass him. Driving up the off-ramp I was happy to get off the highway and onto a road that would certainly be scraped off. Well guess what...Jefferson had not been touched by a plow nor had any other street in the whole damn city. It takes me a half hour to get from Jefferson to 8th. (For those of you not from here that is about 15 blocks.)
I made it to the Arts Saint Louis building only a couple minutes late, mostly because I was lucky enough to find a space right out front. I found the meeting and they had already started. There were no chairs left so I had to sit on the wet floor with my sopping boots underneath me. (You would think that they would have more than six chairs if they are expecting 20 some odd students in this show. Lets call that bad sign no. 1) So this lady with an extreme superiority complex is sitting in front of all of us rattling off the do's and dont's for putting on an art show. She talked to us like we were 12. "Now does everyone have a resume started?" "Everyone after the reception must stick around to clean up. This is very important, because every year people disappear before its time to clean." "Please print neatly on the ID form."(That was bad sign no. 2) As I tuned her out I started looking around the gallery and thinking about the amount of space we had and how things could be set up. The space was a decent size, but still a bit tight. Tuning back, "I think that each student can put two pieces into the show each." After a bit more lecturing she stood up saying, "So, lets go look at the space!"
It turns out the gallery we were in was not our the space we were using.(Bad sign no. 3) We stepped out into the back alley of the building, and walked out and across 10th street to the Urbis Orbis Gallery. Basically, it was a storefront about half the size of the other space. Everyone shuffled in and the lady continued to talk and talk and talk. She asked does anyone have any large pieces? Of the fifteen that were there eight raised their hands. One of the girls stepped forward and said, "Mine's pretty big and I might have to re-think it." "Don't say that. What is it?" "It involves some stuff hanging from the ceiling and the shell of a piano." (My jaw dropped) Then the lady said, "We can work with that. What it sounds like is that you need the center of the gallery." My jaw would have dropped further if it could have. The lady then goes over to the gallery owner who is zoned out and asks him to tell us about the history of the space. He really didn't care. she tries to prod him for information by asking, get this, "What about the floors? Tell the students what you did to prepare the floors." "Well," looking amazed by the stupidity of the question, "there was tile here before, so we removed that and cleaned the concrete. Then we sealed it." "Fascinating, so are there any questions for Joe?" Of course there weren't. "Any questions I can answer?" Six hands shoot up. She calls on me first. "Exactly how many artists are there going to be in the show?" Four other hands go down. "27." Three more pop up. After that I was done with this lady, and am now resolved to put a small piece in and throw the show on my resume. I don't want anyone to come and see it, unless they really want to see a train wreck.
here is a picture of the gallery. You see almost all of it here if you can believe it. The photographer must have been shoved against a wall or something.
(the piano will go right where that ottoman is.)
I got out of the meeting around 4:00 and found myself once again fighting the unscraped Saint Louis streets. This time it was even worse, I watched a tow-truck fish-tale around a corner. (And this was one of the big ones.)Then packs of school buses started coming from all directions. As I was between two of them I thought to myself, I could easily be crushed really easily. The one behind me could loose control and I would be done for. I made it out alive obviously (unless the dead have the internet...) It took me a good 45 minutes just to get back to Jefferson though. In many ways it is similar to how I envision hell.
I had a harmonica lesson at 5:00 just off Jefferson, and from the looks of things when I crossed over 64/40, I didn't want to head home anyway. GRIDLOCK. I grabbed a quick bite on the way and got to the lesson right on time. After that the highway had opened up a good bit and I crawled my way back home. You know most winters it takes me a while before I get tired of the snow...Not this year. This year it only took a day and it's not even winter yet.
Here are some pretty pictures from the day...(I wish I had some of the fishtailing tow-truck!)
Towards the Middle...
