the final countdown

thanks to arrested development and G.O.B for the inspiration for my title.



Well,one week until Nate gets here, only two more days of work, and those days are both downtown at National Museum of the American Indian to be a part of the deinstall of the Brian Jungen exhibit, holy crap I am excited about that. I loved the exhibit at NMAI and can not wait to check this out. Today was sort of our 'official' last day at OEC. They gathered all the interns into the conference room for what was basically a post-mortem, except this was not scheduled in a timely manner, which REALLY ticked me off. I am just going to say it on, the lack of scheduling they did over there drove me bonkers. Important things were also scheduled week of in an 'oh, by the way' manner. I suggested to them that this change, and as soon as possible. If you have something of relative importance, it can not be scheduled like that, end of story. That is the way I function, I don't mess around, I really do not have time for that 'oh, by the way' thing. Ragh! Anyways, because it overlapped with a meeting I had downtown, I could not stay for the entire thing and had to skidaddle. We were going to receive certificates or something like that, I'll be picking mine up on Wednesday.The hilarious thing about the certificates was that the interns were musing the day before about what we were going to receive at this meeting, because a token of appreciate was mentioned in the 'oh,btw' email. We joked about a few things, but in a serious manner, we were like, certificates, like any other thing in life. Later, when I saw the Graphics intern, Jamal, I asked him how the certificates were coming along. He looked at me in shock and said,
"That was supposed to be top secret"
Sike. So, moving on to my meeting. I had a meeting back down at Gallery Place at NPG to meet their lighting designer, you might be thinking to yourself,
"Betty, You sure are meeting with an awful lot of lighting designers, you don't really work in lights"
I have actually only met with 2, I met with a tech at American History by chance, and NPG/American Art are actual designers, these two galleries are attached to one another,and they could not meet with me on the same day due to schedules and such, so I met with them separately.Also, lighting museum objects/lighting paintings/sculptures etc-VERY DIFFERENT FROM ONE ANOTHER.
But it was good, because I got a really good understand of design for a gallery. Alex, was really great, also very passionate about his work, and a really great teacher. He talked about how lighting this gallery was a lot of architectural lighting as well, the building is very beautiful and one of the tricky things with lighting art is that there are conservation restrictions, so one of the ways they make the gallery inviting and draw interest to it, is by lighting the room itself. He has worked with artists when it came to lighting their work, which can be tricky when often times the artist may have painted under fluorescent light, natural light etc, and sometimes can change the way the color looks etc, etc. He says that halogen lamps are really the best choice when it comes to lighting color, because LEDs do not have all the color capabilities yet. I also got to see them installing lights for Americans Now, which opens August, where I saw one of the vitrines I had painted, waiting patiently to be completely installed. That was a COOL feeling, most of the work here I've done here I will not see come full circle, because the exhibits open after I leave, which is sort of a bummer. Maybe I will have to make some time to check them out later on. It was cool to see some of my work, actually in a museum,not quite ready yet, but still. It was awesome. Alex, even offered to get me involved in a hang/focus for Americans Now, but unfortunately, I do not have the time, which SUCKS, wish I had met with him earlier, that would have been really cool!
I really recommend going to these two galleries, check out the courtyard at night, also stand in either of the main lobbies, and look to your right, and to your left at the ceilings, and just notice the amount of lamps hanging from the ceiling in NPG compared to American Art, it is really quite something.
Excited for the weekend, volunteering back at Columbia Heights Farmers Market, this time we are doing live music, so we have a stage and sound equipment to set up. Super stoked to be involved this weekend, it looks like I'll get some sound experience in over my summer too.

So, this is pretty much farewell intern friends, we survived this madness, and it looks like everyone has their limbs, and hopefully you all will get a chance to rest your brains a little bit before you being your next big project. Hahah, it was good getting to know you, and eating lunch with you everyday while watching CNN. Wish I could have worked with some of you all more, but you all were in different units, dang. Have a good year!!


Here is a link to Brian Jungen, love it:
http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/jungen/