“But the show had arrived before I did.”
On July 29th, Navis Shipping picked up the framed photographs from Eric’s I’ve Been Framed Shop and took them to the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum.
I wasn’t there when they arrived.
A little later, the museum sent me a full inventory of the work they had received, with photographs and notes for each piece. It was strangely exciting to get pictures of my own pictures. For a few of them, it was also my first real look at the finished framed work. Until then, I had been experiencing the exhibition in pieces.
Files on my computer. Prints at Image Works. Frames at Eric’s. Small 5x7 versions in a box. Notes and layouts showing me (and anyone who would look with me) where everything was supposed to go.
Now the whole thing was in Saginaw.
When Lindsey (Gehlhausen) and I eventually went up to the museum, the photographs had been moved into the gallery and loosely placed according to where they would eventually hang. Each one was sitting on its own little carpet square. They looked like kindergartners waiting for their assignment.
Walking around the room and seeing Lindsey respond so strongly to the work really underlined the moment. I knew every photograph. I had spent years with many of them. But seeing them all framed and together in one room and being received, all together, by someone else made the project feel different.
It felt real. There was still plenty left to do. Nothing was finished. But the show had arrived before I did. I’ll always remember walking into that room and meeting it there.