art shows or, nothing good happens after midnight

Hung a show at this place last night:

http://www.espressoroyale.com/

736 Comm Ave Boston. Through January 4th, 2008

The good thing is that I got a bit of exposure in the middle of the city, across from BU, near Fenway and Kenmore square, in a café bulging with the hipster chic day in and day out. The bad thing is that I had to hang the show last night after closing. The place closes at 11PM. Good grief. So I get there at 11, my ever helpful compatriot Becky (heretofore known simply as Cecil) happily, yet sleepily plodding along beside me. I was met at the door by none other than Adrian Emberley, of Adrian Emberley and the Urban Anthropologists, who was nice and sweet and offered me the two best walls to hang my stuff. Cecil and I unloaded the art from the car, laid it out in order to hang and got to work. Basically, I stood on chairs and Cecil handed me a picture, and I hung it on the hook, made it straight, and moved on to the next one. The whole shebang took about half an hour, and aside from one picture hanging a little low, looked pretty good. Adrian assured me that she would adjust the height of that one picture when her boss returned with the allen wrench tools in the morning.

While I hung the show, Adrian and her coworkers hung out at the back of the galley shaped store, sprawled out on cushy chairs and sofas, seemingly jaded and rather uninterested altogether. But when I was finished with my work, the whole crew made a trek up to the front of the store to see what I had to offer. Immediate response from the lot of them was very positive with pleasant little missives offered up unsolicited. Pleasantries were exchanged, an agreement was made for a time to pick the work up, and we said our goodnights. As I drove away, I noticed that the staff was still interested in my stuff, standing on tip toes to catch a small detail, each piece occupied by one or 3 people. Cecil made sure I stayed awake for the ride home by singing along to Christmas songs on the radio, and I was in my own warm bed by 12:30.

I was expecting much worse to tell you the truth. I figured I was in for hours and hours of misery. But it really wasn’t that bad. Now if coffee ACTUALLY made up for a lack of sleep.