Excitement Mounting

I drove an hour and a half to Weaverville this morning to meet with John Ritz and his son, Evan.  They unloaded the spirals from the trailer John parked in front of the gallery. The spirals were created oversized on purpose to allow some wiggle room. Evan and John put them into the East Gallery in the Highland Art Center and then figured out where to cut the metal. We were so happy to have sunny and relatively warm weather to work outside. 50ish and no rain. Life is good.

When John drove the spirals from the shop in Anderson last week in to Weavervile the roads had been salted for ice. The salt spray discolored the metal. Today the spirals were cut, polished and sprayed with lacquer to protect the coating.  These two men work well together with mutual respect and a quiet thoughtful approach. John had thought he would find the studs or joists in the ceiling. When I arrived they had not yet found any. Impossible! How is this true? The entire ceiling, it turns out, is wood, underneath the ceiling tiles. It was then quite easy to place the hangers anywhere to fit the curve of the spiral! The first spiral worked beautifully. About this time a friend, Bay, showed up and pitched right in to help install spiral number two. Angenett stopped by to see the progess and Liz, mom of the Ritz clan, stopped in and contributed a very good idea to the finishing touches. Yvonne Pegararo, the gallery manager and an artist herself, said she loves group collaboration. I do too. Everyone has something to contribute and the whole is so much better because of all who participate. 

The only thing concerning  me now is the delivery of the clips I ordered to hang the pieces from the beautiful metal. A little bit of a last minute thing with a very long delay on the delivery time. We are scheduled to put all the pieces onto the metal on thursday. UPS says the clips will be here late on wednesday. OH DEAR!