Filed under: Artomatic, Favorites, Painting, Process by ramune

Last year my friend David exhibited a bunch of his photos at Artomatic and after walking through only three of the nine floors, I decided I had to sign up this year (and make sure to see all of the art on all nine floors).

I knew it would be a lot of work, but the reality of it hit hard the other weekend. The fact that the location is right next to the National’s stadium, and they have home games almost every day until the Artomatic opening makes it particularly frustrating to drive there and find parking ($25 on game days!). Taking the metro with a ladder and a bag full of painting supplies is also less than fun, but I did what I had to do and drove to the nearest metro (where I could find free parking) and then metroed the rest of the way.

Day 1: Put primer on walls
I thought I had everything I needed with me, but did not take into account the massive pits in the walls that would require filling. I could probably have left them alone and no one would have noticed, but I am a bit of a perfectionist and want my wall to be defect-free. I called my mother to look up the nearest hardware store (I’m sure if I had an iPhone there would be an app for that) and tried to catch a cab but only had $3 cash (damn that $2 melted Reeses I bought from a street vendor). After standing on a corner not knowing what to do, I went to the CVS, bought a bag of chips and got cash back and tried to find another cab. Unfortunately there were no cabs to be found, so I gave up and took the metro back to my car and drove to the hardware store. Wood filler was purchased, I made my way back to my exhibit space, had a therapeutic session filling holes in the panels and then got to priming.

I thought all was going well, but silly me believed the man at Home Depot who told me that a quart of paint was enough for two coats of primer on a 12′x8′ wall. It wasn’t even enough for one full coat . . . as you can see in the photo below. I painted what I could, packed up and left. This was a silly mistake for me to make because I should know better. My work study job for three years of college was working at the Pratt galleries and I spent a lot of time filling holes and painting walls. I just didn’t think to question the guy when he said it would be enough.

Day 2: Finished priming the wall!

Day 3: Choose paint color and paint two coats
I toiled and troubled over what color to paint my wall (I created several Illustrator mock-ups with a variety of color options and layouts), and eventually decided on a Valspar granite textured paint from Lowes. It glitters . . . hopefully not obnoxiously so, but I think it adds a little something. I have never painted any kind of textured paint, so that was an interesting learning process. I had to buy a fluffier roller, roll the first coat and then hand-brush Xs for the second coat. Side Note: There is no way to paint that kind of stuff cleanly. It sprayed all over my arms, face and into my eyes (hopefully I won’t go blind before Artomatic). I am not sure how I did it, but somehow I took a gallon of paint meant to cover 120 square feet and made it cover over 192 square feet. I haven’t seen it completely dry yet, but I sure hope it looks good. This is how it looked when I left it this past Saturday.

Now that painting is all done, I have to get my photos printed, finish two enamels, buy mat boards, frame the photos, frame the enamels, install all of that, install lights and a table with guestbook (that my awesomely talented sister is making for me) and postcards (that are being printed now) and maybe other treats . . . then I am done! Whew . . . lots left to do, but most of the manual labor is done.

That, my friends, it what has been keeping me busy and away from updating this here blog. I will try to be better about it, but most of my “creativeness” has been spent on this exhibit.