At last count it was 50. Fifty hours spent at the Pasadena Museum of California Art over the last week, overseeing installations, doing the installations, writing copy, coordinating press and party vendors, torturing the staff (with kindness, I hope!) and generally having a ball setting up the 11 designers who make up my category, fashion, of the California Design Biennial.
The curtain drops this Saturday night.
Those 50-odd hours were only onsite. Let's just say, curating a show--really doing it and not pawning it off to the hosts who invited you to participate--is hard work.
But the PMCA team, lead by installation director Sergio Gomez, works hard. Bloody hard. Tonight's pizza dinner break with the mostly youthful and tireless crew reminded me of deadline night on my college magazine, complete with the fleeting camaraderie, delirious stories over slices, and need to eat fast or risk going comatose with exhaustion.
Several of the participants put their own time in, too. And the results are mindblowing. In my camp, it was a daily blur of designers, their reps and artifacts.
A couple of them practically moved in. Raven Kauffman and her new assistant, Jill, spent three full days, mostly on a ladder with arms extended, suspending her exquisite handbags in a flight of fancy installation. Michael Schmidt will cap a packed week tomorrow, his teammates Brian, Madeline and Douglas Little, at his side, creating a tableau that will undoubtedly top the talk of the show.
Among those lending a hand was my assistant, Brandee-Nicole Able, a CSULA fashion student and aspiring costume designer who graciously took on whatever she was thrown, from my late invitations to Michael's need for tights or double-stick tape. But she did manage to get up and very personal with a couple of his outrageously stunning costumes for Fergie and Madonna. And by doing so, realize a dream she didn't realize she had until that moment. She wasn't alone.