The Week Before

Sneak peek: artwork by Alex McD

It’s just a couple of days away from Final Show, and we here at Oxbow are about as busy as our new bees!  The week before final show, we as a community embark on our biggest collaboration of the semester: completely transforming all of the studios into gallery space. That includes sweeping the floors of any sawdust and copperplate shavings, pencil points and canvas trimmings, wiping down furniture before moving it all out of sight, spackling over memories of past installations, giving each wall a fresh coat of white paint, and, quite literally, clearing the cobwebs.

The journey from workspace to exhibition space is an exciting one. In many ways, it’s like any other move. During the month-long Final Project, the students really do move in to the studios, making it a second home. This means that in addition to all of the grunt work, The Week Before also includes returning clothes, coffee mugs, and iPods to their rightful owners, and, in the best cases, discovering items you thought were lost for good (like my phone charger!).

Last night, we officially finished installing all of the artwork. The tenor does shift here as the students turn over the space that has become so much theirs. As they walk around the studios looking at the work of their friends (some for the first time), it’s a lot like walking around the house you can’t come back to—at least not in the same way.

Sure, there are other things going on—like writing and revising artist statements, rehearsing presentations until the nerves subside, choosing the perfect outfit for the show, packing, a sense of triumph at having finished met with constant waves of nostalgia for the almost-over semester, and, of course, the bittersweet anticipation of the near goodbyes we have to face. But for right now, we are all proud, anxious for the big day, and really, really, tired. 

Hope to see you all at the show this weekend!