Showtime...

December 8, 2008

Friday’s drive back to Milwaukee wasn’t the white knuckle adventure Monday was.  The family and I took our time enjoying the cold but sunny weather on the way north.

We arrived at the gallery, I made some last minute adjustments, added the labels to the walls and got some gallery installation shots before people arrived.  L and the boys made themselves scarce while I was interviewed by the local public tv station for their Adelante! show.  The interviewer’s questions were pretty good.  I had to keep reminding myself to look him in the eye and not stare off into the corner of the room as is my habit when thinking of answers to questions about my work.

The tv crew stuck around and interviewed the director of Latino Arts, Zulay Oszkay, while I headed downstairs to join L and the boys having their lunch at the in house restaurant.  I was really too nervous to eat so I settled for a few leftover bites from the boys’ plates and a Dos X to calm myself.  When we made it back upstairs the caterers had set up and people were starting to arrive.  The tv crew recorded a few comments from the first few people who trickled into the gallery.  I’ll be interested to see how their footage gets edited down.

A couple of friends, Gil and Dolores, came up from South Bend, the Jones family drove up from Libertyville and Daniel Aperavich arrived with the news that the new website he’d designed for me was up and running.  A.J. brought a bottle of Patron as a congratulatory gift.  My extended family wasn’t able to make the trek north on a weekday.  I had mistakenly told them all that the gallery was open on the weekend (it’s not).  We’ll have to coordinate a group trip before the show ends on February 6th.

The Lightboy wove his way through the gallery patrons taking pictures with his aunt A.’s iPhone.  I went into the typical gallery opening mode – trying to greet the people I knew, never finishing a conversation and generally feeling discombobulated throughout the whole evening.  José Conde did a short acoustic teaser set to advertise his show on Saturday.  Co-sponsor, Alverno College had acknowledged some of their former students and success stories.  Overall, the reception seemed a success.  Many people expressed their appreciation for the works and a couple even bought some prints.