Taking The Show On The Road

There is never enough time to prepare. Never.

I could always use an extra day or two or three. And preparing for the Vancouver Show was no exception. The prints for the show took longer than initially expected. I ended up sending the first shipment (39 of the 90 images making up the show) to the gallery on a Friday for a Saturday delivery, one week before the opening. When we checked on Monday to confirm the delivery...um, no delivery. They were held up in customs because the broker hadn't set up the clearance. We were on the phone to the broker and FedEx and the gallery and the framers, who were freaking out (rightly so).

In the meantime, I was going crazy getting the rest of the prints together and packing for my Tuesday morning departure. The sizes on a redo on a Frank Zappa print and a Paul Butterfield print were flopped and would have to be done again and brought by another attendee. Likewise with the bulk of the t-shirts, which wouldn't be ready until Wednesday. I was signing prints until one in the morning prior to my 10am flight, oh, and tying up other loose ends until around 3am.

By some miracle, I managed to get my butt on the plane and made my way north...although, not to my destination of Vancouver. No. I had to fly to Seattle, rent a car, and drive to Vancouver. That's what you have to do when your passport application that you submitted on August 4th gets lost somewhere between Los Angeles and Quebec. Fortunately, the weather was nice and the drive gave me the opportunity to chill out and do a little quiet time thinking. Although now (one week later to the day) I have no idea what I was thinking. I also took a couple of pictures...while I was driving...not something I recommend or support...don't try this at home...

I was trying to get a good shot of Mt. Ranier. I could see it fine but the little digital couldn't quite pick up the contrast between the snow and the sky. But this mountain was no less spectacular, and look, only 112 miles to go.

Those boxes are containers making up a very long, moving train. The containers looked just like my book container, bringing back the fond memories of our shipping nightmare the previous week,

How crazy am I? Taking a picture through the window while driving in the very narrow two-lane Massey tunnel that runs under the Delta river. I couldn't help myself. I liked the color and the lights.

Within twenty minutes of the tunnel I was at the framers dropping off the 48 prints I hand-carried. This was last Tuesday at around 4:30pm. The shipment that was supposed delivered on Saturday still wasn't there...even though it cleared customs the previous day. I was pissed but there was nothing I could do. We had arranged for it to be held for a Tuesday morning pick-up at the FedEx office near the gallery. They didn't hold it. They sent it off on the truck. According to the driver, he attempted delivery at 12:06 on Tuesday. There were four people working at the gallery at that time but they didn't receive the package. By the time I was dropping off the hand-carried prints at the framers, no one (including FedEx) could locate the Saturday delivery package. It was nowhere to be found.

I left the framers and headed to the gallery to drop off a suitcase full of t-shirts, then headed to my hotel. What was left of Tuesday is a complete blur. I think I ate dinner in my room and did a bunch of work on my computer. Oh yeah, I was in the process of trying to retrieve emails from my corrupted Entourage database. That was fun. Not.