barrier island trip

I've been hearing about the barrier island trip for at least 5 years.  Blue and Violet's school takes a big field trip in 5th grade.  It's the first overnight trip which, I assume, is why they start pumping the trip to students 5 years early.  

Like any good hermit, I live a pretty insulated life.  I don't watch the news and I don't have a Facebook so information has to travel to get to me.  Unless it's art or music I don't go looking for it on my own.  The information that gets to me usually comes second hand and I've learned how to weed out things that don't add up.  Each time Blue mentioned the trip to "barrier island" I understood that there are many barrier islands and I would ask which one.  No one seemed to know where this mystery island was.  When the abstract trip became a little more concrete this year when Blue entered 5th grade, still the information did not flow my way.  Right up until a couple of weeks before the trip, a trip that I had been volunteered to go on, I had no idea where this island was.  G could have gone as a parent chaperone, but cabins were divided by gender so he needed it to be a dad trip.  As luck would have it, when the dates finally made their way to me, my school schedule had the exact space in it for the trip.  I'd finish up school on Tuesday, do the trip Wednesday through Friday and roll up on graduation Saturday morning.  

Those of you who know me, will appreciate my disdain for traveling with people other than my immediate family.  Make those people a herd of 5th graders accompanied by their parents and you've got the second circle of hell.  I accepted my fate.  After all, I do love the beach.  Literally 2 days before the trip, I read the handful of sheets of paper that were sent home.  The only tangible information I had about this trip.  

 This would be Blue's first overnight field trip.  He's a homebody so I wasn't sure how that would play out.  But the more he learned about the trip at school, the more excited he grew.  There was a lot of talk about "the mud pit", I big pool of thick mud that students were encouraged to get in as deep as they wanted.  For weeks I heard about the mud pit.  I started to realize this was some sort of rite of passage for 5th graders.  

Upon arrival groups were divided up and assigned their adventures.  Our very first adventure?  The mud pit of course.  We met our naturalist and she guided us about a mile down the beach inspecting finds along the way.

  

 The kids learned about the tide and the shifting of sand from one end of a barrier island to the other.  They learned about the beach, the estuary and the salt marsh.  

 We reached the crooked tree that marked the spot where the beach walk ended and the mud trail began.  For months I had heard about the mud pit.  For months Blue had asked me over and over again if I was going to get in the mud pit.  As we stood at the edge of the salt marsh, all the adults stepped back on the beach except for two.  One other dad and me.  Everyone else bailed and took the dry path up to a spot where they could watch.  

 The rest of us followed the naturalist into the marsh.

 Right down into the marsh.

 There was an established trail through the salt marsh to the mud pit.  We were instructed to stay on the trail so we wouldn't harm the delicate ecosystem.

 Our feet suctioned down into the mud and all the nasty goo slimed down into our shoes as we walked.

 Soon the trail opened up into a large brown pool.  The mud pit.  

 Not exactly what I pictured in my head as a mud pit, but it was muddy.  

 Some of the kids rolled in it and smeared the mud on their entire bodies.  

 I'm not sure if you've ever smelled a salt marsh, but it's a powerful, distinct stench.  And we were going to smell it for the next couple of days.  

Immediately after leaving the mud pit, everyone got into the estuary to wash off.  I put my phone in some kind of waterproof bag for the adventure and was able to take photos.  While the entire group was in the estuary washing off, a pod of dolphins swam up very, very close to the group.  I quickly got out my phone and started recording as they approached, disappeared under the water as they were just a few feet away from us and then reappeared bobbing up and down.  Later when I went to watch this amazing video I realized that I wasn't recording.  My video started at the end when I thought I was stopping the recording.  So my amazing video was of me putting my phone back into my pocket.  

 Our night activity was a campfire with silly songs and stories.

 The "barrier island" was actually Seabrook Island just below Charleston.  The camp was St. Christopher Camp and Conference Center and the specific type of 3 day camp we signed up for was "barrier island".  

 The camp staff was great.  All the naturalists seemed to enjoy the kids and their jobs.  

 And they were always ready to stop whatever they were doing to admire the natural beaty.  During the campfire event several white tailed deer ran up on us.  Once they saw us they ducked out toward the beach and then reentered the dunes not far away from us.

 The naturalists stopped, told everyone what was happening and took the time to talk about the deer and other native animals that we might encounter.  Two of the deer are sprinting in the photo above.

 After the campfire, it was time for "dance".  The kids were led in several different dances.  Blue is dancing in the photo above.  It was interesting to see him interacting in his natural environment.  As a parent, you don't get to see how your kids act in school.  This was a nice little window into his world.  

 After the evening activities were officially over, most of our school informally met on the beach to terrorize ghost crabs.  The kids loved this.  The crabs not so much.

Then came the night.  It was a long day and the kids were tired.  The cabin we had been assigned had a maintenance issue when we arrived so we got split up between two smaller sleeping areas.  One group got a small cabin.  Our group got the side room of some sort of meeting area.  We got fold up cots to sleep on.  In addition to the kids in our room we also had 4 dads.  Fun fact about dads:  they snore.  Some dads snore really loud.  Frighteningly loud.  After about three hours of trying to get to sleep, I grabbed my sleeping bag and retreated into the meeting room next door.  Sleep was just as elusive in there.

 Operating on about 45 minutes of restless sleep, I knew that running and coffee were the only things standing between me and violence.  So just before 6:00am I quietly put on my running shoes and slipped out to the beach.

 The salty air eased my headache as I ran and the beautiful light made me feel relaxed.  As I ran down the beach I noticed a couple of dolphins moving down right behind me.  Then as I turned to run back up the beach, they turned and continued to follow me.  On the bright side, they did not snore.  

 Blue insisted that I go on this trip with him.  He wanted me there for comfort.  But as soon as he stepped off the bus he ditched me.  Of course, that's exactly what he should have done, but it was comical for me.  He was up and dressed when I got back from my run and after a shower we slipped outside so we wouldn't wake everyone else early.  He understood the importance of us walking all the way over to the cafeteria to get a cup of coffee before we walked on the beach.  He even understood when we needed to walk back for a second cup.

 That smile was brought to you by running and coffee.

 For our first adventure on Thursday they got to hold a very curious box turtle.  

 Then the naturalist grabbed a baby alligator.

 And everyone got to touch it.

 Then they all got to hold the rat snake.

 The second adventure was seining in the estuary.  

 The kids dragged the net several times and then they all raced to pick up the sea creatures and put them into the bucket.

 After lunch it was a couple of hours of team building exercises.  These were physical and mental challenges and the kids did well with the first two.  After that they were hungry and tired and they just didn't care much about being a team.  That made it even more funny for me.

 Before dinner there was an optional "beach rec" time.  Of course to Blue this was not optional.  He couldn't wait to get in the water.  

 While I monitored them, I also got to look for beach treasures.

 We learned that female Blue Crabs have red markings on their claws.

 And ghost crabs are just as grumpy during the day.

 This was a gnarly live oak that Blue demanded that I take a photo of before we left.

The night activity was "games".  This consisted of noodle hockey (think hockey with a big ball and pool noodles) and a vicious game of dodgeball.  Some rain and wind moved in during the night activity and when the games were done we opted for the short dash back to our room to bed down for the night.  I didn't have high hopes for sleep that night either.  When the chief snorer fell asleep within seconds of lying down, I was sure it was over.  But around 2:00am the snoring miraculously stopped and I got a full 3 1/2 hours of sleep.  

 The morning run was very windy and the fast moving clouds cast everything in a blue light.  

 You find the coolest things running on the beach before anyone else is up.

 After the daily dose of coffee and a little breakfast, Blue and I donated our mud pit shoes to the collection.

 The school gathered the kids on the beach for photos.

 And we set out on our final adventure of the trip, a hike through the maritime forest.

 The best part of the hike was arriving at "the slough".

 It was apparently a freshwater pond with all sorts of critters in it.  It was very green and the blue skies had opened up and the color there was great.

 The hike ended up at the aquarium where they had a complete bottlenose dolphin skeleton.

 And a female Blue Crab...along with lots of other impressive creatures.

Blue had thoroughly enjoyed himself on this trip.  He did not miss home and he did not want to leave.  At least not until the only thing left was a cafeteria lunch.  Then he was ready to skip out and grab fast food on the way home.  So we said our goodbyes and made our way to Bojangles.  I'm still catching up on my sleep.

Sculpture Deathmatch 2017!

Each spring we host the Sculpture Deathmatch in the sculpture studios at Lander University.  It is the biggest sculpture event of the year.  What exactly is it?  Two teams of sculptors go head to head in a 12 hour sculpture competition.  At 9:00am on a Saturday morning, the teams get their instructions for the contest.  Each team has exactly 12 hours to design, create and install a public sculpture on campus.  For those of you who are not public sculptors, this is nearly an impossible task.  And yet, each spring my people pull it off.  

This year I solicited volunteers for the event.  I sent a mass email to the entire department and developed a list of participants.  After all schedules were checked and a couple of people dropped out and a couple of non-email checkers signed up late, I considered my list.  The list was easily divided between students primarily interested in graphic design and students primarily interested in sculpture.  So it was set, "Sculptors vs Graphic Designers".

The official instructions for the day.

 Marketing.  I still abhor the Facebooks and I'll never have one.  Instagram is my only real social network friend.  But I did sent out some emails to local high school teachers.  We had some visitors and our department turned out in mass to support our crazy day.

 The official Sculpture Deathmatch flag sewn by G several years ago.  The team members from each winning team get to sign their name to the flag.

  This year I added a new little twist, just to make the impossible slightly more difficult.  We flipped a coin and allowed both teams to choose a mystery box.  Each team was required to use all of the items in their mystery box in their sculpture.  Team Graphic Design lost the coin toss and got a box filled with plastic bottle tops.

 Team Sculpture got a big, heavy concrete cast piece to use.

 The brainstorming started immediately after the coin toss and it was fun to see the different approaches between sculptors and designers.  Team Sculpture ran and grabbed a bunch of found objects from the scrap pile and drew inspiration from the textures and forms.

 Team Graphic Design neatly took a large piece of paper and sat down calmly to sketch ideas and compare.  

 The before photo.

 Team Graphic Design (blue bandanas) featuring Lindsay, 'Shaad, Jamaica and Ricardo

 Team Sculpture (red bandanas) featuring Chelsea, Luke, Molly, McCaylah, Alana and Sabrina.

Fun tidbit:  Luke doesn't love technology.  Apparently at some point we talked about his interest in the Deathmatch but since he didn't respond officially I had no idea he was coming.  At 8:55 he cruised into the studio to everyone's surprise.  We had an extra shirt in his size so we gave him a bandana and he suited up.  Luke was officially a Graphic Design emphasis student but he's also one of my best sculptors.  Putting him on Team Graphic Design would have made the teams even but since we were deciding all this on the fly, I let him choose his team.  He told us that while he was technically a graphic designer, he identified as a sculptor.  His designer friends protested but he walked away and became a sculptor for the day.  I love Luke.  He's hilarious.

 Team Sculpture changed their plan several times as they looked over their scraps.  They had locked in on circles and spheres early on but their design and concept continued to morph all morning.  They did a good job keeping their design strengths and eliminating the weaker elements.

 For me each Deathmatch is different.  Some years I'm running around like a crazy person all day with people yelling my name every few seconds.  Some years after we get started, I'm not needed until they start to run out of food.  This year was a mix.  During the less active times I stuffed doughnuts in my face and took photos.  We tried to keep the department instagram updated all day and I tried to take selfies with people while they worked.  This one is with Lindsay welding.

 Jamaica grinding.

 Chelsea making a face.

 Molly being Molly.

 Ricardo and Rashaad being tough.

 Sabrina giving the death stare.

 Alana and McCaylah making spheres from scraps.

 Luke identifying as a sculptor.

 Team Graphic Design progressed like a well oiled machine.  They combined elements from their sketches into one design.  It was, of course, neat and clean.  But it required a lot of difficult and time intensive work.  I always tell them that hollow forms in steel take a lot longer than they expect, but no one ever listens.  I yelled at Rashaad at this moment to put on a welding jacket.

 Our students are so well rounded.  Ricardo is one of our best graphic designers but here he is showing off his welding skills.  He's also showing Rashaad how to properly wear a protective welding jacket.

 During the middle of the day both teams were working at an easy pace.  They both thought they had all their problems worked out and that they would finish in plenty of time.  They even thought we might get out early.  Team Sculpture chose their location and sent out a team of installers in the mid afternoon to prepare their spot.  

 Meanwhile, back in the studio, Ricardo and Lindsay were still solving problems.  

 And a couple of hours later, Rashaad was still working on that hollow form.

 The sun sank lower and lower and both teams kept working.  Team Sculpture had their hole dug and site prepared but they had not finished their sculpture.  Some last minute strengthening items were added.  Some other elements were eliminated.  Darkness closed in.

 With about an hour to go, Team Sculpture loaded their sculpture on a truck and slowly started transporting it to the site.  

 Team Graphic Design scrambled to get their sculpture ready to transport.  This one was going to be close.  The form was finished but they still had to add those pesky bottle tops.  

With about 20 minutes to go before the deadline, Team Sculpture installed their sculpture with the help of some truck headlights.

Then everyone came together to watch Team Graphic Design finish up.  Team Sculpture provided the headlights and a couple of iPhone flashlights.  The seconds ticked down and everyone counted down to 9:00pm.  With one second to spare, Team Graphic Design finished.  

 The reward for a long day of tough work is a late dinner.  We packed into the local Chili's to celebrate and wind down.

Monday morning gave me the first clear view of each sculpture.  Team Graphic Design's sculpture is above.  Each was documented and this year we held the voting on Instagram.  

Using Instagram allowed anyone in the world to vote and we had at least 3 times more votes than we've ever had.  We had votes from New Zealand, Mexico and all over the US.  

It took a while to count the votes but Team Sculpture received the most votes and most importantly, they didn't lose bragging rights to Team Graphic Design.  Team Sculpture's entry is above.

I'm always amazed that students are willing to give up a Saturday to do the Deathmatch.  Some get off work, some cancel travel plans and all of them get up early and work hard.  We really do have the best students in the world.  

The Gallery/Museum Screw Up Hall of Fame

subtitled:  In Which The Artist Bites The Hand That Feeds Him


The earliest exhibit and award I received after my undergrad degree was in 1999.  This means I've been active in the exhibition world for about 18 years now.  As an artist, I need galleries and museums to host exhibits of my work in order to successfully get my work out to where people (other than my immediate family) can see it.  As art exhibition venues, galleries and museums need artists to supply them with a constant feed of new work for exhibition in order to stay relevant and to keep buyers and collectors coming in the doors.  Just like many other relationships where the parties need one another, we often have awkward and dysfunctional relationships.

First off, I'd like to say that I have great working relationships with many wonderful galleries and museums.  I've dealt with particular businesses, institutions and individuals who are top notch in this field.  They truly make the art world respectable and professional.  From small to large, they set the standard for all other exhibition venues.  

Second, I have to admit that artists can be very difficult to work with.  As a group, we are generalized as moody, anxious souls who often have special requests about almost everything.  I do not often identify myself as one of the typical art types but I will admit I have worked right up to a deadline and delivered work screeching in on two wheels.  I have forgotten to include paperwork as requested.  I have even double and triple booked myself and asked to remove a sculpture from a show a couple of days early.  I am flawed.  I have been a bad arts professional at times.  

But...
Y'all, some of the people I've dealt with in the gallery/museum world make me look like an angel.  I've had some experiences over these 18 years that still have me scratching my head trying to figure out what someone was thinking.  In fact, I have this mental list of bloopers that I will share with an art friend when I'm reminded.  An artist pal will ask me if I've applied to the big thing and I'll laugh and share my funny experience.  I'm reaching an age when I suppose I can't count on my mental list to stick around so I thought it might be a good idea to form a list of these experiences and place them here for you to share.  I'll leave out all of the identifying words and names so as not to embarrass anyone but I think it's only fair for other artists to know that these things happen so that when they have their own terrible experience, they'll know they're not alone.  And just so you know, I've given this considerable thought before publishing the list.  I've decided that any self respecting exhibition venue will agree that the infringements on this list are truly blooper worthy and that I'm not attempting to hurt anyone's business or embarrass them.  Heck, maybe if you read this and you work with artists now or in the future, you'll be able to use these as cautionary tales to avoid any similar experiences.  So here we go, I present to you, my hall of shame:

#5
Just A Touch Up
I was invited by a cool venue to send several sculptures for a nice exhibit.  The sculptures had to travel a good way across the country so I packed them super well.  To be clear, I'm way overprotective of them.  They are made of steel but the surfaces are pristine.  This was back in the days of painting each sculpture with 8 to 10 coats of paint to get the right surface.  With this process, the entire sculpture must be painted at the same time.  There's no way to paint only one spot or one side.  The overspray with this paint will result in a rough texture and it will not blend.  This was a respectable venue and they made sure to inspect the work when it arrived and they even emailed me to let me know everything was in perfect condition.  They also had insurance to cover any damage or loss that might happen during the exhibit.  When the show closed, they sent me an email stating that one of the sculptures had tipped over during the exhibit.  It fell against another sculpture and when the steel edge hit the steel edge, a tiny piece of paint chipped off.  They even included photos to show just how small and tiny the chip was.  The email said that since the sculpture was not really damaged, they were sure I could just touch up the paint in a second and it would be back to perfect condition.  I had to repaint both sculptures at my cost.  To be totally fair, this has happened many times but most venues don't have the courtesy to give me a heads up.

#4
We Didn't Lose Your Entry, Promise
This group was making a big deal of their new exhibit and contest and they had blasted the region with calls for entries.  There was, of course, an entry fee which allowed artists to submit several works of art for consideration.  The fee is a fact of life as an artist and I understand that it allows the venue to pay a juror, award prizes and help with the electric bill.  This is cool as long as my work is actually viewed by the juror.  This particular exhibit and contest had been all but begging for entries and had pushed back their deadline twice in order to allow for more entries.  By the time I entered, against my better judgment, the whole thing seemed like it was a train wreck.  After a few weeks I started seeing artists posting things on social media about getting accepted.  Once results are mailed out, you either get a "congratulations" email or a "your work was great but no thanks" email.  I got nothing.  I'm not the kind of artist who calls the venue on the morning of the notification date to complain, so I waited.  While I gave it a week, literally every single person I knew who entered was accepted.  Regardless of the type or quality of the work.  I started to assume I was the only artist who would be rejected (I am my own worst critic).  After a week I started trying to get in touch with someone at the venue to find out why I never received any sort of acceptance or declining email.  I talked to a nice person who was completely dumbfounded.  She assured me that my entry was not lost and that she would be looking into it immediately.  Within 5 minutes after hanging up I received an email notification to my personal email address, NOT the one I used to enter the exhibit.  The email was a "your work was great but no thanks" notification that was, I kid you not, copy and pasted into the email.  There was no apology, only an excuse and the weird notification.  I realize this will sound like sour grapes, but I know no artists who were rejected from the show.  None but me.  It is certainly true that it's possible that I my work was the only work too terrible to exhibit that year, but based on the way it all went down, I am sure my entry was lost and the copy and paste email was just a way of saving face.

#3
You Want Guacamole With That?
I'll do my best to keep this one anonymous, but it will be difficult if you know anything about the regional art world.  There was a big, big exhibit and it was the newest, biggest thing around if you believed the hype.  It was a juried exhibit with huge cash prizes for the winners.  The event was going to be so big, in fact, that it was going to take over the whole town with exhibits happening in several locations.  Tons of us got accepted and we were all happy to think that we might be in the running for the big, big prize.  After the acceptance notification there was an email with more details.  It seems that every artist had different details based on where their work was to be exhibited.  My small, shiny sculpture, I found out, was to be exhibited in the local Mexican restaurant.  I'll give you a minute to let the magnitude of that settle in.  With the contract information included, it became obvious that the Mexican restaurant, not the big, big venue was in charge of handling, insuring and exhibiting my sculpture.  I swallowed my pride and shipped my baby off to the restaurant and it was displayed at least for part of the exhibition time.  When the date came for the return of the sculpture no sculpture arrived.  After a couple of nervous weeks I called the restaurant to inquire.  They had no idea what I was talking about.  I called the venue contact and explained.  The person there freaked out and drove to the restaurant in a panic.  After getting the manager on the phone the venue contact was instructed to find my sculpture in a box in the kitchen under a cabinet.  It had something green splashed on it.  I can only assume it was guacamole.  The contact had no idea if the work was in the kitchen for the entire exhibit or not.  Luckily I did get the sculpture back and the contact was nice enough to wipe off the green stuff.

#4
Just Kidding
A friend recommended a venue to me.  He knew the new person there in charge of exhibits and he indicated things were moving in a positive direction.  Always happy to have an exhibit, I sent off my information with a personal email.  No response.  I waited a long while and resent the info with another personal email indicating that I was hoping to establish that my email went through.  This time I received a response that was kind and professional but seemed to imply a "thanks but no thanks tone".  I can take a hint.  I forgot it and moved on.  A year passed and I received an email from the same venue contact congratulating me on my upcoming exhibit and asking for some information to put on their website for marketing.  The email stated that they had sent a contract and to let them know if I had any questions.  I had questions.  Like, when was this exhibit that I was going to be in?  I responded to the email with excitement and let the contact know that I had not yet received the contract but I would be looking for it.  I also asked for the exhibition dates to make sure I wasn't going to double book individual works of art.  The next day I received another email from the venue contact.  It said, and I'm not making this up, "oops, I must have sent this to the wrong Doug McAbee.  Sorry to get you excited."  Ouch.  That one hurt a little.  

#5.
No Cash Value
I'm still torn about this one.  I totally understand where it came from and I could see myself making a similar mistake.  I just like to think I would have solved it a different way.  I was honored to win the top award at a juried exhibit.  This was particularly great for me because I knew many of the artists involved and it was a high quality show.  I could not believe my luck when the award was given and my name was called.  It's still a career highlight.  The award was a cool certificate signed by the juror and the gallery owner.  It's framed and hanging on my wall beside me.  It was a great night.  Slowly though, I started to wonder when I would get a check.  Second place won a significant amount of money.  Third place won a slightly less amount.  How much more would mine be?  I emailed the gallery after a few days to see when I might receive a check.  After what must have been a great deal of awkward email silence, the response came.  It seems as they were planning this event for the first time, they failed to factor in a monetary prize for 1st place.  2nd and 3rd had been paid out and there was no money left to fund a prize for 1st.  Like I said before, this is totally a mistake I would make.  But instead of finding a way to come up with something of a cash prize to erase the mistake, they just wrote it off to learning and moved on.  I'm still very thankful to have won and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have just taken 2nd just to get the money.  But sometimes these things happen and I think, this could only happen to me.  

There are more but I think 5 is enough for a hall of shame.  Maybe next time I'll tell you about the gallery in Seattle that went under and still has one of my sculptures they wont return.  Or maybe I'll do my best to forget it and be positive.  


I'll add this one thing for everyone's benefit:  In each of these scenarios I was able to keep a cool head and say please and thank you.  Mistakes happen and mistakes don't mean someone is bad.  It means they're human.  I have remained kind, professional and generous with grace in each situation.  In many of these times, the gallery contact was also kind, professional and as graceful as possible.  So when these kinds of things happen to you, keep that in mind.