The opening night was held on Tuesday night. It was a balmy night, and many sweaty gallery goers stood in front of fans to cool off, but everybody loved it and raved about which piece was their favourite. Big Bertha obviously dropped the most jaws. Many people didn’t even see it at first because there was so much to look at on the floor and walls, but it was quite entertaining watching them look up … and up.

My friend Camille made a short video to document the evening and also blogged about it here.

Design Montage also gave the show a great write-up and previewed some pieces here.

I have been planning some large cut vinyl pieces for the long glass windows at one end and without a vinyl cutter, nothing else would really go there, so it was quite a relief to pick ot up from the mailroom on Thursday. I then spent all day cutting the black, red and white vinyl pieces for the six long windows. It took a while to install and there were several hairy moments. Installing vinyl on your own is NOT the recommended way to do it and I had several near-misses, but managed to rescue all my stuff-ups. Five years at a sign writers must have rubbed off on me somewhere. I love these pieces, and I think they’re my favourite so far.

If you read the previous blog post, you’ll discover I was very nervous about the final installation of the four panels because the final stage involved me winding the last of the string after the boys had secured it to the wall. I think it looks great and I am incredibly satisfied with what I have achieved.

I would like to say a big thank you to Jon Harris and Jason Urech who spent most of Monday screwing these panels to the wall, also 5 metres in the air on a scissor lift, but for some reason they didn’t mind the height or the wobbling, just the heat and the sweating. Go figure!

I’ve been working on this piece all week and it has been slow going thanks to the torrential rain, Australia Day and a persistent flu that just won’t leave me alone. I’m glad to say that the four separate MDF boards have now been cut, painted, drilled, nailed and wound. My husband came and helped me paint and nail, which really helped make up for some lost time.

The plan is to move the pieces to the space tomorrow and hopefully install them. We shall have to see what the weather is doing and how motivated the technical staff at uni are. I’m not looking forward to the install as it’s 3 metres in the air and I’m not a fan of heights. I’ve wound most of the string but once the boards are up, I will have to continue winding to join them all together. This time in a scissor lift.

Scared?

Yes.

The idea of this piece was to make a giant letter pixelate as if it was fading away. I have to admit, it’s my favourite piece so far, and these photos don’t really do it justice. The black pixels in the middle are stacked three layers high, which is why I sliced my finger—have you ever tried trimming three layers of foam core at once? They get lower as they fade out towards the edges. It was a lot of fun assembling the many hundreds of 10cm squares and overall, the piece measures two metres high by two metres wide and there are 50 different shades of grey and one shade of red (just in case you were wondering). I made a little dodgy little stop motion video so you can see how the piece was assembled.

The full piece says “I’m going to miss your whole family” referring of course to the Helvetica family, of which there are literally hundreds of variations. There are three panels, each installed against a window pane, mainly to block out the light in that part of the gallery as I am planning on a projection in that corner. I thought I’d make the most of the light shining through the window though and made a piece that literally glows with the light coming through the tiny pin prick holes.

I suppose I started with a fairly cryptic piece and if you don’t know that Museo is a very sexy typeface (pictured in red) and that this is an apology to Helvetica for straying, then it won’t make any sense really! Ha. I projected the piece on to the wall and then painted it and sanded it back so as to give it the appearance of being rubbed out, like it was a mistake. I love how it looks, the texture of the concrete walls shows through really nicely  and the scale of it impresses me because I’ve never really done anything this large. I also really enjoyed using the old projector like we had in high school. The finished piece stands about two metres tall.

On a side note, I spoke to the man who sells coffee just outside the gallery and he said people have been asking him what Museo is, so he had to Google it. Love it! I filled him in on what the whole exhibition was about, so hopefully he can help promote the final show.

The “space” is 124 square metres of dusty concrete and large amounts of glass windows, so it’s not really a “gallery” as such, more an installation space, which is exactly what I plan to do. As part of my Doctoral studies into tactile typography, I am supposed to have a “milestone” exhibition. Well this is it. “Goodbye Helvetica” and I plan to blog about the process and eventual book here as a process journal.

A year ago, I publicly declared that I would devote myself to one typeface: Helvetica and now that year is over, it is time to say goodbye. The installation is called “Goodbye Helvetica”, and is a love letter of sorts, with all the pieces talking about what I liked and didn’t like about spending the year with one typeface. It’s been a fantastic year actually and I’m sad to say goodbye, but excited about what I can do now I am free from the shackles of a rigid, fifties Swiss sans serif typeface.

Day one was spent driving around with Vince (pictured), the QCA technician, in 35 degree heat, buying materials and equipment to set up the space. I can’t wait to get started!