What does it take to drill a hole in the center of a book?Kirk, a drill press, 4 interns and an earthquake, apparently.Today was possibly the most memorable day of my entire time working at the gallery (well, it’s right up there with the day that I held the gallery’s Diane Arbus for the first time). Not just because we spent most of the day drilling holes into a bunch of books for the gallery’s next show (called Performing the Book), but also because we were hit with That Earthquake That Everyone’s Talking About.I’m still a little bit shocked, a little bit amused and a little bit relieved about it (more shocked, less amused and a lot relieved). I’m shocked that it happened in the first place (even though I do realize that this is California), and was definitely shocked by all the shaking and jangling in Kirk’s wood shop (too much for comfort: it would not have been fun to have stuff falling all over the place). But really, when I think about the actually earthquake itself, all I can remember is the expression that Kirk got on his face when he realized that the shaking was not a truck passing by, but an actual earthquake. I’m also really relieved that we weren’t actually drilling when It happened, because I don’t know how all of us would have reacted if the drill press was turned on and it’s motor was running.Anyhow. After the excitement died down, we went back to work and drilled a lot of holes in a lot of books. And although we are no where near the 108 drilled books that we need, we’re more than half way done at this point. Right now the books don’t look like a lot because, apart from the holes, a lot of them are covered in ash (the drill got so hot that the paper began to burn). I’m pretty curious to see how the final piece will look (the books are going to be stacked), and I can only hope that we will start assembling the thing before Rody and I are done with the internship (only 2 weeks to go).I also took pictures of the entire process of drilling on my phone, but my I guess there’s something wrong with the phone’s bluetooth, so I can’t actually get them onto my computer. But if I figure out a way, I will put them onto this website for sure. But until then, we will all just have to make do with text, right?
