I’m drawing close to the end of my Co-op term and I find myself once again torn between the factions of my life that exist inside and outside the gallery. As you’ve probably noticed, I have certain requirements I have to fill in regards to my actual Co-op program and now that this is winding down I’m trying to focus on and remember the things I’ve done and learned so that my final report rounds out nicely. On the other hand, I’m very much looking forward to the things I get to do once my time here is up. And that, let me tell you, is a very distracting thing.
This has been by far one of the weirdest summers I’ve ever had in Banff, and all at the same time that is exciting and interesting and maddening. It’s been a lot like many of the summers I’ve had since starting university in that I am at home and working full time, but it’s weird in the way that I still think of myself as being a student and the work I’ve done (and where I’ve done it) is so different.
My handful of working years since leaving high school have been spent very much entrenched in the more local side of Banff. When I graduated I spent a couple years working in a video rental shop (yes we still had one, no it’s not there anymore) and when that was pulled out from under me I landed at the Whyte Museum. Both of those places saw a lot of people through the doors on any given day, and since they were both right downtown many of them were people that I knew. But working inside the Fairmont has been a whole other ball of wax. People I know don’t come here unless I make them come see me, and even though this hotel is brimming with people now living here because of the job, I still don’t know them because I’m not quite part of their work world.
And aside from the couple of times a day in which I see familiar faces in the staff canteen or in the halls, the vast majority of the people I interact with I will never ever see again. In some cases, I am very much grateful for this fact. My relationship with tourists in this town is . . . strained at the best of times. It is a sad truth that a lot of the people who vacation here can be pushy, self-centered, bumbling idiots. But every now and again I get to experience a small ray of sunshine in the way of a genuinely good person and that does wonders to soften the awfulness of the others.
I know the main point of a commercial art gallery is to sell art, but I am very much of the opinion that one can’t actually sell art. Either people like something or they don’t. My job is basically to just confirm and reinforce their good taste until they hand me a credit card. And I know that’s really crude, but its the truth. Sometimes I get people who lap the gallery, come to me and say, “I want that one right there.” Done. That’s it. But sometimes I get to spend more time talking with someone who has fallen head over heels for a piece and just wants to know more about it before making a decision. Last week, this absolutely lovely lady came in twice in one day and had found a couple pieces she really liked, but she also just wanted to chat while she killed time. So we talked about her trip, and where she’s from, and of course we talked about the art. To be completely honest, I thought that would be the last I saw of her. But to my pleasant surprise she came back the next day and snapped up both of the pieces she had been looking at. And I have been lucky in that that kind of thing has happened a couple of times throughout the summer.
People like her make stupid questions like “Are these prices in Canadian?”
No, they’re in Japanese yen weirdly enough.
“Are all of these yours?”
They’re mine in that I look after them…
“This doesn’t have a price on it, does that mean it’s free?”
No. And I hate you as a human being.
My coworkers and I have made it a game to find the stupidest thing someone could say in an art gallery. At least it keeps us entertained.
this was here all along 