PHOTO COURTESY CITY OF MEDICINE HAT
The exhibition, Have Spatula Will Travel, is currently on at the Esplanade.
People tell me I have the best job and honestly, I do. It’s not always easy, but it’s always rewarding. I love getting my hands dirty. I have worked numerous places where hard labour was involved, and those experiences gave me the opportunity to learn the skills I have today.
Being a jack of all trades in this position truly comes in handy. Preparator is the fancy title for the person who displays artwork and packs it for travel, however, the job can be a labyrinth of projectors, computers, planning, painting, etc. In this job you’re never quite sure what hurdle will be thrown at you next. I once spent hours looking into whether I can safely use a specific glue on a certain piece of art.
The most enjoyable part of my job is when I get to create elements that elevate an exhibition. When I’m in the workshop I feel at home. It’s the perfect refuge for someone that doesn’t always consider themselves an extrovert. The objective is to most efficiently, resources wise, complete the project. Recently we built 12-foot tall cookbooks for Have Spatula Will Travel. Curatorial Assistant, Tom Hulit, curated and developed this exploratory homage to the evolution of food and cooking over the centuries. The exhibition is full of historical eye-opening pieces from our collections. It has stations where you can explore the past, look through hundreds of the world’s best cook books and snap photos of recipes sitting at a kitchen table.
In the adjacent gallery, I recently built a series of floating shelves, which house the hope and heartbreak of love and loss in Annette ten Cate’s ceramic exhibition, A Hare Raising Tale. Rabbits and other anthropomorphized woodland creatures tug at your heartstrings as they navigate the birth and loss of long-term relationships. Next door you’ll find the creations of your friends and neighbours in the Hat Art Club and Medicine Hat Potters Association’s exhibition, Life Cycles. It is full of beautiful artistic observations on the intricate rhythm of life on earth. I’m always surprised at all the talented artists that call this city home. Here, the artworks speak for themselves and don’t need help from me.
When I travel to other cities and experience what their galleries have to offer, I take note of other preparators and curators’ methods so that I can share new ideas with our community. In our small city we’re truly fortunate to have exhibitions of this caliber within an all-encompassing arts and heritage facility.
Check out our exhibitions in person Tuesday to Saturday noon to 5 PM. Admission to the galleries is always pay what you will. Visit esplanade.ca for more information and to experience the virtual tour of our exhibitions.
Daniel Meller is a preparator and gallery assistant at the Esplanade Arts & Heritage Centre
