In the Waiting Line

A Month of Drawings in the Cursive Style (no. 9)
By Roy McMakin (2002-2003)

A Tale of Two Cities
By Chris Burden (1981)

A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities

smoking girl
By pukilin (07/23/2012)

A Point of Interest
By Steve Schrepferman 

Water Lilies
By Claude Monet (1920)

“In the Waiting Line,” is a show for the people that will spend hours standing in line waiting outside of room C-107 at LaGuardia Community College, before the Spring 2015 semester.  The hallway outside of room C-107 is full of students every day for weeks before the beginning of each semester.  I think that it would be very uplifting for the people standing there, waiting forever to have a five minute conversation to have something interesting to look at besides their cell phones.

The first piece, “A Month of Drawing in the Cursive Style (No. 9)” by Roy Mcmakin, will greet you at the start of the line.  The piece is a drawing that is full of erratic and crazy lines.  There are a few shapes and some letters, and there is what appears to be a scroll with the words “hi there” centered about 2/3’s of the way up.  This will serve as a pleasant greeting for each person as they enter the line.

The next thing they will see is a very large installation called “A Tale of Two Cities” by Chris Burden.  This piece is what looks like two warring cities made up of a huge assortment of old toys set up into several battle scenes on a beach/mountain land scape made of sand and plants.  This piece will run almost the entire length of the line and will be against the wall on the other side of the hall from the line.  I chose this installation because it is large so it won’t go unnoticed.  There is no way to avoid it and it is a very visually engaging piece.  I saw it in person at the New Museum and spent easily 45 minutes looking at it and could have spent another 30 minutes without getting bored.  The piece has so much going on and so much to look at that it should keep people’s attention for much longer than a smaller, simpler work could. 

The next piece will be hanging on the pillar that is next to the doorway to the waiting room.  It will be a black-and-white photo of a woman smoking a cigarette called, “smoking girl” by the Flickr user pukilin.  This piece is basically there to be a siren calling to the smokers in the line and trying to tempt them away from the line they’ve been waiting in for so long at this point.  I know this isn’t the nicest thing ever but maybe they’ll have a friend to save their place in line.

The fourth item in the show will be a sculpture of two horses looking at something called, “A Point of Interest” by Steve Schrepferman.  This will be sitting on a stand right outside of the door, and positioned in such a way that the horses are looking into the doorway.  This is to peak the waiters’ interest as to what’s going on in the room they’ve been waiting so long to get into.  This is also to try to act as a counter balance to the temptation of leaving the line for a cigarette that the last piece stirred up.

The final work will be on the inside of the waiting area.  It will be “Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond” by Claude Monet.  It should take up the entire wall and I want it to be inside the waiting room because there is still a good deal of waiting to be done after you’ve been called in.  I chose this piece because I find it to be very calming and I also find that I need to be calmed after I’ve stood waiting in line forever only to be called into another waiting area.  The deception of getting all the way to the end of a line to see that you’ve only made it to the beginning of another line is quite frustrating and I think that having this huge, calming, and beautiful work of art there to meet you will do a lot for people’s spirits.