I’m saying a lot of “thank yous” lately. It’s just because so many people have been so nice to help with the exhibition and I’m really grateful. This is kind of belated, but everything is finally up at library@orchard! Beth came down for the second day in a row to help us put up the images. Mr. R*ayner Lee came down to supervise the setting up of the panels and stayed on to advise, teach and help us put up the photographs. It made everything so much easier and we were able to complete the set up faster than expected. He really didn’t have to help, but he did… So that was really nice. He just messaged me yesterday asking for our names so that he can ask his friend to help us advertise our exhibition on the newspaper. So nice right?!

Beth did up a nice entry about our setting up and promoting our exhibition and yes, she’s the first one to write in our guestbook. (Heard from Diappy who went down yesterday that there were a couple of encouraging comments from strangers. So nice…) If Beth wasn’t there with her camera, I think we wouldn’t bother taking photos of the first day of our first exhibition! Thanks to Beth for the pics! :D If you guys do go down, do leave your comments on the guestbook k? It means a lot to us! We’re also having a small presentation this Saturday, 9 June, at 3pm and also our tiny book launch that day.

Because of the panels screw up, I have to apologise to all the people who went down in the morning and afternoon on 26th hoping to see the exhibition. Everything was only up at 8:30pm. So sorry… Fl*o was the first to call me in the morning asking “Eh, where is your exhibition?” I felt so bad!!! She was so sweet… She left a present for me at the library counter – A box of cookies! :D The X*ynergy peeps keep me well-fed. :) Then I messaged some whom I thought will go down on that first day to warn them, and true enough, Y*uting was already in Orchard when I messaged. She wasn’t free on Sunday and decided to go down. She came by while we were setting up also. Sorry Y*uting! Then I heard from Diappy that JJ was also in Orchard when he got my message. So sorry… To the ones I didn’t know who turned up and saw nothing: Sorry…

Here are some photos from the special day – 26 May 2006 by Beth:

Me with the exhibition’s introductory poster

When I went to print the photos at Sh*alom Colorlab, Mr. Leong was the one who suggested doing a “Background Introduction” of the project and he wanted us to include our faces so that “people will know who did the exhibition”. But I went through my archives and KX and I don’t have a single nice pic of us together with our cameras. All we have are softball pics, which can’t be used. The original poster done by Sh*alom Colorlab was not used in the end: I made two typo errors and it was terrible. S*ong Nian helped me reprint the 24 X 35 inch poster. :D I didn’t want to trouble Mr. Leong again after he was so nice to help me reprint two photographs that got stuck together and the emulsion came off.

Putting up everything was tedious, cause we had to measure everything: space between the photographs from each other, space from the top to the first photograph, space from the photograph to the caption, etc. Luckily Art Friends was just a floor down. I bought mounting tape, but took Mr. Lee’s advice and used the velcro tape instead. KX cut her toe when the metre-long metal ruler slipped and dropped on her leg. Quite a deep cut and blood, blood, blood.

Nice Mr. R*ayner Lee with me and KX (KX’s holding on to the evil metal ruler that cut her toes)

KX, me and Beth (So happy to see everything finally up!)

How it looks when the lights are off (They forgot to switch on the lights the next morning when I went down with Ah Gong and LP. Reminded Sh*ariffah and called the next day to remind her again. Hopefully they remember now.)

With the lights on! With the limited space we had, we had to be flexible and there were really a lot of restrictions from the library and I’m just glad everything turned out looking well.

Stayed up the night before to do this guestbook. Found a photograph of the both of us in normal clothes (not softball attire) taken by S*hui Meng when we transitted in Bali on the second trip back from Timor-Leste. Photoshopped it and printed it out. Doesn’t look too bad. So now at least people can put a face to our project. :)

Proud KX and Bin with their first photo exhibition

This photo was taken by Ah Gong Y*ongyi on 27th May 2007 when I went down with him and LP to see the exhibition. It’s a proof that there are people who go and look at what we do. He said that it’s “sort of a momento”. :) So nice to see people looking at your work and leaving positive comments. So encouraging. Thanks to Ah Gong for publicising our exhibition on his blog as wel!

Anyway, got to go. Still owe you guys the Taiwan/ Hongkong pictures. Uploading is such a bother though. :) B*ridgette’s back in Singapore and she’s going to give 90 tais to her guests at a function tomorrow, so I’ll have to drop off some flyers, posters and two books for her at M*arriott Hotel. Later meeting the JC choir peeps for night cycling at East Coast! :D Yay! Have to prepare for the presentation on Saturday still. Jiayou!