Progress at Paris on Ponce!

Lea and I went to the shop yesterday (gahd, was that just yesterday?!?) and began decorating my two "walls". I love the way Skip (an owner) at Paris on Ponce has decided to delineate the vendor spaces in the area where I'll be. It's open and I think it will feel fluid for shoppers.

So - spaces are marked off by these great partition walls that they built. As a vendor, it's my job to decorate them - to give them personality - to set MYSELF and MY BOOTH apart.

I had a hundred ideas of what I might do from fiber art (i.e. - a friend suggested finger knitting a dozen + skeins of yarn to cover the whole wall) to a hand painted mural to to to...the list went on and I was having a hard time editing myself.

One night Lea and I were talking about a couple of her large framed prints (photography) that I'm planning on selling in the booth and she said something about one of them having been printed for a large(er still) wheat-pasting-(illegal)-project she always wanted to do. She printed it a long time ago but I'm pretty sure I was too nervous about the legality (lack thereof) of what she wanted to do and I put the kibosh on that dream...

If you're confused, see: Wiki on Wheatpasting.

Anyway, WE REALIZED we had a great solution therein for one of my two walls at the shop! Yes so the larger of the two walls is now covered in one of my wife's great photographs and that just warms my heart to no end.

Lea's photograph is a little difficult to make out in these images. You can view it here.

The other wall is still not 100% worked out in my head. Well, I know what I want to do but I had a slight...er, minor - super insignificant...really not even worth mentioning...wee safety concern...while lopping the lumber for that project. *ahem*

Jury is still out but I plan on tackling that project again tomorrow...if Lea will let me. I'm slicing some large poplar limbs into 1/4 inch slices and covering the wall with them. There's an image of the solution below. Those people probably have a table saw...I'm using my less-than-ideal chop saw. Meh.

SO - back to yesterday! The space was built out and super clean when we arrived. We began by painting a coat of grey paint on the smaller (right) wall. This will be the backdrop for the wood slices...

Simple grey backdrop on the right wall

I said it was simple...for now...

Then I began rolling the larger (left) wall with the paste we brought. Now - I hate to say that I was afraid to use "real" homemade wheatpaste - but that is a true statement. I was scared of the usual flour, water, corn starch / sugar recipe because it's inside...and it's not even MY inside. What if there were ants??? I would feel awful if that happened and plus the furniture and wares that will be between these two walls are all FOR SALE so if there were bugs...well, you know. Not ideal. That said, we did in fact buy a clear wallpaper paste and thin it a bit to hang the piece.  We rolled and hung a section at a time and hung the image in three panels. We had to measure and trim the image prior to hanging it. As a side note, the team work required to successfully tackle a project like this is nothing short of amazing. Lea and I are a good team when it comes to DIY stuff but we both have to check ourselves the whole time. I'm bossy - and I think my way is always the best way. Lea is a HUGE worrier! Like 'the sky is falling' kind of reaction to things - especially things that make her nervous like installing an 8 foot photograph that she takes lots of pride in. She also secretly prefers that I do the dirty work. So our team work sounded something like: "Hold this like this. No not like that - are you...can you just - look, like THIS."I am""No - ugh...not like that...okay - yeah, that's fine""OMG Sarah you're going to tear it. SLOW DOWN - omg babe...OMG BABE. You're making me so nervous!""Do you want to take over?""No""K - then hold this like this"...you get the idea. Insert an absorbent amount of (unspoken) love in those words - and that's how we got the job done. And we left hand-in-hand + smiling - so that's good. 

Lea gets the high spots! Always.

And it looks BEAUTIFUL!

The finished (in progress) walls looks great and I'm ready to move things in - Monday is the day! Unless something changes. *Crossing my fingers nothing changes.

Again, stay tuned for more. The goal for the second wall is to cover it in hundreds of slices of wood...like this:

Credit