3rd April, 2021
My day began as usual at 10:30 on the 3rd of April, 2021. It was Holy Saturday (a.k.a Easter Eve) and likely to be quite busy. Melvin told me that we are to expect four tourists at about 11:30 AM.
When I walked through Gallery 2, I noticed some changes in the exhibited works. For one, 2 out of 3 of Chloe’s paintings had been sold and were not displayed on the walls anymore. Instead, there were 2 pieces (one by Jamie Teo and another by Jamie Tan) that filled their space.
The wall space looked harmonious and pleasing to the eye.
A few passerby's peered into the gallery, but none ventured in. Lively Arabic music was playing through the speakers and reminded me of my home in the Middle East.
I took advantage of the free time before the tourists arrived to memorize the names of all the artworks and artists so that I could lead our guests around the rooms without needing to refer to the price list folders that contained all the information about the exhibited pieces.
Since it would be my last day interning as a docent for Chloe’s exhibition, I was excited to make the most of my time here and felt a bitter sweet sense of an ending.
Guillueme walked in and suggested some improvements for the social media posts: He suggested I add a 3rd page to the posts which shows the full picture of the artwork + context of a quick video + make a folder so that the team can refer to the pictures.
Presently, two young girls entered the gallery with wide eyes and lots of questions. They were in their first year of college and had never visited an art gallery before. They were open and responsive to what I shared with them about the artworks and artists; they took lots of pictures, frowned in concentration, nodded and went closer to the paintings when I pointed something out about the abstract works.
I felt relaxed around them and was able to speak more comfortably because they were so curious. At the end of their visit, they asked if they could take a picture with me and we followed each other on social media! They told me that they had a pleasant first experience at an art gallery; one girl even showed me some of her film photography!
While they were still there, a large group of tourists (about 8 including the tour guide) walked in, carrying their backpacks and lunch boxes. They were Chinese tourists who were exploring Singapore’s galleries and murals. I learned that the tour guide was a regular at Art Porters and knew the artworks better than me! Guillueme was present as well and opened up some of the food items that were from the Otah Boy brand. The guests ate heartily, surrounded by the artworks. I helped myself to mochi ice-cream and conversed casually with the tour guide about the previous exhibition before Chloe’s.
After they left, I returned to the main gallery and began filming Chloe’s artworks with the gallery’s iPhone. My hands were very unsteady and the lighting was uneven, which resulted in shaky and dark footage! Melvin had gone out for lunch so it was just me manning the gallery. I had to keep retaking videos, taking care to zoom in and out slowly and smoothly, while keeping my hands steady (which was difficult given the 4 espresso shots in my system)!
Soon, a group of 5 women popped their heads into the gallery and hesitantly ventured in, after much polite coaxing on my part! They followed me as I briefly explained Chloe’s heritage and vision for this exhibition. They commented on the colors of her paintings and ooh’d and aah’d when I told them about the goats that climb the argon trees! I realized how comfortable I was around strangers and how clearly I was able to distill the information without overwhelming the visitors and hijacking their experience at the exhibition.
I went to lunch at a Japanese restaurant around the corner and spent the hour eating tempura and sushi.
When I came back, the clouds were heavy and Melvin was showing 2 separate groups of women around. I volunteered to guide them around the spaces. They were particularly interested in the abstract color gradients by Jamie Teo, and one of the women asked if she could meet the artist in order to understand her vision better. The woman was interested in Jamie Teo’s work because she loved taking pictures of beautiful gradient skies during sunsets and Jamie’s paintings reminded her of that. I asked her to leave her information with us and asked Melvin to speak with her regarding whether it would be possible to arrange a meeting with them. He agreed to set up a conference call between her and Jamie Teo and she was quite pleased.
Another woman from the other group was interested in buying works but she had lots of questions for Melvin regarding what kinds of artworks to buy because she had just started to collect artworks and needed some guidance regarding how Art Porters could meet her needs.
Once the rain stopped, both the groups of women left, after subscribing to our mailing list and leaving their cards with us. Melvin and I counted that as a success! We returned to our seats at the work space and continued working on our laptops in silence; Melvin was doing administrative works and I was writing this blog and analyzing Chloe’s detailed artworks (specifically those that hadn’t yet been sold and needed to be promoted on Instagram).
I screen-shotted good quality images from the Art Porters website for the 3rd page of the post (as Guillueme had suggested). While we worked, I asked Melvin if he ever gets tired of talking to people and being hospital, polite and lively all day. He said yes, but mainly because his job expected him to play two very different and demanding roles; one was the selling of the works and the other was the administrative work. He told me that he would have preferred to focus on either one role or the other but struggled to do both because it required multi-tasking.
Presently, a woman walked into the gallery and said she was a mutual friend of Chloe’s. Melvin led the way and I stood beside him to listen to his calm and efficient manner of explaining the works. I was quite depleted of energy at this point in the day and felt sorry that I wasn’t able to help Melvin out with guiding the visitors. I wasn’t used to being so extraverted, I wasn’t used to memorizing a lot of information and communicating it to people in an interesting way, I wasn’t used to sitting in front of a screen for multiple hours at a time and I definitely wasn’t used to meeting so many strangers in a day! I could feel myself getting quite tired and didn’t really interact with the guests or contribute to the conversation.
I asked Melvin some guiding questions to spur him on and nodded in agreement whenever he explained the artist’s concept. I respected Melvin’s work ethic and dedication to his job because it was a lot harder than people would guess from an outsider’s perspective. I realized that it wasn’t really an option to just let the guests browse on their own because Art Porters prided themselves on being a more intimate and friendly commercial gallery that valued their visitors and gave them the attention they deserved.
It was getting close to 6 PM and the weekend crowd was thinning. Melvin and I had some free time to spare so we got to talking about his art practice. He told me he’s a musician and exhibited 5 experimental songs about grief at this year’s Singapore Art Week at one of the galleries at Gillman Barracks. He played some of his electronic, instrumental music for me that ranged from hip-hop beats to lo-fi to indie. It was a pleasant experience to bond with him for about an hour before the gallery closed for the day, which would also signify the end of my time as docent at Art Porters gallery. We packed up at 7:30 PM and wished each other well, hoping to meet again someday!