Found: big heap of black velvet theater curtains
Response: steal now, figure out something to do with them later
Later: hang curtains
This was a project that came about when I happened upon a pile of theater curtains. I'm assuming that they were being thrown out, but I didn't feel like asking anybody. So I got my truck, and loaded it up with a massive load of black velvet. During this process, I realized how old, decrepit, and dirty the things were, and not to mention heavy. I decided I should hang them up somewhere in order to beat the dust off.
On May 10th, 2002, after having the curtains for a few days, there was a party going on at the studios. I didn't like the fact that a whole bunch of people were here, and I got antsy. That seemed like a good night to hang my curtains. There were two different sizes of curtains that I grabbed. I had four curtains roughly 25' x 15', and two that were about 25' x 35'. The latter two weighed a few hundred pounds each, the smaller ones were probably about 70-100 lbs. each. The first one I hung was from a balcony...
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That was nice and easy. It was fun to play with, too. Shaking the dust off made beautiful waves in the fabric that I made to undulate in time with the rhythm of the party. An added bonus was that the sheer mass of the curtain itself, and its almost perfect blackness had the effect of negating the architecture. Surely, this was an afterthought upon inspecting the work, but a thought nonetheless. More curtains needed to go up. We've got two main entrance gates to the Visual Arts Facility that resemble something out of Jurassic Park, and were perfect for curtain hanging. Here's them moved aside so you can see what they were hiding, and otherwise the picture would've just been a big black rectangle...
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...Which brings me to the big one. So then I want to hang one of the huge curtains. I was only able to find one spot that it would fit in, in the "alley" of the studios, suspended between two buildings, but with nothing to hang it from. I was dumb enough to try it anyway...
This took me a good four hours to hang, dangling from the metal support beams for most of this acrobatic feat as the ladder just wasn's high enough. I was able to weave a rope through the curtain's gromets, and stretch that across the span, but it sagged down quite a bit in the middle. Unfortunately, the only material I had was rope, but I made good use of it by stretching a higher rope across the span from which to suspend the curtain. Then the problem was that I could barely reach the top of the curtain standing on top of a ten foot step ladder, so I had to do my best with throwing the rope over, looping it, throwing it over, pulling tight... but I did manage to raise it up quite a bit. Here's some views from the outside, again, notice how the architecture is nearly cancelled out.
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These curtains actually lasted for quite a while arising from much debate. While I was hanging them, I was getting lots of praise, but then I was woken up the next moring by a series of loud, screaching "FUCK"s succeeded by a tumultuous pounding on my door. Needless to say, I didn't answer it, but somebody didn't appreciate the curtains as the big one blew right in front of their studio door. Wind was not a factor in the hanging, but these things proved to be excellent sails, requiring three guys to simply toss the bottom edge of the curtain over the railing so that it wouldn't blow out anymore. That was a beautiful site to see a few hundred pounds of velvet flowing so freely in the wind. That would prove to be the deciding force of whether the curtains stay or go...
The big curtain ripped horizontally when it got caught on the railing, and the wind provided the rest. I was there to see it happen, truly incredible, but this half curtain was untamable. It blew unmercifully, and was very threatening to safety. It was also blowing black turds all over the place, little deteriorating velvet particles. It was time to take it down. It lasted about a week, and it only took ten minutes to bring it down. I was only asked to move one curtain that was on the gate so the mail truck can have easier access, which I just moved to the side. The first curtain got ripped down by some drunk guy who wanted to try swinging on it, but at least he busted his arm in the process. Then the two on the gates disappeared after about two weeks being up. That's not a bad lifespan for a project of mine. I was going to try to do something else with the velvet, but I had nowhere to store it, it smelled bad, and it was just plain nasty, and also the TV station asked if they can have it. I'll find more fun stuff to play with.